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#Post#: 168--------------------------------------------------
4 Horsemen 1: Pestilence
DIR By: RE
Date: April 30, 2021, 2:28 am
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[center]
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HTML https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/india/india-covid-deaths-crematoriums-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
As India's crematoriums overflow with Covid victims, pyres burn
through the night
By Jessie Yeung, Clarissa Ward and Rishabh Pratap, CNN
HTML https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210427121847-01-india-coronavirus-0427-exlarge-169.jpg
Updated 10:35 PM ET, Thu April 29, 2021
India continues to see record high coronavirus cases
#Post#: 238--------------------------------------------------
How India descended into Covid-19 chaos
DIR By: RE
Date: May 5, 2021, 5:04 am
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Color me not surprised.
Nice breeding ground for a new more lethal mutation also.
I see Dead People.
HTML https://media0.giphy.com/media/DvtsYOKrqPZg4/giphy.gif
RE
HTML https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56977653
How India descended into Covid-19 chaos
HTML https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/16757/production/_118319919_gettyimages-1232633764.jpg
By Vikas Pandey
BBC News, Delhi
Published
3 hours ago
Related Topics
Coronavirus pandemic
Relatives of a Covid-19 victim mourn outside Batra hospital, in
Tughlakabad, on May 1, 2021 in New Delhi, India.image
copyrightGetty Images
On Monday, a senior official from India's federal government
told journalists that there was no shortage of oxygen in Delhi
or anywhere else in the country.
As he spoke, several small hospitals - only a few miles from
where he stood in the capital - were sending out desperate
messages about them running out of oxygen, putting patients'
lives at risk.
The chief doctor of one of the hospitals - a specialist
paediatric facility - told the BBC that "our hearts were in our
mouths" because of the risk of children dying. They got supplies
just in time, after a local politician intervened.
Delhi oxygen crisis deepens as more patients die
Anger rises as Covid rages in Modi's constituency
A visual guide to the Covid crisis in India
What is the India Covid variant?
And yet, the federal government has repeatedly insisted that
there was no shortage. "We are only facing problems in its
transportation," Piyush Goyal, a senior official from India's
home ministry, said.
He also advised hospitals to "ensure judicious use of oxygen as
per the guidelines". Several doctors who have spoken to the BBC
say they are giving oxygen only to patients who need it, but
there is not enough.
ADVERTISEMENT
But experts say that the shortage of oxygen is just one of the
problems which shows both federal and state governments were not
prepared, having failed to do enough to stop or minimise the
damage of the second wave.
A patient getting oxygen at a charitable organisationimage
copyrightGetty Images
Warnings have in fact been repeatedly issued, including:
In November, a parliamentary standing committee on health
said there was an inadequate supply of oxygen and "grossly
inadequate" government hospital beds
In February, several experts told the BBC they feared an
impending 'Covid tsunami'
In early March, an expert group of scientists, set up by the
government, warned officials about a more contagious variant of
coronavirus spreading in the country - only for no significant
containment measures to be taken, one scientist from the group
told the BBC. The government has not made any comment on the
allegations
Despite this, on 8 March, the country's health minister
announced that India was in the "endgame of the pandemic".
So, where did it go so wrong?
The basics
In January and February, the national number of daily cases fell
to under 20,000 from peaks of around 90,000 in September last
year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared Covid beaten, and
all places of public gathering opened.
And soon, people were not adhering to Covid safety protocols,
thanks in part to confused messaging from the top.
While Mr Modi asked people to wear masks and follow social
distancing in his public messages, he addressed large unmasked
crowds during his election campaigns in five states. A number of
his ministers were also seen addressing large public gatherings
without wearing masks. The Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival - which
attracts millions - was also allowed to go ahead.
A woman receives oxygen via a maskimage copyrightGetty Images
"There was complete disconnect between what they practised and
what they preached," says public policy and health systems
expert Dr Chandrakant Lahariya.
Prominent virologist Dr Shahid Jameel says "the government just
did not see the second wave coming and started celebrating too
early".
But there is more to the story: the devastation has also exposed
the underfunding and neglect of the public healthcare system in
India.
The heart-breaking scenes that have been witnessed outside
hospitals - people dying without getting treatment - shows the
grim reality of India's healthcare infrastructure.
As one expert puts it, India's "public health infrastructure was
always broken, the rich and the middle class are just finding
out". Those who could afford it have always relied on private
hospitals for treatment, while the poor struggle to get even a
doctor's appointment.
Recent schemes, like health insurance and subsidised medicines
for the poor, are not helping because very little has been done
in decades to increase the number of medical staff or hospitals.
A graph comparing countries healthcare spending
Presentational white space
India's healthcare spending, including both private and public,
has been around 3.6% of GDP for the past six years, the lowest
percentage in the five Brics countries: Brazil spent the most at
9.2%, followed by South Africa at 8.1%, Russia at 5.3% and China
at 5% in 2018.
Developed nations spend a far higher proportion of their GDP on
health. In 2018, for instance, spending in the US was 16.9% and
Germany 11.2%. Even smaller nations like Sri Lanka (3.76%) and
Thailand (3.79%) spend more than India.
And India has fewer than 10 doctors per 10,000 people, and in
some states the figure is less than five.
Preparation
Several "empowered committees" were last year looking at the
preparations needed to tackle the next coronavirus wave, so
experts are baffled by the shortages of oxygen, beds and drugs.
"When the first wave was tapering, that's when they should have
prepared for a second wave and assumed the worst. They should
have taken an inventory of oxygen and [the drug] remdesivir and
then ramped up manufacturing capacity," Mahesh Zagade, former
health secretary of Maharashtra state, told the BBC.
Officials say India produces enough oxygen to meet the spike in
demand but transportation was the problem. Experts say this
should have been fixed much earlier.
The government is now running special trains carrying oxygen
from one state to another and stopping use of oxygen in
industries - but only after many patients died because of a lack
of oxygen.
A Covid-19 patient waits for a bed outside Lok Nayak Jai Prakash
(LNJP) hospital, on May 3, 2021 in New Delhi, India.image
copyrightGetty Images
image captionVery ill patients have been stuck outside hospitals
as they wait for beds to become available
"The outcome has been that desperate family members are spending
thousands of rupees to secure an oxygen cylinder on the black
market and then stand for hours in a queue to get it filled,"
points out Dr Lahariya.
Meanwhile, those who can afford it are also paying hefty amounts
to procure drugs like remdesivir and tocilizumab.
An executive from a pharmaceutical company which manufactures
remdesivir said "demand had dried up" in January and February.
"If the government had placed an order, we would have stockpiled
and there wouldn't have been any shortage. We have ramped up
production but demand has grown significantly," he said.
In contrast, the southern state of Kerala planned for the surge
in advance. Dr A Fathahudeen, who is part of the state's Covid
taskforce, says there was no shortage of oxygen in the state as
necessary steps were taken in October last year.
A woman seen with an oxygen cylinder, outside a refilling
station at Lajpat Nagar, on May 3, 2021 in New Delhi, Indiaimage
copyrightGetty Images
image captionRelatives of patients have been refilling oxygen
cylinders themselves
"We also procured sufficient stock of remdesivir and tocilizumab
and other drugs well in advance. We also have a surge plan in
place to tackle any exponential rise in the numbers in the
coming weeks," he says.
Mr Zagade says other states should have also taken similar steps
"to avoid the suffering".
"Learning means someone else has done it and you can do it now,
but that means it will take time," the former health secretary
for Maharashtra said.
But time is running out as the second wave is now spreading to
villages where healthcare systems are not equipped to deal with
the surge.
Prevention
Genome sequencing of the virus is an important step in
identifying new variants that could be more infectious and
deadly. The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Consortia (INSACOG) was
set up last year and it brought together 10 labs in the country.
But the group reportedly struggled to get funding initially.
Virologist Dr Jameel says India started seriously looking at
mutations fairly late, with sequencing efforts only "properly
started" in mid-February 2021.
India is sequencing just over 1% of all samples at the moment.
"In comparison, the UK was sequencing at 5-6% at the peak of the
pandemic. But you can't build such capacity overnight," he said.
However, India's main hope was always vaccination.
A woman taking a selfie while getting vaccinatedimage
copyrightGetty Images
image captionThis woman wanted to record the moment of
vaccination
"Any public health specialist will tell you there is no
practical way to strengthen an already broken public healthcare
system in a matter of months," one woman, whose family runs a
large private hospital in Delhi, told the BBC.
"The best and most effective alternative to battle Covid was to
vaccinate the population as quickly as possible so the majority
wouldn't need hospital care and hence not overburden the
healthcare system."
India initially wanted 300 million people vaccinated by July,
"but it seems the government did not do enough planning to
secure vaccine supply to run the programme", Dr Lahariya says.
"On top of it, it has opened the vaccination for all adults
without securing vaccine supplies."
So far, only about 26 million people have been fully vaccinated
out of a population of 1.4 billion, and about 124 million have
received a single dose. India has millions more doses on order,
but still far short of what it actually needs.
The federal government needs 615 million doses to vaccinate
everyone above the age of 45 - about 440 million people. There
are 622 million people between the age of 18 and 44, and 1.2
billion doses are required to vaccinate them.
India's vaccine shortage: The wait gets longer
The government has also cancelled exports, reneging on
international commitments.
The government has enlisted other firms like Biological E and
the state-run Haffkine Institute to produce vaccines. It has
also given credit support of $609m to the Serum Institute of
India, which produces the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab which is being
made in India as Covishield, to ramp up production.
But that funding should have come earlier, Dr Lahariya says,
saving precious lives. "It will take months before we have
enough vaccines to speed up the programme. In the meantime,
millions will continue to be at risk of getting Covid," he adds.
Experts say it is ironic that India is known as the world's
pharmacy and it is now facing shortages of vaccines and drugs.
All of this, Dr Lahariya says, should serve as wake-up call for
for both federal and state governments, which should invest
drastically more in the healthcare sector because "this
definitely is not the last pandemic we will have to fight
against".
"The future pandemic may come earlier than any model can
predict," he says.
media captionWhat it's like working in an emergency room in
India, as its devastating second Covid wave continues
Related Topics
#Post#: 266--------------------------------------------------
Re: 4 Horsemen 1: Pestilence
DIR By: Eddie
Date: May 11, 2021, 8:49 am
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I’ve said from the beginning that Occam’s Razor says COVID came
from one of the Wuhan labs. It’s the only explanation that fits
all the known facts.
I read every article I could find from the get-go (and watched a
tone of videos), and the only arguments ever made that said
different were appeals to authority, i.e., a “most experts
agree” POV, which wasn’t even true when the MSM reported it, and
is far less true now.
This article is the best one so far, period. It shows the way
the shills in the MSM were willing to let the guilty parties in
the corporate world spin their narrative of misinformation. The
labs were in China.....but the money was from the US. The MSM
cover story is a big lie.
HTML https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/
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