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Covid-19 Ravages India and It’s Far Worse Than Reported

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39 comments on Covid-19 Ravages India and It’s Far Worse Than Reported

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Recent Stats

  • Reuters: In the past 24 hours, India added 326,098 new infections, taking its tally to 24.37 million, with 3,890 deaths, for a toll of 266,207, health ministry data shows. But the slow growth may also reflect test rates that are at their lowest since May 9.
  • During the past week, the south Asian nation has added about 1.7 million new cases and more than 20,000 deaths in a second wave of infections that has overwhelmed hospitals and medical staff.
  • Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS Hospital in Delhi warned that secondary infections like mucormycosis or “black fungus” were adding to India’s mortality
  • Police are patrolling the banks of the Ganges in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh to stop any dumping of corpses in the river, a government official said.
  • Bloomberg: Covid Kills Over 1,000 Bank Employees as Virus Ravages India.
  • With more than 24 million people sickened in India and over 266,200 dead amid the world’s fastest-growing outbreak, bulk of Indian states are in a lockdown with strict stay-at-home orders.
  • C.H. Venkatachalam, general secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association — the largest body of bank workers — told the moneycontrol.com website that 1,200 employees had died due to the virus. “Not all banks are forthcoming in sharing the details and compensation policies for the families of those who died due to this virus,” Venkatachalam said.
  • India, which is facing a severe vaccine shortage, has administered more than 180 million Covid shots so far. At this rate, it will take a projected 2.5 years to cover 75% of the population with a two-dose vaccine, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker

There was a report that nearly 2,000 bodies had been pulled from the river in the past week but the government denies the report.

Far Worse Than Reported

The stats seem grim and they are, but it’s far worse than reported.

Q: How do we know this?
A: Look at the lead chart, then think.

India has a population of 1.39 billion vs the US at 333 million.

Think about sanitary conditions in India. Think about population density in cities. Think about the caste system. 

Look at the tests per population in India vs the US. Think about the vaccination rate. 

India Math 

If the death rate in India was the same as the US, we can run the following calculation:

X / 1,391,753,332 = 559,313 / 332,685,557

X = 2,339,324

India reports 266,229 deaths. 

If India had the same number of deaths per population as the US, then it would have over 2.3 million deaths.

Death Rate

Q: Is it reasonable to assume India has a death rate as low or lower than the US?
A: No, not even close 

It’s hard to know what the correct factor might be, but given sanitary conditions, density, lack of testing, etc.,  somewhere between 2X and 10X is a reasonable idea.

That would put the Covid-19 deaths in India between 4.6 million and 23 million vs the reported 266 thousand.

Addendum 

Mish

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kram
kram
2 years ago
I simply cannot understand this spurious claims of deaths by comparing 2 wholly different populations in terms of their general level of immunity as though they are homogeneous and are equivalent.
Even in the first wave, the death rate in India was far lower and this is not a recent phenomenon. It is well known for decades now that, given the sanitary levels (and thus the consequent low immunity) in the US, people there are sitting ducks for any disease. Places like India, people have significantly higher levels of immunity, especially when it comes to severity leading to death.
These kind of anecdotal information being round-tripped infinite times around social media hugely amplifies the numbers and misrepresents the real data.
The biggest problem is, sweeping claims being made with not a shred of real and consistent data and coupled with hoaky computations.
For example, the total of 2000 bodies discovered across 1100 kms along the banks of the Ganges across 2 states amounts to one half of one day;s national death count. This same misssing data was bumped up on one day during wave one on 17 June 2020 and it made little difference to the overall trend.
There is no doubt that there is a lot of confusion about the data right now.
You can either do data based analysis or do sensational, over the top reporting. You can’t do them selectively according to your preference.
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
Reply to  kram
Some (and I do not mean people reading and commenting on this blog) in the media are using that as a pretext for pushing vaccination agenda.
I mean, these vaccines were met with incredible skepticism by the medical profession. In Germany, at least 25% of the doctors said they do not want these vaccines (mRNA genetic therapy). And more than half of the nurses (OK, they may not have in-depth studies but most likely were influenced by doctors here and there). These numbers are absolutely incredible.
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JamesBKK26
JamesBKK26
2 years ago
You can run the same calculations for China who only reported a total of around 90,000 cases and 4,600 deathes. Total BS!
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MumbaiKar
MumbaiKar
2 years ago
My native village in rural Maharashtra is reporting a death daily. Before Covid they had one death in say 3 months.
None of the dying are qualified as Covid deaths. 
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
There absolutely is a reason (multiple reasons actually) why Indian death rates would not track American rates.
  • Most Indian people (in the country side, outside urban elites) are too poor to be fat.
    POOF. 80% less risk of severe disease outcomes right there.
  • Far lower proportion of people staying in nursing homes which have contributed 40% of the deaths.
    Far smaller proportion of geriatric population.
  • There is not the same seasonal pattern of respiratory disease transmission (tied to absolute humidity)
  • Large proportion of the people live rurally and spend little time indoors.
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WATERWIZ
WATERWIZ
2 years ago
Indians uses a lot of HCQuinine as a prophylactic against malaria.  This tends to reduce the effects of C19, or even eliminate it altogether.  The death rate is presently near 200 per million, or one of the lowest in the world.  US rate is near 1500/million.
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Cocoa
Cocoa
2 years ago
This is incredible since India usually manufactures a lot of the worlds pharma. Like NY, the density and pollution and carrier vectors(rats, smog) are extensive. I would start buying land outside of cities as this will go on and on and on forever
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FromBrussels
FromBrussels
2 years ago
…at least they can afford 25000 death per day, can t they ?  8mln deaths/year on a insane 1,4 bln is PEANUTS ….especially taking into consideration that India ‘enjoys’ 140 mln newborns/year …..What the fck are we on about as far as India is concerned and the Covid ‘crisis’ in general, I wonder all of the time, justifying the poisonous inoculation of the whole world and his mother merely suiting the  benefits of a handful of ‘world controllers’ !    
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
I do not share the apocalyptic view about Covid pandemic. Its mortality rate by multiple reports based on seroprevalence studies point to median 0.1-0.3%. While Fauci himself told us the flu is about 0.1%.
If you need more research on this topic, look for the reports made by John Ioannidis, one of them published by WHO themselves.
Yes, the truth is the coronavirus that we had so far was only marginally worse than the flu in terms of fatalities.
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Casual_Observer2020
Casual_Observer2020
2 years ago
Reply to  CristiC
10x is not marginal.
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
Reply to  Casual_Observer2020
Where did you get 10x? That is fake news. It is more like 2x.
I asked that you do research the IFR topic. Read John Ioannidis’ studies. Then discuss them.
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
Reply to  CristiC
For example, we can start from here:
” Acknowledging residual uncertainties, the available evidence suggests average global IFR of ~0.15% and ~1.5‐2.0 billion infections by February 2021 with substantial differences in IFR and in infection spread across continents, countries and locations.”
And since this is a first coronavirus pandemic, we can only expect that the vaccination of seriously ill persons, will significantly decrease the IFR going forward. In fact, if we just exclude the deaths from the first two waves (or first 6 months and the stupid remdesivir fake news) as the doctors had no clue how to treat the disease, we might be in for a surprise about IFR.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  CristiC
Without a doubt, it’s not going to wipe out the globe. Nevertheless, when you factor in a 10x death rate with no immunity, and for a long time, no vaccine, the net result has been the worst flu epidemic since 1918. Had this hit in 1918, without modern medicine, it might well have been worse than the actual 1918 epidemic.
Still, the real cost of Covid will be measured in persons with disability, not the deaths. I do not know anyone personally who died of Covid, but I do know three with long covid. One has brain fog, and can’t concentrate, so she moved to a less mentally challenging job, but can still work. Another has no energy, and just can’t do the things she used to do. The third is just exhausted after even a small exertion, and has become functionally disabled. 
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Jojo
Jojo
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
But there also magnitudes more people who had Covid and do not have long-lasting effects.  Long Covid is estimated at perhaps 5%.  There has about been reports that many long-Covid people recover very quickly once shot-up by the vaccine.  Is that something to do with the vaccine itself or something psychosomatic?
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
That would make no sense. There is no biological mechanism to support this effect.
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Jojo
Jojo
2 years ago
Reply to  Webej
Exactly.  Which is why one wonders if the long-Covid BS is just people who have anxiety about everything making themselves sick.  Then they get the vaccine and voila!, everything is good.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
Even at 5%, that is an order of magnitude higher than the death rate. That’s why I say that the true long term cost will come from how severe the effects of long covid turns out to be. If treatments are developed for it, the cost won’t be bad. If long covid reflects permanent heart, lung, kidney, and liver damage that is irreversible, the cost will be very high. 
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
10x is old news. The today’s news is 2x, maybe 3x.
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
BTW, I do not see any merit in comparing 1918’s pandemic with the 2020 pandemic. While it is true that there were troups movement due to WW1, the travel from Europe to US took more than double the incubation period of the influenza virus. There were very few urban crowded places.
So, really, there is no point in comparing influenza’s IFR in 1918 with 2020. The people movement and the urban density are a few magnitude orders above 1918’s status thus the virus spread is in 2020 probably magnitude orders above what was in 1918.
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kmr
kmr
2 years ago
Good report on this very imp topic Mish. The numbers are undercounted and under reported massively
– Until now the pandemic was limited to urban areas, but it’s now spread in the remote interiors and rural areas where there are barely any medical facilities. In these places, anyone that must be hospitalized has very low chance of survival. We know that ~5-10% of those infected detoriate to moderate condition, and these cases needs medical support. Most of them won’t make it.
– 60+% of India lives in rural areas, so the number of people at risk is very high. Even then, the rural settings are mostly open and has sufficient isolation and distancing feasibility.
– Anecdotally, counting fatalities in the immediate networks of 1. Family and cousins 2. Co-workers  3. Friends, I believe the death rate is at least 0.5+% of the urban population. This means the death toll is already at least 2-5M.
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njbr
njbr
2 years ago
Sadanand Dhume
@dhume
· 8h
Reported Covid deaths in roughly ten week period in Gujarat: ~4200….Excess deaths in state in same period: ~65,000
Curious to see how experts like @BhramarBioStat @muradbanaji @ashishkjha and others will factor such discrepancies into their calculations of India’s true death rate. link to twitter.com
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
I don’t believe any of the numbers from India, so I don’t see much point discussing them. Instead, I decided to take a look at US numbers. In the US, about 122 million people have been fully vaccinated, and another 34.6 million have had their first shot. Per the news, those fully vaccinated have a 94% reduction in cases, and those with just the first shot have an 80% reduction, and their cases tend to be milder when they have them. 
Going back to late February, the US had a very low number of people vaccinated, and was seeing about 80,000 cases a day, or about 240 cases per million people. Currently, among those fully vaccinated, there are about 13 cases a day per million. Among those with the first shot, they are seeing 42 cases per day per million. Among those not vaccinated, they are seeing 209 cases/day per million. 
So far, the vaccine has tremendously reduced the number of cases among the fully vaccinated (240 to 13), and among those with one shot (240-42), but so far, the number of vaccinated people is apparently not high enough to have much impact yet on the non-vaccinated group. Similarly, those who have an immunity from contracting the actual virus is also not high enough to slow the spread. The drop in daily cases among the non-vaccinated is from 240 cases/million per day to 209. It’s in the right direction, but a lot smaller than you would hope for. Herd immunity appears to still be a ways off, though now that we have started downward, it should accelerate.
On other note is that, while about  93% of the cases currently being reported are from the non-vaccinated group. Since the cases among the vaccinated also tend to be milder, probably 98% of the deaths are from the non-vaccinated group.
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Jojo
Jojo
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
2. The vaccines lack efficacy
1.    At a mechanistic level, the concept of immunity to COVID-19 via antibody induction, as per COVID-19 vaccination, is medical nonsense. Airborne viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 enter the body via the airways and lungs, where antibody concentrations are too low to prevent infection. Vaccine-induced antibodies primarily circulate in the bloodstream, while concentrations on the mucous membranes of lungs and airways is low. Given that COVID-19 primarily spreads and causes disease by infecting these mucous membranes, vaccines miss the immunological mark. The documents submitted by the vaccine manufacturers to the various regulatory bodies contain no evidence that vaccination prevents airway infection, which would be crucial for breaking the chain of transmission. Thus, vaccines are immunologically inappropriate for COVID-19.
2.    Medium to long-term vaccine efficacy is unknown. Phase 3, medium term, 24-month trials will not be complete until 2023: There is no medium-term or long term longitudinal data regarding COVID-19 vaccine efficacy.
3.    Short term data has not established prevention of severe disease. The European Medicines Agency has noted of the Comirnaty (Pfizer mRNA) vaccine that severe COVID-19 cases “were rare in the study, and statistically certain conclusion cannot be drawn” from it [30]. Similarly, the Pfizer document submitted to the FDA [31] concludes that efficacy against mortality could not be demonstrated. Thus, the vaccines have not been shown to prevent death or severe disease even in the short term.
4.    The correlates of protection against COVID-19 are unknown. Researchers have not yet established how to measure protection against COVID-19. As a result, efficacy studies are stabbing around in the dark. After completion of Phase 1 and 2 studies, for instance, a paper in the journal Vaccine noted that “without understanding the correlates of protection, it is impossible to currently address questions regarding vaccine-associated protection, risk of COVID-19 reinfection, herd immunity, and the possibility of elimination of SARS-CoV-2 from the human population” [32]. Thus, Vaccine efficacy cannot be evaluated because we have not yet established how to measure it.
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Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
2 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
Doesn’t the same apply to flu? Flu also enters and infects via airways and lungs.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
While Covid can enter through the respiratory system, it can enter in other ways as well. Originally it was thought of as a respiratory virus, but that led to poor results. It is now considered to be primarily a disease of the endothelium, the layer of cells lining the blood vessels. Antibodies are plentiful there. Covid’s presence in the endothelium is why strokes and heart attacks are common, as well as damage to other organs, such as kidneys and liver. You wouldn’t see those kinds of issues if it were primarily a respiratory virus. Yes, it can damage the lungs, but it damages them by damaging the tiny blood vessels that flow through the lungs, rather than by directly damaging the lung tissue.
The fact that it is a disease of the endothelium also explains the interaction with the known comorbidities, since the comorbidities all damage the endothelium as well. 
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Jojo
Jojo
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
The info is talking about the entry point of the virus.  I am assuming that in the right people, perhaps those with weakened immune systems that may be due to comorbidities, poor diet, lack of exercise, whatever, that the virus then multiplies and gets into the vascular system.
Does that make the current vaccines useless?  I don’t know.  There hasn’t been enough testing, which is why the vaccines are still classified as “emergency”.  Perhaps the decline in Covid is actually due to what many have been predicting – that the virus is petering out with the spring season but as this coincides with increased vaccine uptake, the vaccine is assumed to be the reason.
And if the vascular system is where the real action is, then damage there from Covid and/or the spike protein (as recently documented by Salk) might not show up for years.  This is why new drugs/vaccines SHOULD take years to be released to the general public.  It takes time to watch for effects, some of which may not be recognized for an extended time period.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
That was what I was trying to discover in my numerical analysis. Are cases among the un-vaccinated falling? Multiple things should cause them to fall rapidly:
1. Seasonality – Covid is less active during the summer months, so cases should fall
2. Herd Immunity due to the number of people who have had it – In theory, if 5x as many people have actually had it as the number reported, some states have had 50-80% of the people infected, at which point, new cases should fall on their own.
3. Herd Immunity due to vaccinations – Adding to those people with immunity from having had Covid, additional people now have immunity from having been vaccinated. Together, there should be a declining  pool of people who are at risk, and Covid should rapidly vanish.
I was surprised by what I found, however, with cases only down from 240 new cases/day per million in February to 209 cases/day per million now. Cases among the un-vaccinated are dropping, but remain stubbornly high. I still think that these factors are going to kick in, and Covid will run out of room to spread soon, and then, rather than seeing cases drop slowly, they will drop very fast.
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Carl_R
Carl_R
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl_R
As as supplemental comment, if we don’t see Covid cases dropping to zero soon, the only explanation I can think of is if immunity from actually having Covid is very short term, which is possible. I know people who claim to have had it twice, six months apart. Unfortunately, only time will answer the question of how long immunity from exposure lasts, and how long immunity from the various vaccines lasts. We do know that immunity from the common coronaviruses (oc43, hku1, 229e, and NL63) only lasts about six months, after which a person can catch them again. We also know that immunity to SARS lasted for over a decade. Where will Covid end up? Ask me in a few years. 
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Webej
Webej
2 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
The virus first colonizes the respiratory passages, and if all is well, gets stopped there. If not, disease progresses and the virus starts messing with cells in organs and blood vessels.
Absent co-morbidities (without being fat, risks drop 80%) risk is very low. But it is not just general health and immune fitness that determines outcomes. For any pathogen, a significant part of the outcome is determined by individual differences in your immune system, mostly of an unknown nature and therefore (seemingly) random. No epidemic wipes out everybody, and one of the advantages of sexual reproduction is hypothesized to be the variety in immune system function, which protects against the entire herd having the same outcome for any pathogen.
Despite all the clamor about reinfection, few documented cases exist. Sars1 survivors still have effective antibodies 17 years later. Reinfections by other Corona viruses are typically mild, because of pre- or still existing (cross) immunity. Survivors of the Spanish flu had antibodies 70-80 years later.
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njbr
njbr
2 years ago
A report last week said that deaths in the US have been significantly underestimate, so a country like India, with so many “throw-away” people and  grossy inadequate health and record-keeping state functions, the reported numbers will be wildly low.  As with the US, there are big political players for whom a low count is the preferred count and that will play a large part in reported numbers.
The variants developing in the world still have a high potential for problems with the US, even if the US could bother with basic precautions and get fully vaccinated.
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
Reply to  njbr
Don’t believe any report that says covid deaths have been underestimated. This is not about estimation, this is about testing. Any suspect death was tested and the Covid protocol was respected as per WHO recommendation.
The “excess deaths” is another matter entirely. The excess deaths are caused by fear of the sicks to go into hospitals, or hospitals being overrun and not providing services to the non-Covid patients.
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afavorsky
afavorsky
2 years ago
The numbers in India are probably higher than reported, but there are a few factors working in India’s favor:
* younger population
* in general population that is quite a bit less fat than in the US
* widespread use of Ivermectin may be a factor
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Rbm
Rbm
2 years ago
Talking to a buddy of mine the other day.   He has spent spent several years traveling India.  Says has to be way worse than reported.  As stated about.  Lower sanitation / lack of infrastructure combined with no personal space.   
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caradoc-again
caradoc-again
2 years ago
It is a potential breeding ground for new variants and it only takes one bad mutation to recreate havoc globally.
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CristiC
CristiC
2 years ago
The number of bank employees seems disturbing for a normal state/country. But in India is different.
There are almost 1 200 000 employees in the Indian banking sector in 2013. And “1.5 lakh get infected”, that is 150 000.
So, we have 12% infected and the mortality rate is 0,8%.
To me, the infection rate seems low and it is most likely that the same ratio as worldwide of 2.5 asymptomatic cases to one PCR tested with symptoms. It that stands true, the mortality rate becomes 0.22%. The problem with these estimations is that the population working in banks is in general young, thus the asymptomatic cases must be more than in the general population. All in all, the mortality rate should be in the range of 0.1% to 0.22%. Which is what is expected according to the latest statistics.
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Kimo
Kimo
2 years ago
Logistics, rather than politics, are hampering the collection of accurate data in India.  I note their widening use of Ivermectin, we might need to settle for comparative stats on their health care providers, as a proxy.
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Jojo
Jojo
2 years ago
The death numbers supposedly from COvid are very small for a county with 4X the population of the USA. Even if the true death numbers are an order of magnitude larger, they are still relatively small on a percentage basis compared against the total population.
I suggest that we start talking in terms of percentages as few people seem to understand the magnitude of numbers.  This would serve to alleviate the unnecessary fear & panic that MSM reporting creates.
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shapinc
shapinc
2 years ago
Seemingly the US data attributing a death to Covid could be inflated and the reported low deaths in India would then be consistent with a flu that has a mortality rate only 15% more than seasonal flu as was predicted at the onset of this pandemic.
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Casual_Observer2020
Casual_Observer2020
2 years ago
I don’t think the the rest of world is out of the woods yet. There are already variants from India that have killed some Indian nationals in the US that went to India before this recent spike in India occurred and returned during the spike. They thought they could go to India and didn’t get the vaccine here before going. There are also multiple reported cases of people who got the vaccine in the US and died in India. Since the vaccines in the US are less effective in those 80 and over with co-morbidities, this isn’t surprising a different strain would kill them. I would venture to say Covid in general will put anyone anywhere over the age of 80 at higher risk of death even with the vaccine(s). 
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