Thread: Corona Virus

Originally Posted by JDNSW

sing the figures collected by Worldometer, India is currently having a case fatality rate (just taking number of deaths divided by number of cases, and yes, I know the issues with this method) of about 1%. The UK is just below 3%, Australia 3%, USA just under 2%, France just under 2%, Germany 2.5%.

Now while it is possible that the lower fatality rates represent better medical systems, I suggest that they more accurately represent poorer data collection, and that the real fatality rate is 2.5-3% everywhere, and that countries with lower reported fatality rates simply have worse data collection.

No data collection is perfect, but in this pandemic, the most conclusive way of knowing that you really know the number of cases is from the proportion of test results that come back positive. Australia has consistently had well under 1% often below 0.1%, so we know we are catching almost every case. We also know that nearly all covid deaths in Australia are correctly attributed, as one thing we have is a robust system for recording all deaths. While some deaths may have been wrongly attributed to covid, equally the reverse may apply.

We can be confident of this because of the rough agreement in countries we expect to have good data collection such as here, UK, Germany.

The figures from India suggest that only a relatively small proportion of deaths from covid are correctly attributed to it, and the fact that one in three tests currently are positive suggests that the number of cases is in error by a factor of at least three, possibly much more (a rule of thumb has been that if tests are below 10% positive, you are catching a good proportion of cases).

The inescapable conclusion is that the situation in India is much worse than the figures show, as bad as they are.

Part of the problem is that the surging demand for COVID tests has produced back logs, and what took hours now takes days. The end result is people are dying before the test results come in, and COVID is not registered as cause of death.

Jacob John, a renowned virologist told DW;
"Because death registration is poor in India, the Government has little data to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on large sections of the population who live in rural areas. Had those deaths been monitored through a registration system, they could have influenced the scale and geographic targeting of gov. relief measures as well as health care system responses."

"Unfortunately, we don't have a public health care system at all in this country, the cause of deaths is seldom recorded, " John said.

[QUOTE=bob10;3080176]

Originally Posted by 4bee

No. Smart hotels were never on our radar. I'll tell you a tale not before told. Not by me anyway. On our ship which will remain nameless, we had a man who was a bare knuckle fighter. Around the World, if you know where to look, you can get a match up for money, if you have a fighter, and the money to back him. On this particular occasion, we teed up a fight in the back streets of Colombo, a dingy little village , of sorts. There was a large crowd of locals, about 50, and about 10 of us. There was a banker, a local heavy with a bodyguard. Bets were laid, a ring formed by spectators, and the fight began. No rounds just fight until one drops. Our man was good, but this time he met some one just as good. Now our man had his best mate as manager, a mad Kiwi, and when the opponent began knocking our fellow out through the ring of people, manager would pick him up and force him back in, saying " get back in , you bastard , I've got 100 bucks on you !!.". Any way , our boy lost, but the local crowd appreciated the fight that much, that they shouted all of us to a local cafe , where we spent the night drinking and eating chili mud crab. We made some good friendships like this, and met many local people everywhere we went. No fancy hotels for us. I've lost track of our fighter, but he was a good mate. The manager went back to NZ after he left the RAN, and he died over there, not sure how. Never a dull moment , Des, but we weren't choir boys. I wouldn't change a thing.

Good yarn bob.


JEEZUZ you ain't much help today mate. No Hansens, no Galleface pub. I dunno what this place is coming to.


The Manager probably carked it by gorging himself on too much Chili Mud Crab.

[QUOTE=4bee;3080268]

Originally Posted by bob10

Good yarn bob.


JEEZUZ you ain't much help today mate. No Hansens, no Galleface pub. I dunno what this place is coming to.


The Manager probably carked it by gorging himself on too much on Chili Mud Crab.

Tell where we did go, a place called Sigiriya. 8th Wonder of the World [ according to Sri Lankan tourism ] After our beer & chili crab night , we stayed the night at the home of a local government identity & his wife, next day they took us to this place , has to be seen to be believed. They drove us there & we got in for free, didn't have enough time to see it all, I hope to go back as a tourist & have a good look. Check this out;

sigiriya - Bing images

Africa, the next outbreak? From the New York Times.

By Amelia Nierenberg and Jonathan Wolfe

The African vaccine rollout

Of the one billion shots given around the world, 82 percent have been given in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Only 0.2 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries — pockets of infection that can produce variants that put us all in danger.

To understand the situation in a region with one of the lowest inoculation rates — the African continent — we spoke with our colleague Abdi Latif Dahir, a Times correspondent based in Nairobi.

How is the rollout going in Africa?

About 15 million people have received doses, about 1 percent of the continent’s population, and only about 36 million have been acquired. Aside from the Seychelles and Morocco, no other African country has vaccinated more than 5 percent of its population.

The African Union and Covax, a global vaccine-sharing initiative, are the main actors working on the rollout, which has been painfully slow. And there’s an issue. Covax plans to supply only a portion of what countries need. Kenya, for example, hopes to vaccinate 30 percent of its population — nowhere near herd immunity — by 2023. And Covax will cover only the first 20 percent. Kenya will need to pay $130 million to make up the rest.

“Tourism is down,” Abdi said. “There are major lockdowns. Curfews start at 8 p.m., so everyone has to scramble to be home before dark. Where do you even start to think you’ll get $130 million from?”

Why is the continent so behind?

Global histories of exploitation mean that no African country is as wealthy as the Western nations that developed the vaccines, Abdi said. There are no major vaccine production facilities on the continent and Covax, which is meant to restore equity to the process, is failing to deliver.

Shipments are also woefully delayed, mainly because India, the world’s leading vaccine manufacturer, is restricting exports of doses in an effort to control its raging outbreak.

“The big question now is: Where do you get your next batch of doses?” Abdi said.

What are the other challenges to the rollout?

Skepticism. Last December, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report showing staggering vaccine enthusiasm across the continent: Four out of five people would take a shot if they thought it safe and effective.

“But then, all of a sudden, immediately as the vaccines came into the market,” Abdi said, “we started seeing people being hesitant.”

False theories abounded, often on WhatsApp, but sometimes spread by heads of state. There have also been concerns that people might be distributing fake vaccines, which has happened in South Africa.

But the skepticism was also rooted in a long history of medical malpractice and unethical testing on Africans. Some saw history repeat when two French doctors suggested that the West conduct clinical trials in Africa. The head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned their idea as a “hangover from a colonial mentality.”

What does the rollout look like on the ground?

Officials and health experts planned for receiving and distributing the vaccines, but they didn’t plan successful messaging, Abdi said. There were no campaigns around the rollout, no celebrations of the stunning scientific achievement. Abdi was worried about the rampant hesitancy among doctors in Kenya.

“They were basically saying: ‘We’ve not been engaged yet. We’ve not been educated about this vaccine,’” he said. And the doctors resented that officials put health workers first in line. “‘What happens if I get sick? Is the government going to take care of me?’”

Their initial hesitance fed a widespread lack of confidence, Abdi said. But things are slowly starting to change. Teachers and security officers have started lining up, and now close to 70 percent of health workers have taken a shot, according to one study.

Hesitancy remains, however.

Abdi has a friend, a psychologist who works in a Covid ward at a county hospital. He has seen the disease firsthand, and he knows that if he contracts it, he could die. But he still refuses a shot.

“He’s just so very adamant,” Abdi said. “If health workers are thinking like this, I don’t know how other people in this country aren’t.”

[QUOTE=bob10;3080273]

Originally Posted by 4bee

Tell where we did go, a place called Sigiriya. 8th Wonder of the World [ according to Sri Lankan tourism ] After our beer & chili crab night , we stayed the night at the home of a local government identity & his wife, next day they took us to this place , has to be seen to be believed. They drove us there & we got in for free, didn't have enough time to see it all, I hope to go back as a tourist & have a good look. Check this out;

sigiriya - Bing images

Bloody hell eh?

That should have deterred his rellies from the odd unannounced visit. "Go home before I empty the swimming pool on yer" he could say.

If it had been in the sea it would have been a great Spa Hotel.

Originally Posted by superquag

They further-boggle by using some interesting names/numbers.

e.g. 'lakh' is 100,000 and a 'crore' is 10 million, or 100 lakh.

Then to stick it to our feeble minds... Indian large numbers have a different "comma" policy dividing up the trailing digits.

Zeros are grouped in 2.2.3. For example, 1 crore is written 1,00,00,000 We would do it 10,000,000 or 3.3.3.

Then to twist the kris, there are.... variants....in the spelling of lakh and crore.

Simple


Talking about India.... One of the biggest producers of oxygen (gas) in the world, but have a tiny fleet of delivery vehicles.... and those Disaster Hospitals running out of O2, well, part of the reason is they're now using HFNC feed, High Flow Nasal Cannula which as you may guess, wastes a lot but super-effective in getting the job done.
Reading between the lines from a local Doctor... their Logistics and pre-planning leave a lot to be desired.

JEEEZAZ J2! One trusts they handle their Nuclear Weapons in a bit more organised manner?. With respect, but one doesn't need to read between the lines, the lack of preparedness is obvious & they have had plenty of notice about this to get their act together,

I wonder why Liquid - Air don't have a big plant there? Hhmm, maybe they already do, but it is one of their run down enterprises.

Originally Posted by 4bee

JEEEZAZ J2! One trusts they handle their Nuclear Weapons in a bit more organised manner?. With respect, but one doesn't need to read between the lines, the lack of preparedness is obvious & they have had plenty of notice about this to get their act together,

I wonder why Liquid - Air don't have a big plant there? Hhmm, maybe they already do, but it is one of their run down enterprises.

Remember at the beginning we were all in this together? From CNBC;

Rich countries are refusing to waive the rights on Covid vaccines as global cases hit record levels


PUBLISHED THU, APR 22 20219:11 AM EDTUPDATED THU, APR 22 202111:33 AM EDT


Sam Meredith@SMEREDITH19




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KEY POINTS

• The landmark proposal, which was jointly submitted by India and South Africa in October, has been backed by more than 100 mostly developing countries.
• Six months on, the proposal continues to be stonewalled by a small number of governments — including the U.S., EU, U.K., Switzerland, Japan, Norway, Canada, Australia and Brazil.
• Andrew Stroehlein, European media director of Human Rights Watch, said via Twitter on Thursday the fact that high-income countries were “throttling vaccine production globally by blocking the TRIPS waiver ... is a scandal that affects us all.”

Covid: Rich countries are refusing to waive IP rights on vaccines (cnbc.com)

This article is a month old , but nothing's changed. An address by the Director General of the W.H.O.;

From Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus;

Any opportunity to beat this virus should be grabbed with both hands. New variants are appearing that show signs of being more transmissible, more deadly and less susceptible to vaccines. The threat is clear: as long as the virus is spreading anywhere, it has more opportunities to mutate and potentially undermine the efficacy of vaccines everywhere. We could end up back at square one.





A 'me first' approach to vaccination won't defeat Covid | Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus | The Guardian