Why do we need to correctly count all covid deaths?
To spread doom and gloom for the sake of it? No.
Coz it's an important tool for epidemiologists? Not only that.
To deal with a problem we must first understand how bad it is..
And because it's vital for our collective memory.
It has become more and more apparent with each passing day, that the number of deaths is not only being grossly undercounted (which may be unavoidable in many cases) but that it is being SYSTEMATICALLY undercounted.
We already know from last year how many states are getting away with this: 1. Using a restricted definition to define a "covid death" 2. Excluding patients who died with comorbidities 3. Not entering covid status in death certificates 4. Not testing, restricting the criteria
But this year is especially bad due to the overwhelming number of deaths due to not being able to access beds, care, oxygen: these aren't being counted though they should be.
It's important to not let these deaths escape our collective memory.
As a nation we must never forget.
Before you comment, I'm gonna link to this thread by @muradbanaji that lists districts with gross undercounting 👇
Also full credit to all the reporters on the field who are not allowing these stories to be buried by the state.
I wrote this thread as a response to all the flak that journalists are getting for merely reporting on facts on the ground. And as a response to the policy wonks who accused us last year of counting deaths as a "spectator sport" & mock us as "death experts". You know who you are.
Hiding deaths and denying the problem does us no good. It let's those who should have been more responsible off the hook.
It belittles the damage done to our nation and our loved ones.
Acknowledging the deaths emphasizes the need for disaster planning/preparedness for the future.
I am also not going to comment on India's mortality rate/ IFR vis-a-vis other countries.. I would echo the view that is too early to reliably estimate the mortality of this second wave, and that's a matter for epidemiologists to explore..
A job made harder by this undercounting.
Tactics used by quacks to sell their pseudoscientific concepts and 🐍 oil: 1. Modern medicine has no cure for your condition.
- Ignores the fact that some disease is incurable/beyond cure. They advertise cure but though it's been around for centuries the claims are mostly bogus.
2. No side effects! Natural is better!
- Commonly used. My prof used to say: no side effect means no effect! If it does have any effect then there must be some side effect! Biggest myth that can easily be busted, numerous examples in threads by @drabbyphilips
3. But your allopathy is full of toxic chemicals!
- Everything is a chemical, even water! Many drugs we use are actually originally from natural sources! Fact is you are much more likely to find toxic lead, arsenic and heavy metals in homeo and Ayurvedic preparations.
Ok, took me a few days to properly process the stunning results of the Delhi serosurvey. Unfortunately we only have a press conference with a few slides telling us that 22.86% of 20,000 people sampled tested positive for antibodies to Sars-cov2: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/almost-1…
This was done from June 27 to July 10 and they did a randomised sampling of every nth household and also sampled minors, they used the Kavach ELISA developed by ICMR (sens 92.3 and spec 97.9). The results were only recently released in the July 21st PC.
So why r these results stunning? Well, for one they imply 46 lakh infections, whereas the official count is only 1.2 lakh to date. Meaning only 1 in 38 were actually detected by antigen testing! Either implies pathetic testing or huge percentage of asymptomatics?