Hearing about a new covid positive case in my India circles every few hours now. My US desi circles, still almost completely covid free a year and two surges later. Both groups almost identical, socioeconomically. The infection rates are wildly different!
The US has a fifth of India's population, but officially, way more cases and deaths than India. And yet, among the couple of hundred people in my US desi circles, literally just one positive case, that too a healthcare worker.
In india, I think it's like 20% of my circles.
In india, I think it's like 20% of my circles.
Simple statistics and arithmetic suggest that
A. Community transmission in India is off the charts, like seriously horrifically off the charts. Like hardly anyone is taking masks and SDing seriously.
B. India is undercounting cases and deaths by a mind bogglingly high factor.
A. Community transmission in India is off the charts, like seriously horrifically off the charts. Like hardly anyone is taking masks and SDing seriously.
B. India is undercounting cases and deaths by a mind bogglingly high factor.
India is paying a serious price for celebrating prematurely a couple of months ago, and that too by adding some jingoistic exceptionalist self congratulations like indian lack of hygiene or ayurved made us resistant or some such nonsense. Experts warned India even then, careful!
Second surges happened almost everywhere, experts were warning India. Yes, your death rates look impressively low, but careful! The virus is still out there. Don't believe whatsapp forwards saying india has somehow miraculously achieved herd immunity. Careful, they warned!
If about 20% of my mostly affluent white collar westernized savarna peeps in India are covid positive, but a significant and mostly representative sample of the same demographic in the US and Europe has escaped this virus with almost zero infections, that's major alarm bells!
This is not an unnees-bees difference that can be explained away by US being first world and more careful when it LITERALLY has the highest cases and deaths in the world. Officially. This is a shoonya-bees difference that lays bare serious issues in the Indian system.
It'll take us a few decades to figure out the actual tally of covid deaths in India. It's the only country that made people walk thousands of kilometers, spreading the virus to remote rural areas that might have escaped it relatively unscathed.
I remember a few months ago, I posted a pic of wife & I hiking around a reservoir upstate and we were wearing masks. And a bunch of responses were desi dudes saying "why u wearing mask outdoors with no one around?"
Like something went of their father's if we wore masks. 🙄🙄
Like something went of their father's if we wore masks. 🙄🙄
Just a day later and I'm now hearing of new cases in my Indian circles literally every hour! At this point, I'm hoping that my parents (in their 60s) who've already been to Pune hospitals twice in the last 12 months as caregivers, have already been exposed and are immune.
They both recently got their first vaccination shots, so that's a small relief. But very small, because I know one Indian dose doesn't do as much as, say, an mRNA shot.
At this point, I'm just hoping my parents, who never even caught a flu in my lifetime, are somehow immune.
At this point, I'm just hoping my parents, who never even caught a flu in my lifetime, are somehow immune.
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