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Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
@DrEricDing
Apr 27, 2021 • 23 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
Heart-wrenching—A mother in her 50s dies of #COVID19 after she had low oxygen. But there’s no ambulance, so her dead body is carried by motorbike—by her son & son-in-law, her corpse wedged in-between her sons, ferrying her home. Heart-breaking for India 🇮🇳.
2) This is a true story.

“In a heart-wrenching development in Andhra Pradesh, due to the non-availability of ambulance, a woman's dead body had to be taken to her native village on a motorbike.
The shocking incident took place in Kasibugga town in Srikakulam district on Monday.
3) “A video showing the deceased woman on a motorbike, wedged between her son-in-law and son, has left netizens shocked at the prevailing situation in the state.
The victim, aged around 50 years, belonged to the Mandasa Mandal in Srikakulam district.
4) “According to local sources, following complaints of sickness, her family members on Monday took her to a private hospital in Kasibugga town near Palasa for treatment. m.greatandhra.com/politics/andhr…
5) “On examining her, the doctor informed the family members that her oxygen level was low, and advised a CT scan to ascertain the problem.
However, on their way back to the hospital after conducting the CT scan, the woman passed away.
6) Following this, the autorickshaw driver immediately forced the family to alight from his vehicle and drove away.

Despite best efforts, the woman's family failed to secure the services of an ambulance to transport her body to their native village which is about 15 km away.
7) “Finally, they decided to carry her on their motorbike itself. The woman's son-in-law and son placed her body in a seated position between them, and rode to their native village. In video, they could be seen explaining their predicament to a few policemen, before riding away.
8) “According to local sources, the woman's test result confirmed that she had contracted Covid-19.”
9) So I’ve held off posting this video for half a day—been discussing this story with my Indian friends and verifying it. But it’s very much real.

My Indian friend said “This is probably the saddest thing I’ve seen so far” 😢
10) So I had the conversation roughly translated (it’s in Telugu, not Hindi)…

Police was asking, how did she die. They replied saying lack of oxygen. Police asked where did she died? They replied in Guntur. Then they told that they are carrying her to Srikakulam.
11) reaction of this police officer who stopped motorbike for questioning… looking in disbelief… also notable. We would never know this story without him stopping them.

My Indian friends said this was the craziest story they have read all pandemic. And they have seen a lot. Image
12) Is this story unique? No. Crazier but not unique. Someone else carried their father’s body by rickshaw because no ambulance they could afford.
13) Another woman’s husband died while riding in a rickshaw. The Uttar Pradesh woman tried to mount to mouth resuscitate him, despite knowing he had COVID. But he died on the spot. telugubulletin.com/covid-19-woman…
14) Also how far is the motorbike trip ferrying her corpse from Guntur to Srikakulam by her sons? Almost 500 kilometers. Full day’s ride by car—even longer by motorbike.

Now imagine if that was your own deceased mother wedged on a motorbike. That would be so gut wrenching. Image
15) to be clear—I do **not** enjoy these heartbreaking stories. But the world needs to stand witness to these stories of suffering. As an epidemiologist, I know that COVID data and numbers only go so far—it can’t connect well with people. We need to motivate to care for others.
16) Because this ominous 1 mil death count is the future that we face for #COVID19 if we don’t change. But we don’t have to accept that. There is no fate but what we make.

Share vaccines. Ramp up vaccine production. Mask up. Ventilate. No indoor gatherings. No crowded rallies.
17) Cremation waiting line… of the deceased. And these are just the ones able to be transported to crematorium. Many cannot find ambulances or afford rickshaw rides to bring the dead bodies. Many reports of the dead being buried / burned in people’s backyards.
18) if you’ve read this far… I know we have the empathy to also care about others suffering. So please take a moment to think about the children in Yemen, which is facing a famine.
19) A desperate mother pleaded at the front steps of a hospital for someone to save her 16 month old with #COVID19…. The toddler died at the door step of the hospital soon after, according to @ndtv @umasudhir.
20) we need to channel our outrage to demand change. Covering up or denying oxygen crisis and mortality numbers won’t help India 🇮🇳
21) Why do u say we need to channel our our energy beyond grief? Because there is an crackdown in parts of India… in Uttar Pradesh province/state in northern India 🇮🇳 with 231 million people — human rights are now being violated in the name of political muzzling of the crisis.⬇️
22) Help the children…
23) let’s not forget the often forgotten invisible Dalit workers of the crematoriums in India… their struggles are real. See thread 🧵

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More from @DrEricDing

Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 28
My god—Earthquake (a Richter ~7.7) causes a skyscraper to collapse in Bangkok. Hope all the construction workers made it out.
2) this skyscraper collapse was captured from a distant car’s dashcam while on a highway

3) another view of the collapse. For those who lived through 9/11, this collapse is a bit triggering.
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 27
Welp—kiss public health & medical research infrastructure in America goodbye for the next 4 years. RFK Jr plans to cut 10,000 jobs from Trump HHS. Image
2) this will not make America healthy again… not by a long shot. So dangerous and irresponsible.
3) “Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more”.
Read 5 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 15
SICKENING—Trump’s DHS just deported a surgeon from Brown University Medical School—who is here legally on an H1B visa that doesn’t expire until 2027, and has committed no crimes. Trained in the U.S. at Ohio State, University of Washington, and Yale as a **transplant surgeon** (one of the most difficult surgical fields in all of medicine!!!), she is a highly trained doctor on kidney transplants, which cannot be easily replaced. Her phone was seized at the border. A federal judge handed down an injunction against her deportation—but she was already deported on a plane en route to Paris. Brown’s kidney transplant clinic is now strained by her deportation.Image
Image
2) Full text:

PROVIDENCE — A Rhode Island doctor who had traveled to Lebanon to see her parents was prevented from re-entering the United States at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday evening, her lawyer and a colleague said.

Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, who lives in Providence, has been working at Brown Medicine’s Division of Kidney Disease & Hypertension since last July, and she [has] been part of the transplant service at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Dr. George Bayliss, the organ transplant division’s medical director. She has been studying and working in the United States for about six years, he said Friday.

The US consulate in Lebanon had issued her an H-1B visa, which is given to people in specialty occupations requiring expertise. The visa was valid through mid-2027, said Thomas S. Brown, an attorney representing her and Brown Medicine.

Alawieh was detained when she returned to Logan airport, and family members are afraid that she is about to be deported to Lebanon, he said.

“We are at a loss as to why this happened,” Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of the Trump crackdown on immigration. I don’t know if it’s a travel ban or some other issue.”

He said her phone has been seized and he has not been able to contact Alawieh.

Bayliss said a lawyer filed a petition with the US District Court in Massachusetts, and Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued an order saying Alawieh should not be moved outside of Massachusetts without 48 hours notice. But he said that message apparently did not reach immigration officials in time, and a plane carrying Alawieh left for Paris.

“This is outrageous,” Bayliss said in an interview. “This is a person who is legally entitled to be in the U.S., who is stopped from re-entering the country for reasons no one knows. It’s depriving her patients of a good physician.”

A US Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson, Ryan Brissette, was not able to immediately answer questions about Alawieh on Friday evening.

Bayliss said Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut medical school and came to the United States for a nephrology fellowship at Ohio State University. She then landed a transplant fellowship at University of Washington and had a residency in the Yale hospital system before starting at Brown Medicine last July, he said.

“She’s really a very humble and able person,” Bayliss said. “She takes care of her patients. She is talented and thoughtful and a great addition to our division.”

Bayliss said Alawieh went to Lebanon to visit parents and planned to be gone for two weeks. He said she texted a colleague at 6:30 p.m. Thursday saying she was back in Boston, but then her family heard from immigration officials.

Dr. Paul Morrissey, surgical director of the organ transplant division at Brown University Health, said Alawieh works on getting people in Rhode Island on the list for a kidney transplants, and that’s a crucial job at a time when there has been a lot of focus on the need for kidneys and their equitable distribution.

He said Alawieh should not have had any problem traveling out of the country with an H-1B visa.

“It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances,” Morrissey said. “It’s putting a strain on our office. Her work has been exceptional.”

bostonglobe.com/2025/03/14/met…Image
3) There is a new Trump ban against many countries, including tourist visa bans against all countries in the red and orange lists. This list is still tentative. And it shouldn’t have affected people with existing visas, such and the Brown kidney transplant surgeon Image
Read 8 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Mar 14
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… once upon a time, liberals did have our own “Leftist Joe Rogan”… his name was Joe Rogan…

Here he is advocating for socialized medicine, healthcare for all, and supporting labor unions to protect workers.
2) Recall, Rogan was once pro Obama and pro Bernie Sanders, and pro Yang Gang, and anti Trump. It’s sad he has since failed to the dark side. But like Vader… maybe he can be redeemed someday and come back to the light.
3) *Fallen, not failed (above).

Joe Rogan was also pro gay rights and pro DACA and pro helping inner city communities that suffer economic and social injustices. It’s sad what he has become. I feel we should try to pull & welcome him back someday. Everyone can be redeemed.
Read 4 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Feb 26
BREAKING—FDA suddenly cancels meeting to update next season’s flu vaccines, with zero explanations. Any delays will jeopardize next year’s vaccine supply chain. Image
2) Folks who follow me know that I’m no bullshitter. I criticized past pandemic response right and left, and have called balls and strikes without bias. And I often say things that doctors & epidemiologists are whispering among themselves but don’t say publicly. (Cough cough) ⬇️
3) While I don’t recommend hoarding… I think stocking up on flu antivirals, which you can obtain prophylactically (preventively) from doctors if you ask nicely why you’re high risk, can be a good idea. I know many doctors, epidemiologists and virologists who do for their family.
Read 6 tweets
Eric Feigl-Ding Profile picture
Feb 26
Doctors are debunking RFK Jr’s claim that 20 hospitalized measles cases in Texas are there for mainly quarantine. Doctors on the ground say the 20 kids hospitalized are having trouble breathing. Oh and they are all unvaccinated against measles, which RFK Jr neglects to mention. Image
2) RFK Jr told Trump today there’s now 2 measles deaths.
3) RFK Jr is a tear with his FDA today. A dark Darwinian future lies ahead for America.
Read 4 tweets

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