THREAD on @nytimes “investigation” into India’s covid response
1 errors & selective obfuscation from para 1 itself - Note the PMs goal was the contain the spread even at the cost of the economy - the BJP wanted online campaigning, others opposed it
2 as for lockdown it was both the opposition & industry opposing it. Note what part time industrialist & fulltime social climbing yuppie Narayanmoothri said & also what Rahul Gandhi said “tughlakian lockdown”
3 the entire data point for the NYT article seems to be one Dr Agarwal. Everything is “he said”, no proof provided. Turns out Dr Agarwal is a 32 year old - a low level researcher - whose opinions would be lost in the hierarchy & wouldn’t have access to core data anyway
4 now let’s come to the allegation that @ICMRDELHI they were “pressurised” & threatened punitive action - yet the report directly contradicts itself - pressure to clear vaccine by Aug 2020, but cleared only in Jan 2021.
5 Apparently withdrawal of a publication - that was put out without a peer review is evidence of a “coverup” - notice the “authors withdrew it” - ICMR didn’t censor it
6 next up we have this gem - by end July everyone was openly talking about Mumbai & Delhi’s infection rates. Notice though how they article conveniently decontextualises alleged “withheld data” from the public discourse. A “scientist” with a suitable political slant brought in to
7 to obfuscate. Note here that the data was happily shared (though not published) and was free to be incorporated into decision making. Moreover as these press clippings show, this was being reported publicly with July being a particularly worrying month.
8 now 2 assertions are made - thar blood plasma & hydrochloroqine were “politically protected” treatments. Yet nowhere has the author provided even anecdotal evidence of said protected status.
9 then the argument is that all studies predicting a second wave were suppressed & wrong studies were put out. Yet there is ample evidence to show the government was warning against complacency - every single month
10 also the entire premise of this article is that the government suppressed warnings of a second wave - given the PM’s repeated call against complacency, the Government acknowledged there would be a second wave, just couldn’t gauge the vehemence
11 Finally it’s worth noting that much of the article is standard tropes about how “Muslims were targeted” despite clear evidence that the Tablighi Jamaat were super-spreaders & only one community were stoning, flashing & urinating on health care workers.
12 mins to it was this authors own colleague it’s “health correspondent” caught with her pants down on China trying to normalise & cover up, China’s cover up of the Wuhan origins of this virus. All up if it claims the Indian covid response was politicised, it has covered
13 only one side, ignoring how it’s own coverage was political & frequently wrong. How there was constant contradictory advice - (for example Dr Ted asking people NOT TO WEAR MASKS) - easy to retrospectively take the right call, but standard for NYT’s abysmal standards.
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