
India announces nationwide lockdown to stop spread of coronavirus - JumpCrisscross
https://www.axios.com/india-coronavirus-lockdown-fd753cb9-efbd-45b0-9008-16d51272c961.html
======
surds
As an Indian, here's a more cautious perspective:

1\. I am going with the assumption that community transmission might have
started at some location; but with that assumption this 21-day lockdown
becomes an imperative and excellent step.

2\. Will people obey the lockdown? (This is not a curfew, as essential
services would be open.) Many people, sadly, would not. That is where the
sometimes-criticized high-handed approach of police and other agencies would
be useful.

3\. I am optimistic about this period. At the end of it, if nothing else, we
would have more data points to make thoughtful decisions about how to proceed
and what other measures need to be taken.

4\. Testing is being ramped up, and I hope it is an exponential ramp-up. Local
test kits are also approved and beginning production today.

As a nation with 4X the population of the USA, and 1/3rd the area, the
population density in India and particularly in the urban areas is off the
charts. Hence, the approach suggested in some other countries, like carrying
on with walks, exercises and other outdoor activities while practicing 'social
distancing', gets much more difficult.

It is nearly impossible to be outdoors in urban areas and not have people
nearby. As such, measures have to be very strict. I imagine the situation was
similar in Wuhan in China, and they had to impose a complete lockdown as well.

~~~
billfruit
I am more worried that the lockdown/curfew will be too stringent, and cause
essential services to be shutdown. Many grocery shops etc are closed, as of
now, there is no compulsion on them to remain open. Ideally, it would have
been better naming it a partial-lockdown and assure the population that
essential services shall be provided for without interruption.

~~~
surds
With my privileged position in having the freedom to sit at home and work
without interruptions, I can only try to be empathetic and imagine the
hardships hundreds of millions of people will face.

There is no compulsion that I know of, but most of these businesses have
associations and lobbies that will be dealing with the government and trying
to keep things open. I have no doubt there will be disruptions all over the
country. There are no precedents of such situations, nor would I expect any
kind of Standard Operating Procedures to be in place.

It's gonna be chaotic - but hopefully not deadly. And that is the important
thing.

Last few days, I have been thinking how disastrous a widespread infection
would be in India. I shudder thinking about the numbers if this goes out of
hand. A small percentage of 1.4 billion is a huge number. To avoid that,
frankly, I'd accept temporary draconian measures.

I have been preaching "Stay at home" to everyone in my circles who would
listen. Hope you do the same. :pray:

------
karambir
Few things I have seen in past couple days here in Delhi(which was locked down
earlier):

\- Many people are making excuses of getting groceries/milk/medicine to roam.

\- Some people are just treating it as picnic and roaming streets to see what
a lock-down looks like. Local police was perplexed with this thought.

\- People who are in essential services are having hard time to get to their
workplaces. For example: my sister is a Bio-medical engineer in local hospital
and she is not able to book a cab or take local public transport. Today I went
to drop her off and police stopped me twice to ask why I am out. We need to
somehow make this easier. So essential services and their support can
function.

~~~
120bits
My dad is a Doctor in U.P(state in India for people don't know) and he was on
its way to see a critical patient, he was stopped more than 3 times by local
police. Being Doctor and seeing a patient was not a good enough excuse, he
said. After few minutes of questioning they let him go. But I think the
Government should have some measures for this kind of situations.

~~~
weka
You'd think having credentials at hand would be a 10-second check.

What a sad way of handling things.

~~~
WeekSpeller
Ah! You don't know nothing about the Indian state we are discussing. It's
Uttar Pradhesh, sorta like Florida of India.

~~~
guru4consulting
more like West Virginia of India.. Florida is a decent place, not that bad.

~~~
econcon
What about Bihar then

------
gumby
You might think that in a country the size and diversity of India that such a
thing would be impossible to do. But I remember the curfew in 1984 after the
Indira Gandhi assassination and it was surprisingly widespread. And I remember
people helping each other in a frightening time.

Also newspapers continued to publish and be distributed.

Of course the country is so huge I only have my own experiences and that of
family members (I happened to be traveling alone that day so had my own
experiences).

~~~
throwaway123x2
I always see comments about how huge and ungovernable India is because of its
diversity... doesn't it make sense to break India down into more governable
nation-states then?

I read somewhere that there are districts in India with more people than the
entire population of Norway!

~~~
nradov
That would never work due to external threats. If northern India became a
separate nation state it would be vulnerable to invasion from China or
Pakistan due to lack of strategic depth and limited resources.

~~~
throwaway123x2
If you broke India down, and with it the Hindu vs Muslim farce, there would be
no reason for antagonism with Pakistan.

~~~
redisman
Wouldn't you just get a proxy buffer state like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria?
Doesn't sound like an improvement to the status quo.

~~~
throwaway123x2
None of those states make sense because they were built by colonialists
drawing lines on a map without regard for native concerns. If Indians
themselves sat down to divide India along actual ethno-cultural-linguistic
lines we'd end up with better results. I'm not saying it's likely or even
possible... just that if it were to happen, they might themselves be happier
and more prosperous.

I don't know what that would look like because I don't know India that well,
but I do know that the guys at work from Tamil Nadu are very different from
the guys from Northern India. It's not a Texas vs California difference, it's
a "we don't even have the same mother tongue" difference.

~~~
HNTA2020
>it's a "we don't even have the same mother tongue" difference.

What is wrong with that? Belgium and the Netherlands are successful peaceful
multilingual countries.

------
zapdrive
Punjab (the state I'm in atm) Police is handing out light punishment to anyone
found flouting the rules of the curfew (Punjab is one of the states which have
imposed full blown curfew instead of the lockdown).

Punishments include doing situps, holding ears, rolling around in the dirt,
making lines in the dirt with your nose, and light beating with batons.

While some may consider it a human rights violation, I think it's much better
than burdening the poor with criminal cases. In fact, in most of the cases
people prefer to get this light punishment instead of getting charged with a
crime.

~~~
kypro
Mandatory situps as a punishment sounds like a good idea honestly. I'd have no
issues police offering that as an alternative to a fine in the UK for petty
crimes.

Not so sure about the others though, but fair enough if it works for you guys.

~~~
dominotw
police also executes people they deem unworthy of wasting courts time.

proof: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
india-50682262](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50682262)

~~~
dang
" _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless you have
something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic
tangents._"

The parent comment had one foot on each iceberg, but this is completely
unmoored.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
dominotw
ok I was citing this as an example of slippery slope of this thought process

> I'd have no issues police offering that as an alternative to a fine in the
> UK for petty crimes

It was completly criticized even india. pretty sure its not controversial
flamewar.

Anyways. I understand. won't happen again.

------
billfruit
In general, though the government and police in India are acting with too
blunt a force in this issue. Like UK PM mentioned even the need for going out
of doors once per day for exercise, Indian PM says don't go out at all, which
isn't practicable at all, since virtually all home delivery systems have been
shut down (effectively, that is on paper essential services are to continue,
but there is not enough framework done for that in many parts of the country,
occasions where even the cops arrested the delivery people for curfew
violation, and even more incidents where they were beat up).

Similary some states only allowing trucks with essential commodities to enter
and exit. Now trucks coming with vegetables etc, often has to go back empty,
but state not allowing entry/exit of empty trucks, likewise myriad issues of
logistics are needed to be resolved.

~~~
codeisawesome
Home delivery systems have been shut down??

~~~
teatree
No - Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon, Flipkart, Grofers, Medlife, 1Mg, PharmEasy and
many more are functional, but at decreased capacity.

These services cater only to major cities though. The govt is looking to keep
supply lines of essentials open even in villages and remote towns.

------
Abishek_Muthian
There is no question of whether lockdown is needed or whether there was other
alternatives.

But as usual with everything else, it's the poor who are going to be affected
the most.

• Daily wage workers, as it implies should earn every day to feed their
family. They have already faced the wrath of COVID-19 for past few weeks due
to stoppage of certain work, now there will a complete halt.

•States do have public distribution schemes to distribute food ingredients at
subsidised rate, certain states have announced making them free; yet there are
several labourers who have travelled outside their states and they wouldn't be
eligible to get it.

•Those who can stock up supplies have already did, in-spite of govt.
requesting not to do so. Again, those who listened to the request (or) do not
have the purchasing capacity would be the most affected in the coming days.

•Essential services personnel e.g. Garbage disposal, health workers, utilities
etc. should be provided PPE; unfortunately most garbage disposal/sewage
cleaners don't have gloves or masks even on normal days in most areas.

•Even if Govt. decides to send money to the poor directly, many don't have
Bank Accounts.

Edit: It seems there was a need to clarify poor. For the sake of discussion,
let's consider people below poverty limit($14-$17/month) as poor; i.e. 22%
according to 2012 statistics but as you can see the limit itself is set very
low when compared to standards of a developed country.

~~~
devmunchies
>it's the poor who are going to be affected the most.

since there's more poor than rich, thats just statistics. if you select 1000
random people, most of them will be poor.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Edited to include BPL as definition of poor.

------
aphextron
The US federal government has dug the graves of a million Americans by not
doing the same already. Reality has a terrible way of smacking you in the face
whether you accept it or not.

~~~
rhino369
Nationwide lockdowns don't really work unless you are trying to totally
contain it, which is likely impossible in the US, Europe, and India.

Each metro area and state should lock-down when they think they are going to
get near their max ICU capacity (of course taking into account that hospital
load lags by 2-3 weeks).

It doesn't do any good to lock down a city that doesn't have any community
spread yet. It's just pure economic pain without any benefit.

~~~
wool_gather
There's no way to know that there is community spread without comprehensive
testing.

In order to stop transmission, infected people need to be quarantined. If you
have no idea which individuals are infected...the (incredibly painful, yes)
alternative is _everyone_.

------
danans
It will be interesting to see if India is able to be effective in this
lockdown. Unlike China, centralized control has been limited in recent
history, even at the local level.

But as living standards have risen, some people have developed civic sense.
Also, on the individual, family, and community level, there are many
traditional practices that are similar to social distancing that, though they
have some questionable origins in repressive social structures.

At least they are not in denial anymore.

~~~
billfruit
Yes, but people are very afraid of police and authority in India, so Indian
citizens can be made to comply if the police is deployed in force.

Where I think it would falter is in keeping the essential supplies running.
Even todays PM speech contained no indication that essential services will
have to be running. Without that lockdown could turn ugly.

~~~
quantummkv
There was an official document sent out on the official social media and
traditional media channels that answers all these questions [1]. td:lr,
essential services will continue to work

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1242476674710560770](https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1242476674710560770)

~~~
lotsofpulp
Is there no government website? How are people supposed to verify if something
is “official”?

~~~
quantummkv
There is. But due to the unique social makeup of the internet in India, a lot
of people can use social media on mobiles rather that visit websites. It's
quicker to use social media for such notifications

------
koopuluri
Currently in Bangalore. The one day curfew on Sunday was promising. Just a day
before the curfew, you could find large groups of people playing cricket,
basketball, going on walks, etc. That's mostly stopped, with the police
strictly forcing people to disperse and go back home. A neighboring state
chief minister just mentioned during a press meeting that people will be shot
at sight if they leave their homes... without debating whether it's healthy to
issue orders like that, I'm relatively confident that the quarantine will be
executed effectively.

My concern though: the economic pressure of staying indoors will make a 3 week
long (minimum) quarantine very tough. Based on certain sources, more than half
the workforce are daily wage labors. Every day they don't work, they're not
paid and they don't have insurances / safety nets to leverage.

Unless there's an influx of aid (from the government or otherwise) to help
these folks pay for food / rent / pay back loans, etc. in the short term,
there will be significant suffering, likely riot attempts and suicides. I'm
already feeling significant panic from daily wage worker groups. There needs
to be some kind of aid announcement ASAP to help them cope.

------
sailtama
Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health
Emergencies Programme, said that large, densely populated countries such as
India will determine “the future of this pandemic.” It is “exceptionally
important” that India take aggressive steps to contain its spread

------
swebs
India has also just approved the use of Hydroxychloroquine as a preventative
measure with a doctor's prescription.

[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/bio...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/pharmaceuticals/indias-
covid-task-force-recommends-hydroxychloroquine-for-high-risk-patients-with-
strict-riders/articleshow/74774540.cms)

------
ravivyas
I would like to give everyone a different perspective of things

1\. As an Indian why do I believe community transmission has not started or
rampant: Because our hospitals are not overrun with people with breathing
issues

2\. Is this the right thing to do? Well, we don't have the capacity to treat
the entire population, this we need to "cut the curve" rather than flatten it.
Will this work? Your guess is as good as mine.

3\. Will people obey the curfew: I really hope so

4\. Should we test more? Sure maybe, but here is the thing we can't test
someone once and be done with it, constant testing will be needed, and at our
size, we can't do it, which is why I believe ICMR started with testing
patients with some symptoms. Also, if people get the test, and they are
negative, it might feel like a license to go back to regular life, which is a
risk.

We are in uncharted waters. I really hope we can get to some scale in
temperature surveillance at scale in the near future.

~~~
lisper
> I believe community transmission has not started or rampant: Because our
> hospitals are not overrun with people with breathing issues

That is a serious, potentially fatal (literally!) mistake. One of the things
that makes covid-19 so nasty is that it is transmissible long before the onset
of symptoms.

~~~
ahelwer
This is still up in the air. The WHO says that, while there are documented
cases of pre-symptomatic transmission, it is not the main driver of infection
like with the flu, see: [https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-
general-...](https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-
opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---3-march-2020)

"First, COVID-19 does not transmit as efficiently as influenza, from the data
we have so far.

With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers of
transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19.

Evidence from China is that only 1% of reported cases do not have symptoms,
and most of those cases develop symptoms within 2 days."

This report is from March 3rd, so maybe our understanding has evolved.

~~~
ignoramous
> _This report is from March 3rd, so maybe our understanding has evolved._

A speech from the director-general. Not a report?

> _With influenza, people who are infected but not yet sick are major drivers
> of transmission, which does not appear to be the case for COVID-19._

This is the same WHO that claimed _" no evidence of human to human
transmission"_ not long ago. Regardless, iirc, the _R0_ for SARS-CoV-2 is
estimated at 2.5 to 3.5, much higher than Influenza's, which is at 1.8. It
doesn't matter if SARS-CoV-2 is spread by the infected yet not sick, because
the _R0_ is significantly higher, plus the incubation period is too damn long
and there's no therapeutic treatment nor a vaccine.

When the dust settles, and more conclusive and complete research is done to
learn about the virus, we will have all the answers, but given the current
state of affairs, imo, it is highly unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 is any less
infectious than Influenza.

~~~
ahelwer
The method of infection matters. Singapore and Taiwan have done amazingly well
specifically because they enforce quarantine of _infected_ individuals along
with various levels of testing to identify those individuals, for example
people having their temperature checked outside public buildings.

~~~
ignoramous
Fair point.

Does WHO reference any studies that prove asymptomatic folks don't infect
others?

If you happen to know, what explains the higher _R0_ and higher rate of
infection world-wide?

> _...for example people having their temperature checked outside public
> buildings._

That isn't bullet-proof, tbh. India saw instances of people popping
paracetamols to work around temperature checks.

~~~
ahelwer
Nothing is bulletproof, all we can do is take actions to reduce probability of
transmission and the actions chosen should target the greatest drivers of
transmission.

I am not aware of any studies but on the other hand it would be incredibly
easy for cases of asymptomatic spread to actually have been infected by a
symptomatic person, in a chaotic environment it's difficult to get good data.

------
lordnacho
How does healthcare work there? Is there a free-to-use system? Insurance
based? Someone tell us.

~~~
danans
80% of the population is uninsured [1]. They go to underresourced government
or religious-charity run hospitals when severely ill but otherwise have
limited access to medical care by western standards.

The upper middle class increasingly have insurance like people in the US, and
the very wealthy pay for treatment directly. Both groups seek care at private
hospitals that have equipment and staff that would rival those in wealthy
countries - often set up and funded by Indian physicians abroad.

My family have to invested in such hospitals and I have toured them. No doubt
they do charitable work on the margins, but they likely can't scale to a
pandemic.

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_India](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_India)

~~~
hiyer
There is a pseudo-insurance scheme called Ayushman Bharat[1] which is freely
available for people below a specific income limit.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayushman_Bharat_Yojana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayushman_Bharat_Yojana)

~~~
legolas2412
That is however extremely underfunded, and has high rates of fraud.

~~~
danans
It's also very new (started in September 2018), so it probably has nowhere
near the institutional strength or depth (to say nothing of the funding) to
deal with a pandemic of this scale. According to the wiki page:

"It covers 3 days of hospitalisation and 15 days of post hospitalisation,
including diagnostic care and expenses on medicines."

3 days of hospitalization even with the best facilities is probably nowhere
near enough for a serious COVID19 case.

Then again, health insurance providers in the US also recently balked quite
strongly at the US administration's suggestion that they cover the full cost
of COVID19 treatment, including co-pays:

[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trump-
is...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ap-fact-check-trump-is-wrong-
about-insurers-covering-coronavirus)

How this all is paid for - and the delicate question about who has the right
to the best treatment (those who can pay?) - are big issues that will soon be
faced by health services and governments in all societies, whether wealthy or
developing.

------
geggam
I work with some Indians and heard them talk about kids in the street playing
"corona tag" ....

Perhaps a lockdown might prevent those sorts of things ?

------
rilindo
Given the huge reliance on outsourced IT labor in India, I would curious to
see how it would affect operations in the West. The pandemic is already
affecting school's and testing centers that rely on online proctoring based in
India - most of them not available at least until the end of the week (this is
before the announcement).

~~~
burntoutfire
It has already affected a major bank I work for - we have a lot of outsourced
ops people in India and as of today, they're forbidden from coming to the
office (while our policies forbid them from working from home, as they are
contractors). The management is frantically scrambling to replace them with
other random employees with zero hand-over. It's a mess.

~~~
sbmthakur
I am in India and work full-time a US-based firm. We weren't permitted to work
from home by our SOC department. But due to this situation we are being
allowed to do it.

------
ttul
Interestingly, Modi has not specified yet how people are supposed to get
supplies. That should go over well.

~~~
durovo
This is being handled at the state level. Message copied from my city's
facebook page: Due to corona virus threat there will be complete curfew in
xxxx on 25th march 2020 also. public is requested to remain in their homes and
not allowed to come out.

However milk, vegetables and other essential goods will be supplied to them at
their home door to door by milkman, vendors and rehries etc. we are taking
help of best price shop, swiggy, zomoto and other online companies and they
will also be supplying grocery items door to door.

but when they reach in your locality , people should not crowd the vendor
vehicle and should wait for it to come to their home. they should maintain the
distancing norm of 5 feet while making purchase from them. all of them must
wear mask and only one person should come out of the home to purchase from the
cart. try to make payment online as far as possible.

General public is not allowed to come out of their homes during curfew. if
anybody requires any pass to move in the curfew he should apply in the DC or
CP office onlone.

However following persons can come out without passes during curfewbut some ID
card of the Individual is Mandatory.

1\. Doctors & other Hospital Staff of Govt and Private Hospitals. 2\.
Electricity and water supply Department Employees. 3\. Municipal Corporation
Staff. 4\. ATMs/Banks. 5\. Private Security Guards going to duty in uniform.
6\. Patients having Medical Emergency cases. 7\. Telecom Company Employees on
duty during office hours. 8\. All types of Goods/Fodder/Supplies carrying
vehicles including Interstate goods vehilces. 9\. Patrol Pumps (06:00 AM to
08:00 PM) 10\. Hawkers of Recognised News papers (05:00 AM to 08:00 AM) 11\.
LPG delivery vehicles for door to door supply (06:00 AM to 08:00 PM) 12\. Milk
Plant vehicles and their Employees on duty.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Is that quoted verbatim or did you translate it? It doesn't sound like
language government officials would use.

~~~
durovo
Quoted verbatim actually. This post is by the police, not the government

------
billfruit
Ultimately I think this has been a failure of containment and testing in
India. The airport based checks has been abysmal, with reportedly much
confusion and overcrowding. I wonder many of the people who got the virus got
them in Indian airports at the time of their entry.

Also the quarantine legal framework is also no clear. In US people in federal
quarantine are issued a quarantine form, indicating the duration, location and
terms of medical review with automatic reviews every 72 hours. I have not
heard of similar formalized quarantine scheme in India, rather much confusion
abounds.

------
jansan
This is just a slightly off-topic thought that I need to get off my chest,
sorry for that.

Some time ago I read that Walt Disney (the person) was obsessed with washing
his hands. He allegedly washed his hands every few minutes. I never gave this
much attention, but if you consider that he was sixteen years old at the time
of the Spanish Flu, and if you take a look at us now, this behavior suddenly
becomes much more understandable. Let's all try to keep sane during in these
strange times.

------
korethr
A somewhat tangentally tech related question: Since (it seems that) all
support is now done out of Indian call centers, how badly is this going to
affect the ability to get support when needed?

As an example, should I expect support from, say, Cisco or Verizon (two
companies that I know from recent experience are running their support orgs
out of India), to simply up and cease to exist? Will it somehow get more
frustratingly difficult than it is already Or should I expect business as
usual?

------
hiram112
Is working from home a possibility for the tens of millions of developers and
call center workers?

How's India's internet access at homes? I lived in S. India about a decade
ago, and the internet was okay at the various IT offices, but it seemed a lot
of office workers used their work PCs for a lot of personal business like
banking and media (i.e. after hours), and I assumed this was because access
was poor in home residences.

But maybe it has improved in the last decade.

~~~
econcon
It's now better, I am currently in India with 500mbps uplink through local
ISP.

------
known
Indians are practicing Untouchability for 2700 years
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda)

#SocialDistancing is not different/difficult
[http://archive.vn/bEMTt](http://archive.vn/bEMTt)

------
manoji
Indian here in the midst of things .Overall I think this is the best possible
decision modi can take and the public (here in Hyderabad at least) are taking
this very seriously , compared to a week ago I can hardly see a single person
on the road . Police are there at almost all major signals checking for
reasons why people are outside.

------
iamgopal
The reaction is good, in a way that it buy government and other institutions
time to work out better way to tackle this emergency. I think other countries
are not so keen to take such actions, why is that ? What should be better
solution in long run for the world as a whole ?

~~~
billfruit
But it required a huge amount of continued police presence and threat of
vacuous criminal action on top of peoples natural fear for life to achieve
that. Police has been using force on people on the last 2,3 days. That would
be deemed unacceptable in most advanced countries.

~~~
sbmthakur
Such draconian measures had to be used as many people aren't exactly serious
in India. There are people who are using this situation for "family get-
togethers" and other types of fun activities. The PM literally had to plead
everyone to remain at their homes.

------
Amygaz
The whole thing about warmer region being less infected is still very much
controversial, and not backed by any strong science.

India, like other warmer regions, has not been very active in the diagnostic.
This is also what explains the low numbers you in Africa, Middle-East, and
part of Asia.

Right now there is only one way that we currently have to stop this, and it is
to do it Wuhan-style. Full lockdown for 8 weeks.

And forget about chloroquinone, studies published over the past 2 days are
showing that it doesn't make a dent if you are already infected.

~~~
selimthegrim
Louisiana is not slouching in number of infected cases so that should put paid
to warm weather hypothesis

~~~
Amygaz
What are you talking about? Louisiana as a over a 1100 cases and they went in
shutdown mode yesterday!

~~~
selimthegrim
Is not slouching meaning they have plenty, so warm weather is not a panacea. I
live here, I know.

------
tcbawo
Culturally (I realize India is multi-cultural), are Indian people more likely
to wear masks when out in public during times of a pandemic?

~~~
durovo
Haven't seen it ever happen before. But this time is different. I am seeing
almost no one without a mask outside.

------
LockAndLol
It's a cute thought. Maybe this will drive India towards improving their
internet, healthcare and infrastructure. One can dream...

------
thibran
India, a country where today 18 million people live in slavery – which is the
highest number of slaves in the world – will probably not handle COVID-19
well.

As someone who has been in India for some time, everything else than a
catastrophe would astonish me.

Source: [https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/06/02/india-has-
the...](https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/06/02/india-has-the-most-
people-living-in-modern-slavery/)

~~~
thecleaner
This is a definite troll post but lets analyze. You posted a single source for
a pretty non-sensical comment. The link posts to a study by the Walk Free
foundation - a foundation owned by an Australian billionaire who made his
fortune in mining and who once ran a 38M AUD campaign to subvert a government
imposed tax. Ironically this foundation publishes a Global Slavery Index.
Thank you for the free education.

~~~
thibran
Slavery is a huge problem in India. Who did burn the bricks of your house →
there is a high chance in India that they where fabricated by slaves. If you
are an Indian you know that. You also know that those numbers are always
estimates, but they are not totally off.

I know Indians are proud, very proud, but seen from an outside view the Indian
society has a lot of problems. You can deny it, but you can't hide it, there
is just too much wrong.

India has a lot of beautiful things to offer. I just hope that not too many
people will suffer there.

------
ryandrake
> Modi has claimed that there are not yet signs of community spread

Do they have any reason to believe that there's something special about the
borders of India that cause the virus _not_ to spread inside it? If not, this
is an irrelevant observation. It's like jumping off a cliff and saying "there
are not yet signs of the ground."

~~~
middleclick
They are not doing enough testing, so of course they don't know and that's why
the numbers are low.

~~~
iamgopal
And they know it hence the reaction.

------
nostromo
If we don’t have a plan for what to do when quarantine ends, we’re just
kicking the can down the road.

So... what’s going to be different about our response in April or May or when
people come out of quarantine? Or are we just hoping it goes away?

Personally I think allowing the young and healthy to interact makes sense.
They generally don’t need hospitalization and they can start to develop
antibodies and our heard immunity.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _we’re just kicking the can down the road_

Google "flatten the curve" [1]. The point of a quarantine isn't to stop the
infection. It's to slow it down so it doesn't overwhelm healthcare
infrastructure.

Given India's population and ICU capacity, a fast spread could kill tens of
millions.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/science/coronavirus-
curve...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/science/coronavirus-curve-
mitigation-infection.html)

~~~
nostromo
I should have anticipated this response as it’s become as much of a meme as
has “it’s just a flu.”

We’re flattening the curve too much here in Seattle. There are 100 new cases
identified each day.

So we’ve flattened the curve to last... 60 years of quarantine.

We need to curve the curve. But instead they announced more restrictions.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _There is 100 new cases identified each day_

Out of those tested. A minuscule fraction of the population is being tested.
Case count is massively undrepresecnts the current infected and thus future
near-morbid. The evidence for this is in the increasing case count even among
the sample being tested.

China is getting back to normal life after a seemingly-effective program of
quarantine and testing. Korea and Taiwan look similar. Refusing to quarantine
early enough, long enough and resolutely enough leaves us looking like Italy.
Far more damaging and chaotic for the economy and civic society.

~~~
nostromo
Actually testing has gone up exponentially in Seattle.

But we’re still finding a flat line of infections. Which suggests it’s slowed
dramatically.

That sounds like good news, but we’re seemingly past containment, so it does
seem like we’re kicking the can down the road.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _testing has gone up exponentially in Seattle_

Still an immaterial fraction of the population being tested.

> _we’re seemingly past containment_

Containment has failed. Doing nothing after containment is a good way to
decimate one's population and cause it lasting economic harm.

------
kumarm
CoronaVirus So far affected Rich Countries significantly higher than poor
countries (Only China where it originated and Iran are exceptions).

One Theory is people in rich countries have less immunity. (Africa, India etc
have better immunity since the countries are used to poor hygienic conditions
since young ages and develop better immunity).

I added Per Capita income of the country to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource
Center Chart: [https://imgur.com/bbCzab2](https://imgur.com/bbCzab2)

Edit: I see down votes. Note that Travel between Vietnam and China has been
significant (similar to west) but Vietnam is not severely impacted.

~~~
Jagat
This usually doesn't work with novel viruses.

A more plausible explanation is that chinese immigration into India is tiny.
So we're one or two degree removed from the original epicenter. But it's only
a matter of time, now that the epicenter has moved to the west.

