Thread by @GorwayGlobal

A short thread
In his interview with @manojladwa, (see link), India's Exernal Affairs Minister, @DrSJaishankar, when asked about the ongoing #SecondCOVIDWave crisis in India, acknowledged that it was a grave problem almost an "existential crisis". But then he tried..

to soften the impact on his NRI audience, he compared what India is going through to the second wave in Britain in 2020 late summer and autumn when the health services were swamped, "you've been through something similar, that is what India is going thru now"

This is not untrue, but grossly misleading. Yes Britain, at the height of the epidemic, was reporting 50k cases a day and 1,750 deaths. See chart 1. In population terms britain had far more cases and deaths (Chart 2)

But there the comparison ends. If the interviewer had been more challenging he'd have pointed out several things.
1. India's data is suspect. seriously. there are too many reports of gross undercounting not to conclude that the real figures are far worse than the official data.

2. The reason for international concern about what is happening in India is more to do with the collapse in our large cities of the health services' ability to cope.
3. So to put the record straight, the comparison of the statistics tells only a fraction of the story.

4. Even at the peak of the deluge of cases in Britain:
- people did not have to find their own oxygen
- social media was not plastered with desperate pleas for help to find a bed, plasma or remdesivir
-People did not die in cars and hospital car parks waiting for a bed.

- Ministers continued to give daily press briefings and take questions from Journalists
- Parliament continued to sit and the leader of the Oppositiion, @Keir_Starmer would challenge the PM @BorisJohnson with facts and figures.
- The media, @BBC and @SkyNews reported the crisisi

So while @DrSJaishankar was not wrong to compare India's second wave to what other, far richer, countries experienced a while ago, he must be called out for the lack of preparation, and the lack of precautions to avoid a second wave.

Of all countries, India was the least prepared to cope with a surge of cases and that alone was reason enough to have clamped down on the large gatherings of #IPL cricket, #Holi, #Baisakhi, #Kumbhmela, #ElectionRallies the lot.