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Rijo M John, PhD Profile picture
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29 May, 7 tweets, 2 min read
1/ This was the thing that greeted me on my WhatsApp today morning. Let's examine its utter folly.

Is India's Vaccine Maitri the reason we are getting all those foreign aid? I do not think so.

why?
2/ First of all, of the total vaccine exports from India till y’day, only ~16% were sent as Grants by GoI. Others were all SII fulfilling its commitments one way or the other. GoI has nothing to do there or take credit for.
If anything, GoI had to stop SII from exporting further.
3/ Even out of this 16%, about 65% went to 5 of our neighbors (Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, & Maldives). The remaining went mostly to other low-income coutries.
4/ On the other hand, all the foreign aid we got in the form of medical supplies & equipment came from other countries (mostly developed nations) & not from the countries where India's vaccine grants went to.
5/ We've been able to fully inoculate only 3% of our population after 133 days into this vaccination drive despite being a proclaimed vaccine guru. Without making any such hyperbole, many other countries have vaccinated 30% or more of their population so far.
6/ Lastly, let's not pride ourselves on receiving all this foreign aid although they're immensely helpful at this time. More than anything, it underscores our own inability to augment our health infrastructure & our utter lack of preparedness.

Atmanirbhrata, anyone?
The @BJP4India has now removed the original tweet I had quoted. Couldn't get a screenshot earlier. But this was the picture in their tweet. Image

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More from @RijoMJohn

Rijo M John, PhD Profile picture
9 May
@MoHFW_INDIA is the official Twitter handle of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, GoI. It must a place to report accurate, realistic, & contextual info on the pandemic that is ravaging the country!

Has it done that? I do not think so!

Why?

+
There's been an undue emphasis on the cumulative numbers of #COVID19 vaccine doses administered, tests done, recovered cases, etc. without a sense of reality. India is the 2nd populous country in the world. So, the cumulative numbers for anything ought to be large!

+
Instead, @MoHFW_INDIA should instead answer:

What % of our population has been vaccinated so far?

What has been the pace of vaccination?

By when do you think the vaccination coverage can reach the target?

When do you think an ordinary citizen would be able to get a jab?

+
Read 7 tweets
Rijo M John, PhD Profile picture
6 May
Thread on COVID testing data

It's been a month since @ICMRDELHI has been reporting at least 100K fewer tests than the tests reported by all states combined. This discrepancy has been growing & is over 3L for the past several weeks.

What does it mean? What implications?
+
In the past, this difference used to get reconciled over time. But, this time, this difference is so large & not been reconciled for a long time.
+
Few plausible reasons:
1) ICMR only reports tests coming from its own approved labs & states maybe adding testing numbers from unrecognized labs too
2)States inflating the testing numbers on paper for various reasons
+
Read 6 tweets
Rijo M John, PhD Profile picture
5 May
Thread on #COVID19Vaccination

Daily avg jabs are now 1.8M indicating acute vaccine shortage whether GoI admits it or not.

It means 18-45 yrs who are better positioned to register on CoWIN & at lesser risk of dying are using the limited doses & depriving the more vulnerable

++
Avg. daily jabs have declined from a peak of 3.7m to 1.8m (51% fall over the past month)

Many vulnerable & aged have to reschedule their visits multiple times to get jabs which increase their risk of exposure significantly

++
Until the vaccine supply is increased & can be ensured at a minimum of 5m doses/day, the GoI should immediately stop the 18+ vaccination drive.

This is extremely important to reduce the risk of deaths among the most vulnerable population.

@MoHFW_INDIA @drharshvardhan
Read 4 tweets
Rijo M John, PhD Profile picture
4 May
India's reported #COVID19 cases have crossed 2cr (20M)

The daily chart suggests a peak/plateau. However, this is NOT natural.

This 'peak' has followed reduced daily testing.

From a peak of 19.5L daily tests on Apr 30, our daily testing has been on a consistent decline!
1/4
Yesterday's daily testing was only 16.6L despite being a regular Monday!

It appears that we are forcing an artificial peak with reduced testing!

The consistent reduction in testing started just as we crossed 400K cases!

2/4
Something quite similar had happened during the previous peak last year too.

The day daily new cases touched 98K & everyone was expecting India to cross 1L daily cases, the daily testing began going down

Tests did go up after a gap of few days only to see reduced cases!

3/4
Read 4 tweets
Rijo M John, PhD Profile picture
23 Apr
Some epi models predict 8L-10L daily #COVID19 cases in India in the next 2-3 weeks. In all likelihood, India is already having that many daily infections. However, will India ever report that many daily new cases?

My guess: our reported cases will not go >5L to 6L!

why?

1/4
The daily growth of tests has been much lower than that of daily cases for the past 1 month.

The avg. TPR now is 18%. Our avg. daily testing now is 16L.

At the current TPR, it'd take 33L daily tests to report 6L cases, i.e., more than double the current daily testing.

2/4 Image
TPR has also been on a steady growth path & even if we assume the TPR to reach 20%-25% in the coming weeks, it'd need 32L to 40L daily testing for us to report 8L cases. I believe, it is nearly impossible at the current level of testing & its rate of growth.

3/4
Read 4 tweets
Rijo M John, PhD Profile picture
20 Apr
It is to be noted that the policy shift in the government of India’s #COVID19 vaccination has come at a time when the daily inoculations of #COVID19 vaccines have been on a steady decline going down from a daily average of 3.7M to 2.7M in the past two weeks.
1/5
Domestic supply constraints & the Union government’s failure to ensure vaccine supply commensurate with demand from different states were evident on vaccine delivery so far.
2/5
This new liberalized policy could shift the onus of vaccine procurement to meet the demand onto the state governments, something the Union government itself has not been quite successful in the past as reflected in the slow pace of vaccination.
3/5
Read 5 tweets

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