[ad_1]
The new coronavirus outbreak in India continues to explode, with the number of confirmed cases rapidly approaching the United States, which has the highest number of cases in the world. The epidemic situation on the ground may be worse than imagined.
India has recently released the news that a senior government official has contracted a new crown pneumonia, and this time it was fatal: on September 23 local time, Suresh Angadi, Minister of State in the Indian Ministry of Railways, He was rescued from the new corona pneumonia. Invalid passed away. Anjadi met in Parliament on September 11, and the new corona virus sample tested positive and she was admitted to a New Delhi hospital the same day.
As early as August, 16 senior officials at the provincial and ministerial levels in major departments, including the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Interior, were infected with the new crown. But Anjadi, 65, was the first current senior official to die after becoming infected with a new coronary pneumonia.
India’s new crown epidemic has reported more than 90,000 deaths and the economic restart faces unpredictable risks.
As of September 24, 2020, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India has exceeded 5.76 million, but with approximately 80,000 to 100,000 confirmed daily, the total number of confirmed cases in India has rapidly approached the United States. , which currently has 7 million cases. At the current rate of growth, it could soon become the country with the highest number of new coronavirus infections in the world.
Experts from around the world did not seem surprised by the appearance of this situation.
Detection increase
An Indian government scientist told a BBC reporter that the number of infection cases is “increasing in a staggered spiral”, with an increase across India.
The only “comforting” thing is the low mortality rate: it is currently around 1.63%, which is lower than many countries with high numbers of cases.
The substantial increase in confirmed cases in India is linked to an increase in testing, but the rapid spread of the virus worries experts.
The reason is that it took 170 days for the new Indian krone to reach the millionth box. But it only took 11 days to add a million cases. The average daily number of cases has risen from 62 in April to more than 87,000 in September. As of mid-September, India recorded approximately 80,000 to over 90,000 cases and approximately 1,000 deaths per day.
Currently, seven states in India are the worst affected by the new corona epidemic, accounting for about 48% of the Indian population.
The economy restarts with the growth of the epidemic
However, even if the number of infected people has increased dramatically, since September, India has announced the beginning of its fourth phase of the policy of unlocking the epidemic, further liberalizing various restrictions.
India’s workplaces, public transportation, restaurants and gyms are reopening in a bid to repair an economy that has suffered the most traumatic decline in decades.
The world’s strictest blockade forced people to stay home and close businesses, resulting in the return of millions of informal workers, who lost their jobs in the cities and walked, took buses and trains home.
However, the Nomura India Business Recovery Index (NIBRI) shows that despite the skyrocketing number of confirmed infections, the recovery in economic activity also means that people are “bored and tired” of the shutdown.
The actual number of infections can be much higher.
So far, more than 50 million Indians have been tested for the virus and more than 1 million samples are tested every day. But the country still has one of the lowest testing rates in the world.
Therefore, some epidemiologists believe that the actual infection rate in India is much higher.
An antibody test conducted by the Indian government on a random sample of people across the country estimated that 6.4 million people had been infected as of early May, while the number of confirmed cases recorded at the time was just 52,000. .
Bhramar Mukherjee, professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Michigan, has been closely following the epidemic. He said his model points out that there are currently around 100 million infections in India.
She told a BBC reporter: “I think India has chosen to let the flow go and develop herd immunity. I’m not sure everyone is following the preventive measures, like taking masks seriously and maintaining social distance. .
Herd immunity is when enough people develop immunity to the virus enough to prevent the spread of the virus, that is, to realize the immunity of the group to the virus.
She said: “This may be due to habituation, desensitization (to the new coronavirus), fatigue, denial, resignation, or a combination of the two. It seems that it has become normal for 1,000 people to die every day.”
But as the number of infected cases continues to increase dramatically, full economic recovery will be delayed and hospitals and care centers may continue to be overwhelmed by the increase in cases.
K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, a Delhi-based think tank, described the current surge in infections as “the first wave, not the first wave.”
He said: “A wave is moving out from the original origin. The propagation time and the level of rise are different. Together they constitute a great climax and it has not yet shown signs of ebb.”
Why does the infection rate keep increasing?
Professor Mukherjee said: “As crowd activities increase and compliance with restrictions on social distancing, mask use and personal hygiene decreases, the rate of infection by the virus will skyrocket again.”
A doctor at a large hospital in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, told the BBC reporter that they have seen an increase in seriously ill elderly patients living in large multi-member families.
As early as March, the well-known virologist Dr. T. Jacob John warned that India was facing a “great avalanche-like epidemic”.
In September, he said that, in many ways, a large number of cases in a large country that the public health system cannot cope with is “inevitable.” However, he added that even so, the current high number of infections could have been avoided, and accused the blockade of preventing epidemics of undue time.
Most health experts believe that if the Indian government had implemented a well-managed, partial epidemic lockdown in some cities where the epidemic occurred, the situation would be much better now.
Kaushik Basu, former World Bank chief economist, said: “India failed because it did exactly what it was not supposed to do during the blockade. The blockade imposed by India has led to a large-scale movement of people. I had no choice but to walk I return to my places of origin across the country. As a result, not only was the Indian economy destroyed, but the new corona virus continued to spread. “
However, some Indian public health experts believe that the epidemic prevention blockade saves lives, and the timing of the blockade is not easy to determine, because even developed countries like the UK have criticized the government for not being able to block enough time and that previous locks can save more lives.
Number of deaths
Epidemiologists believe that regardless of the effectiveness of the blockade adopted by India, it does help the country buy time, learn more about the virus and establish a treatment plan and monitoring system that did not exist in March.
As winter approaches, India currently has more than 15,000 new medical facilities for corona treatment and more than 1 million dedicated isolation beds.
In September, there were no more reports of the lack of masks, protective gear and fans in the Indian media as in March. However, the supply of medical oxygen has been insufficient in recent weeks.
Dr Mukherjee said that the strengthening of health care and treatment facilities for COVID-19 helped India maintain a low death rate.
However, the epidemic of the new corona epidemic has caused the collapse of India’s already weak public health system. The limited medical staff was exhausted.
The government urges people to wear masks in public to slow the spread of the virus.
Dr Mukherjee believes that India’s new crown epidemic will continue to grow slowly and steadily until all states can contain its development. He said that what India needs is a long-term federal strategy coordinated at the national level, not the management of news headlines.