Can someone offer some rational explanation over what is going on with India?

 

From nigh on 100,000 cases a few months ago,  and the threat of a huge catastrophe, they are now averaging around 12,000 cases a day !  This with a population of 1.4 billion people !!! 

 

Before anyone says - ''they are not testing'' - it's not true, they are testing on a mass scale. Hospitalisations are also very low in India. 

 

Anyone have a way of explanations? 

Testing is not on a mass scale relative to many other countries (it just seems so due to the large number of tests performed so far, 2nd highest after the US but this number has to be divided by 1.3 billion people). See for instance worldometer: India 132.000 tests/1 million people, Germany 418,000, US 823,000, UK 864,000. One potential problem is that an increasing number of tests in India are performed using antigen strips which may lead to an underestimation of cases  https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-india-tests/indias-high-use-of-antigen-tests-risks-underestimating-covid-19-spread-says-diagnostician-idUSKBN27D2LX?edition-redirect=uk. Even so, this cannot fully explain the apparent low incidence rate of COVID in India.

'Hospitalisations are very low in India'; indeed but 80% of people die at home in India and only 22% of deaths are medically certified. So many people do not go to a hospital, are not tested and the cause of death is often unclear. See this article on the apparent low COVID mortality rate in India: https://www.coronavirusandtheeconomy.com/question/indias-low-covid-19-fatality-rate-good-sign. So there is a general question about numbers (cases, deaths) coming from India as explained in this article. Further information on the decline in Indian numbers here:  https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/ columns/covid-19-deaths-india-6884231/. Some claim this decline in numbers is due to herd immunity https://www.sciencemag.org/news/ 2020/10/indias-covid-19-cases-have-declined-rapidly-herd-immunity-still-far-away-scientists-say but this seems highly unlikely. Rather it is possible that highly densely populated areas (like slums in Mumbai) have seen very high infection rates (so that not many additional  people will get infected there) and the decline is due to lower infection rates in the remaining lower population density areas in cities (and rural country).

3 hours ago, AmySeeker said:

Can someone offer some rational explanation over what is going on with India?

 

From nigh on 100,000 cases a few months ago,  and the threat of a huge catastrophe, they are now averaging around 12,000 cases a day !  This with a population of 1.4 billion people !!! 

 

Before anyone says - ''they are not testing'' - it's not true, they are testing on a mass scale. Hospitalisations are also very low in India. 

 

Anyone have a way of explanations? 

 

That's a very good point.  I wonder if age has anything to do with it.  Places like the UK seem to have an inexhaustible supply of aged, obese, or frail people.

 

 

8 hours ago, mommysboy said:

 

That's a very good point.  I wonder if age has anything to do with it.  Places like the UK seem to have an inexhaustible supply of aged, obese, or frail people.

 

 

 

That would not explain the very low infection rate. 

 

I'm watching the news and they are having massive farmers protests in Delhi - no social distancing, yet it doesn't appear covid is running rife.

 

Could it actually be Herd immunity? If there's anyone that's been to India - you know would know the conditions are perfect for a virus to spread rife.