India Coronavirus Dispatch: A long way to go before the curve flattens

What a delay in Bihar polls can mean, students upset over fee demand even as colleges are shut, Kolkata woman dies waiting for kin to bring Rs 3 lakh--news on how India is dealing with pandemic

Bihar polls loom: Elections in Bihar are scheduled for later this year. But the corona-hit and flood-ravaged state may be forced to delay polls. Parties are already anxious about how a low voter turnout will swing the election. The opposition is in disarray and according to Congressmen, Tejaswi as the inevitable face of the opposition campaign is something they’re not happy about. At an all-party meeting held in June, it was only RJD that raised the issue of polling schedule. The ruling JD(U), meanwhile, is not in a good position either. Nitish, in power for 15 years, is facing anti-incumbency and will have to walk the tightrope in coordinating flood and Covid-19 relief measures and campaigning for elections. The only party that seems to be unaffected by the situation is the BJP. Read more here.

Kerala ups the fight: Kerala has been witnessing a rise in the test positivity rate (TPR) — an indicator of the spread of infection. The state health department has now asked districts to ramp up testing in an effort to keep the TPR down to 2 per cent. In the first week of August, some districts in the state reported a TPR as high as 10 per cent. The health department has said a TPR of 5 per cent is desirable, while aiming for 2 per cent. Kerala is currently 25,000 samples daily. It has been decided to test all individuals with influenza-like symptoms while simultaneously hiking the antigen-based tests. Read more here.

Students unhappy with fees: Colleges remain shut, until further notice, till August 31. However, educational institutes have issued circulars asking students to deposit the full fees for the first semester. This fee, students point out, includes infrastructural facilities that will no longer be under use for the semester. They have been demanding a fee structure based only on tuition and exam charges. The demands ring true for institutes like Delhi’s IIMC where even practical courses like Journalism have shifted entirely to online classes. Students from Delhi’s GGSIPU have sent letters highlighting their demands to Delhi government officials, HRD Ministry and college administrations. Read more here.

Kolkata tragedy: A woman in Kolkata died in an ambulance while waiting for her family to arrange for Rs three lakh demanded by the hospital. Hospital authorities have denied the charge, saying the woman died before she brought to the hospital. “We had already told the hospital that the patient’s condition was critical and the family would soon deposit the amount,” says a relative of the deceased. In another case in West Bengal, a hospital demanded Rs 51,000 from a man who wished to his father who had succumbed to the virus. Read more here.

In Numbers

How India is faring: The pandemic has now spread to over 213 countries/territories and will now ravage newer regions in most countries. In India, for example, the virus has shifted out of metros and is spreading into the hinterlands. In an interesting pattern that has emerged, developing nations have reported more cases than the total caseload in several developed ones put together. Even within India, it is the relatively poorer states like Odisha and Bihar that are now witnessing a surge higher than their richer counterparts. As far as flattening the curve goes, the writer argues, it’s yet to happen in most cases. It took four months for the world to reach one million cases. It took just seven weeks to reach 5 million. It took only five weeks to double that number. As far as India goes, the country is among the top three in terms of caseload, and has the second highest number of critical cases. Read more here.

People continue to fall sick: India has been reporting an increase in recovery rate, however, people still continue to fall sick. There is nothing special about the hike in recovery rate, says the writer. If the recovery rate were to overtake the new cases reported and this trend holds steady for a few days then it would be an indication of a decline being around the corner. For now, recoveries continue to tail new infections by a significant amount. Even in Delhi, the trend of recoveries overtaking new cases was reversed on multiple days in July. On the national level, however, we are yet to see a day when the number of recoveries eclipses the new cases added. Read more here.

Interview

Family members rarely infected: In this interview with the director of IIPH, who has helmed a new analysis of Covid-19 studies, an interesting fact comes to light: 80-90% of family members are not infected by the virus even when someone from the family has tested positive. He says papers from many researchers indicated low prevalence of secondary infections in the same family and hence the team set about to research the phenomenon. This is despite being in contact with the infected person for 4 to 5 days. This trend holds true across countries, although the figure may vary. This, he says, suggests some kind of a resistance to the virus. But this is not surprising, or even new, considering that even with past outbreaks some sections of the population have shown resistance. Read the interview here.