COVID
a ‘decentralised fight is the key’, even while he is clearly in control and works with a core team of dedicated people that is accessible and quick to respond.
At a time when retired generals are asking for the army to fight the virus, it is interesting that Iqbal Chahal, a marathoner, and engineer, who comes from a defence services background, has worked through ‘war rooms’ to control the virus.
On taking charge, visiting hospitals and COVID hotspots like Dharavi, Mr Chahal worked on three strategies: 1) eliminate the panic; 2) decentralise war rooms to cut response time; 3) build adequate infrastructure.
One of Mr Chahal’s first decisions was to abolish the central control room and order each of the COVID testing laboratories not to share test results directly with patients. They had to be shared with the BMC only.
BMC invited doctors and medical support staff specifically to handle the war rooms (especially fresh graduates from medical colleges and nursing schools across the state), provided them with a hefty stipend (Rs50,000 per month) and hotel accommodation at walking distance within the ward. It could hire over 900 doctors as well as 600 nursing students to accompany the ambulances in each ward.
Future Ready: Apart from setting up multiple facilities and reviving those what were shut down after the first COVID wave, the BMC is preparing for a possible third COVID wave around July on a war footing. Mr Chahal says he has 5,500 beds including nearly 3,000 oxygen beds vacant and available today. These include nearly 2,000 ICU beds with oxygen and ventilators. Four more jumbo centres are being set up which will further enhance patient capacity by 2,000 beds including 200 ICU beds.
Personal Post: For me the most important part of the model, on learning of my positive tests, BMC helplines, assured me that I can take care of myself at home, since I could easily self isolate. My doctor friends then advised me what to do.. and the treatment lines was more or less similar, and the advise to care givers, what to look for at what levels was more or less consistent. It was easy to distinguish between the scary fake news and good advise, as one could check with all the FAqs in WHO, CDC, and official websites. The usual caveats from traditional medicine, like ayurveda including doing pranayama, imbibing Khadha, salt water gargles, saying clearly that one should follow doctor prescribed treatment, clearly helped along with proning.
This brings me to my earlier post: http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/community-based-services The CBR process emphasises that care givers are the immediate family, neighbourhood groups and all these do it out of love, at no cost to the exchequer. It is prudent for the government to spend on resources to educate and provide support services, perhaps even monetary compensation to such care givers. Systematising such support on the lines of the Civil Defence Model will go a long way in, preparing this army of care-givers the tools they need for similar situations. The CBR model has proven successful in the case of disability support. There is no reason why it cannot be adapted for health emergencies like this one. This alongwith the AAP maholla Clinic should be a good model to follow in future.
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
Indian Medical Association Asks Health Ministry to Wake up from Slumber to Mitigate COVID Challenges https://www.moneylife.in/article/indian-medical-association-asks-health-ministry-to-wake-up-from-slumber-to-mitigate-covid-challenges/63819.html "It is unfortunate, the health ministry has failed to make the necessary required roadmap and ensure vaccine stock, resulting in most of the places where vaccination could not be rolled out for people above 18 years," the IMA says, adding, "When the Prime minister notification is not implemented scrupulously, who is to be blamed?"
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
May 10, 2021 'Delhi Still Short of Oxygen Due to Centre's Apathy': AAP's Raghav Chadha
Out of those 18 states, 17 states got almost as much oxygen as they had demanded. The only state whose demands were not met was Delhi’s. And that is very unfortunate. These are times of pandemic, I don’t wish to play politics but what it certainly appears is that this unfair treatment towards Delhi is probably due to Centre’s apathy towards the NCT.
The second problem is logistics. Delhi, not being an industrial state, does not have its own steel plant or cryogenic tankers. Therefore, it is incumbent on the Centre to provide both oxygen and tankers to ply that oxygen. Without tankers, the allotted oxygen has no meaning.
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
What Is happening To Ventilators Funded Through PM CARES??? https://youtu.be/XshkLl0oOLM?t=25
While people are scrambling for a ventilator bed, thousands of ventilators across the country are unpacked and unopened. Calling it a sorry state of affairs would be an understatement.
So what exactly is happening to these ventilators???
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
Absolutely.. Instead of an age criteria, the vaccination should have been prioritised for full families, in crowded areas in slums, and should have been planned in-situ. So how you had a containment policy you can have a "liberated" (vaccinationated) zone policy!
Central procurement of vaccines a must. Anand Grover
https://www.barandbench.com/columns/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-and-the-national-immunization-program
For the last 70 years, as part of the universal immunisation programme (UIP), the Indian vaccine procurement system has centrally funded and procured all vaccines from manufacturers (public and private) and distributed them through the states to all persons free of charge. The success of the UIP in reducing mortality and morbidity among infants and children is for all to see.
Moreover, the procurement of all vaccines by the Central government has the considerable advantage of a pooled bulk procurer using its negotiating power to lower prices from vaccine suppliers. Yet, for no apparent reason, the Central government abandoned the policy of procuring vaccines centrally. It is only if we return to the model of the national immunisation programme with procurement by the Central government and distribution by the states; vaccinate all people in India free of charge; and use powers under the Patents Act for issuing government authorisation, compulsory licensing or contract manufacturing in appropriate cases, that we can ensure that the vaccine rollout proceeds smoothly and doesn't turn out to be another disaster. The government must fulfil its obligation to safeguard the right to health and life without discrimination under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiCBgLnl_cQ Government Delayed Sanctioning of Rs 35,000 Crore Set Aside for Vaccination: Economist Omkar Goswami
Gujarat gets lion's share of Covid vaccines https://www.rediff.com/news/report/gujarat-gets-lions-share-of-covid-vaccines/20210504.htm May 4th 2021
Health ministry data shows a huge disparity in the doses that were given in just eleven states which could launch the drive on May 1 due to paucity of supply.
Gujarat got the lion's share with 60 per cent doses given on day one.
Centre to SC on vax policy: No judicial interference needed, trust wisdom of executive https://www.moneylife.in/article/centre-to-sc-on-vax-policy-no-judicial-interference-needed-trust-wisdom-of-executive/63813.html 10 May 2021 0
Urging against judicial interference on its vaccine policy, the Centre's Sunday night affidavit said: "Any overzealous, though well-meaning judicial intervention may lead to unforeseen and unintended consequences, in absence of any expert advice or administrative experience, leaving the doctors, scientists, experts and executive very little room to find innovative solutions on the go."
"It is submitted that in view of the unprecedented and peculiar circumstances under which vaccination drive is devised as an executive policy, the wisdom of the executive should be trusted," said the affidavit.
The affidavit said with a view to ensure that there is no disparity between the states inter-se, with active consultation of the Centre with both the manufacturers, the central government has successfully fixed uniform price to be paid by all the State Governments.
Defending its vaccine policy, the affidavit said: "The policy is framed as above which is just, equitable, non-discriminatory and based upon an intelligible differentiating factor between the two age groups (45 plus and below)."
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
Getting people vaccinated is the only long-term solution to the current COVID-19 crisis in India, America's top public health expert Dr Anthony Fauci said on Sunday as he called for scaling up manufacturing of coronavirus vaccines both domestically
and globally to fight the deadly pandemic. https://www.rediff.com/news/report/vaccination-only-solution-to-covid-in-india-fauci/20210510.htm 
AN image of India carefully cultivated over the years of a country with tremendous potential has been destroyed by an uncaring government as the covid-19 pandemic tears through killing over 240,000 people as there is no healthcare system that can rescue them. But, it was only on April 19 this year that the government opened up its coffers to offer Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion) to the Serum Institute of India and Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion) to Bharat Biotech to help ramp up manufacturing capacities. The vaccine manufacturers have been asking for it for months now. https://www.rediff.com/news/column/ramesh-menon-how-india-botched-up-its-war-against-covid-19/20210510.htm It was policy paralysis at its best.
How could politicians not see how election rallies where social distancing and masking were thrown to the winds would not end up as super spreaders?
Taxing COVID:
FM rules out GST waiver on Covid vaccines, says move will make them costlier https://www.rediff.com/news/report/fm-rules-out-gst-waiver-on-covid-vaccines/20210509.htm
The 'tied myself in knots' excuse. Just pass an ordinance, saying that the input tax credit, is still eligible for refund and may be adjusted in your advance Tex payment. And if there are cash flow issues find a way to get banks involved.
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
check the WHO coronavirus pages. https://www.who.int/covid-19
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
Posted by Omair Ahmad on Twitter
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1390634791742046219.html
https://mobile.twitter.com/OmairTAhmad/status/1390634791742046219
1. "Nobody shows as much class solidarity as the rich," forget where I read it, but this keeps ringing in my ears as journalists write, "India mishandled the second wave".No, dude, India mishandled the first, but it was largely the poor that paid the price, so you didn't care.
2. The idea that India successfully managed the first wave is based on low numbers of officially reported infections and casualties. Set aside the fact that these are likely underreports, EVERY SINGLE OUNTRY IN SOUTH ASIA HAD SIMILAR NUMBERS.
3. India's response to the first wave cannot be measured by casualty rate by disease, because there was no perceptible difference in that with any other similar country. What it can be measured by is political and economic costs.
4. What did the regime do? There was no track and trace programme nationally. I returned from Kathmandu at the end of Feb, and all that was noted at the airport was my temperature. Because there was no tracking, we went straight to "community transmission".
5. Community transmission just means that we cannot identify the exact pathway of infections. The regime spent the whole year denying this. It has still not accepted this, with upward of 400,000 cases being reported daily! The sacrifice of science to optics was total
6. Then the regime and its sociopathic supporters in the media decided to identify a pathway of spread: the Tablighi Jamaat, made them scapegoats, treated them as criminals. There was a high decibel campaign against Muslims, as "Corona Jihad"
7. (As I wrote then, I think the Jamaat leadership was stupid to hold its gathering in Delhi then. The Indian government might have been sleeping, but the Jamaat should have paid attention to the international situation. And trusting the regime after the Delhi pogrom was naïve.)
8. By not acknowledging community spread, and by blaming Muslims as the only vector of disease, the regime misinformed the public, created terror about being ill from Covid-19. Then there was the catastrophic lockdown. Not coordinated with any state government, 4 hours notice.
9. There was no plan, no end date, no provisions for the vast section of the Indian economy that are in the informal sector, and cannot "Work From Home". After weeks, they started walking, cycling, itching rides home. It was the greatest forced migration since Partition.
10. It was also incredibly cruel. Police punished people at borders, sprayed them with chemicals, beat fruit and vegetable vendors on the street. People were filmed eating rotting fruit, even roadkill, because they had nothing else. Tens of millions were pushed into poverty
11. When the government acted, it first denied that there was any such exodus, or any such worry.
It looked at millions of desperate, starving, terrified people, and said, "Meh." Then it finally set up trains, that had no food and water, and went to wrong destinations.
12. Can you imagine, a poor person finally gets a train ticket to get home because they cannot earn their living in the big city, and literally dies of dehydration on the train journey to the wrong city?
For the regime this was "pre-existing conditions".
https://www.thequint.com/amp/story/news/india/migrants-workers-found-dead-on-irctc-shramik-train-govt-refused-rti-query
13. The regime chose not to take the disease seriously at first. It chose to an arbitrary, unplanned lockdown. It chose to demonise Muslims. All these choices led to making it MORE difficult to fight the disease, while hurting the most vulnerable.
14. I could go on and on, the centralisation of money and authority, the PM Care sFund, the toppling of the MP government in the midst of a pandemic, the attempt to do so in Maharashtra, but the point is that the rich and middle class had enough hospital beds.
15. Today the rich are inconvenienced, so the media, both national and foreign, says, "NOW India is handling things badly." You could have said so when the poor were being persecuted. It always comes around. Don't ignore injustice. For your own sake.
16. If this was your definition of "India handling the first wave well", I really hope we never meet in real life because I may be extremely violent
https://in.news.yahoo.com/video-man-eating-animal-carcass-083000234.html
Silent Modi : क्यों फ़्रॉड है सरकार की पूरी हेल्थ पॉलिसी ? #PunyaPrasunBajpai challenges the figures of COVID infra given by Health Ministry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTscWOXAKA8
Sri Lanka has become the latest country to pave the way for emergency use of Pfizer Vaccines. In India, the issue is still stuck on the government's refusal to indemnify the vaccine against legal cases, something governments across the world have done.
India's Refusal to Clear Pfizer Vaccines is playing with lives | Barkha Dutt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzWgw2KtxT4
Basic explanation of concepts
Infodemic: From Negligence to Fear..
Stages of Control:
Eradication ( will not happen for COVID, international Cooperation is needed)
Elimination (iNot foreseable as 0 to 18 years is not being vaccination, vaccination is voluntary) -
Control ( we can only control, and make it endemic and have manageable, develop medical infrastructure ) Herd Immunity- (antibodies through Infection and Vaccination.) What is the herd immunity Threshold? For COVID it is estimated to be 60-70%)
India? Serological Survey to find out which antibodies do we have. In june 20, Aug-Sept 20, 3rd Dec-Jan - apparently 21.4 % have developed antibodies) In Delhi 56%have antobodies https://youtu.be/8sxtgukyqeg?t=3146
Possible dates for Control on second wave : aug-sept 2021. Complete Vaccination by mid 2022. But we will need a third vaccination after six months, and perhaps every year.
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
Even though oxygen concentrators have been seized, I bet our normally reckless PM, will not use the epidemic act to allow these concentrators into the market or hospitals after a swift pachnama and magistrarially supervised evidence noting.. do you know if there is a provision in the evidence act when such seized essentials can be released for the public good?
Covid and the administration of a tragedy: How India lost the plot. https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2021/apr/30/covid-and-the-administration-of-a-tragedy-how-india-lost-the-plot-2296633.html
When the pandemic broke out last year, showmanship and event management were top priority. Essential tasks like factoring in expert advice were considered less glamorous.
The initial euphoria over the arrival of a decisive leadership after years of listless governance, however, gave way to another grim reality. Senior officials had hoped that Modi would deactivate his suspicious nature and curb his urge to centralise powers and demand unquestioned obedience—now that he had reached the pinnacle. They were soon disappointed, though he did slash through the proverbial inter-ministerial turf battles. But the frequency and intensity with which he started summoning secretaries directly for briefings and presentations were quite unusual, as no PM had tried such micro-management.
It revealed his ‘control freak’ nature, his deliberate bypassing of his ministers.
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
In the third wave, children may get affected in a big way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7awAaTJCPME&t=24s
India’s Covid crisis: Authorities face criticism over local elections held during pandemic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f6O6odU4fQ
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
India's COVID 19 Energency.. Lancet, May 8th 2021.
"The message that COVID-19 was essentially over also slowed the start of India’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, which has vaccinated less than 2% of the population. At the federal level, India’s vaccination plan soon fell apart. The government abruptly shifted course without discussing the change in policy with states, expanding vaccination to everyone older than 18 years, draining supplies, and creating mass confusion and a market for vaccine doses in which states and hospital systems competed. . "
India must now pursue a two-pronged strategy. First, the botched vaccination campaign must be rationalised and implemented with all due speed. ... The government must work with local and primary health-care centres that know their communities and create an equitable distribution system for the vaccine.
Second, the government must publish accurate data in a timely manner, and forthrightly explain to the public what is happening and what is needed to bend the epidemic curve...... Modi’s actions in attempting to stifle criticism and open discussion during the crisis are inexcusable. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that India will see a staggering 1 million deaths from COVID-19 by Aug 1. If that outcome were to happen, Modi’s Government would be responsible for presiding over a self-inflicted national catastrophe." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01052-7/fulltext
Modi Govt Got Arithmetic On Vaccines Utterly Wrong, Very Difficult to Fix the Mess Now:P Chidambaram May 11, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPuLHgpByVk
On the costs involved for vaccination, the former Finance Minister said it was not even a point of concern – Assuming a price of Rs 175 per dose, every individual could be vaccinated at a cost of Rs 350 per vaccine. In order to vaccinate a population of 100 crore, it would require Rs 35,000 crore. In fact he added that if additional money was required, the Finance Minister could approach the parliament and there would be no resistance in clearing additional funds.
Responding to the debate on compulsory licencing, Mr Chidambaram said there wasn’t even any need to invoke compulsory licencing, merely the threat of it would have made manufacturers amenable to voluntary licencing, that would have ramped up both supply and availability for India.
https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/central-government-covid-vaccine-price-supreme-court The rationale behind the new liberalised pricing policy for the COVID-19 vaccine is to ensure scaling up of vaccine coverage, incentivize vaccine manufacturers to rapidly scale up their production, and to attract new vaccine manufacturers, the Central government has told the Supreme Court.
Modi Leadership Style Main Reason for India's COVID Mishandling; He's a Megalomaniac—RamachandraGuha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFVmsRmFE4Q
PM Manmohan Singh's letter to PM Modi here: https://theprint.in/india/few-indians...
Read Health Minister Harsh Vardhan's response to former PM Manmohan Singh's letter: https://theprint.in/politics/we-expect-youll-offer-same-advice-to-congress-vardhan-replies-to-manmohan-singhs-letter
'No Coherent Policy to Handle Pandemic; - N. Ram
https://youtu.be/PKH3ioEJ7r8?t=1671 on Pandemic
Harsh Vardhan spars with Manmohan Singh & Covid crisis forces Modi govt course correction
https://youtu.be/fD96yvnTpZQ?t=250
S Sukla 19th April 2021 - Its way of containing resultant mass alienation is to constantly keep fomenting paranoia and hatred. That's virtually its only card and also the trump card. Quite unfortunately, that appears to be effective. At least, as yet.
But, the second wave - with its stupendous and dizzyingly rising human cost, may, even then, eventually turn out to be a bit too much. Let's see and, in the meanwhile, keep doing whatever we can. Unless it changes rather sooner than later, it's doom for "India".
From: Mohammad Imran - State-owned vaccine manufacturers sit idle as India scours for jabs: Report While SII and Bharat Biotech, both private firms, struggle to meet India’s domestic requirement besides international obligations, the government is giving no job to seven public sector firms[image: State-owned vaccine manufacturers sit idle as India scours for jabs: Report]
Shocking as it may be, the Narendra Modi government did not consider any of its own institutes for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines...These include the Central Research Institute (CRI) in Himachal Pradesh; BCG Vaccine Laboratory (BCGVL), Pasteur Institute of India (PII) and HLL Biotech in Tamil Nadu; Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation Limited, Uttar Pradesh; Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited, Maharashtra; and Human Biologicals Institute, Telangana. The state-of-the-art Integrated Vaccine Complex based in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu has also been lying idle since its inauguration in 2016, says the Down to earth report.
..Before the Covid-19 pandemic, India was the world leader in vaccine production. But presently, China and USA are manufacturing more Covid-19 vaccines than India.
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
- Pandemic Preparedness: The Need for a Public Health — Not a Law Enforcement/National Security — Approach
- Spectacles and Politics
- Pettzman Effect & Vaccinations
- COVID political economy
- The Inequality Virus
- Impact of COVID19 on Urban Workers
- Anganwadis before Malls
- Gross Mismanagement of Covid 19 in India
- Post Covid NGO Blues
- Reimagining Futures: Peoples' agenda for a Post COVID economy
- How to Rebuild from the Disaster of Neoliberalism