Coronavirus Reads Digest 1
India's nationwide lockdown begins, and the U.S. records the highest cases in the world.
Hi all,
There’s so much that’s happened this week that this post keeps growing longer and longer, but I anticipate the coming recommended reads to be fewer and more concise. Today I start with India-specific reads and move on to broader US and global accounts. From tomorrow I will also try to include some coronavirus-adjacent reads because we all need to take breaks.
India-specific
We’re in the first week of India’s 3 week nationwide lockdown to ensure social distancing and prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. As of now, there are 724 confirmed cases in India, and 17 deaths.
Is India prepared for a spike in infections? The ability to do widespread testing, and being prepared with enough equipment and health infrastructure are all serious concerns.
So far, India has tested less than 20,000 people. For a country of 1.3 billion people, that’s really low. The WHO and public health experts stress ramping up testing and then isolating positive cases in order to contain the virus, and India has the ability to test 8,000 people per day but there have been several delays and restrictive guidelines that have led to this. This article in Scroll breaks down some of the many challenges.
1) By Arunabh Saikia, Scroll, “Why Does India Have Such a Low Testing Rate?”
There are questions over whether community transmission has occurred or not. (That refers to the stage when people are testing positive for COVID-19, but it’s not possible to trace a direct source of their infection. It means the virus has spread silently and more widely within the community.)
The Indian health ministry continues to say it hasn’t yet but other health authorities are noticing otherwise. Experts say the testing is too limited to really know yet.
2) Here’s some detailed reporting from Sadhika Tiwari of Bloomberg Quint on why that may be the case.
As the infection spreads, and more and more people need to be isolated and treated in hospitals, healthcare workers have been pointing out that they don’t have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) which includes masks, and gowns to prevent the spread of the infection. Vidya Krishnan reports in The Caravan on why and how there have been delays in manufacturing PPE.
Covid-19 affects the respiratory system, and in around 2-3% of cases, patients need a ventilator for breathing assistance. From Italy to New York City to Seattle, hospitals are running out of ventilators because of the sheer number of hospitalized patients who are infected at the same time.
So how many ventilators does India have?
India has an estimated 40,000 ventilators. The U.S. is struggling with 160,000 ventilators. In Italy and Seattle, doctors have had to make desperate decisions on who will get access to a ventilator because of severe shortages. This article explains more on India’s potential ventilator crisis.
4) By Himani Chandna, The Print: https://theprint.in/health/india-has-40000-ventilators-but-could-need-many-many-more-in-worst-case-scenario/388874/
The lockdown meanwhile continues across India. The abruptness of the announcement left many without provisions or access to groceries. Despite PM Modi’s insistence that essential items would be available, the police harassed delivery personnel and shut down many grocery stores in the first two days. Further directives have now been issued to alleviate this problem and ensure access to food and medicines.
But what about India’s internal migrant workers, tens of millions in number, who leave their hometowns and work in larger Indian cities?
Most of their employers in the cities have refused to pay their wages during the shutdown, pushing them to go back to their family homes. The lockdown paused trains, buses, and domestic air travel in an attempt to stop this movement and keep the transmission of the coronavirus out of the more rural and interior parts of the country. But faced with a lack of income and inadequate options for shelter in the cities, thousands of migrant workers are walking for days and days to go home.
This has sparked a debate. While many well-meaning commentators and citizens are pushing for transport for them, the government’s dilemma is understandable. Large gatherings -- which is what train and bus rides would inevitably entail -- can transmit infection quickly. They will also result in anyone already infected or an asymptomatic carrier possibly infecting people back in their villages or towns, expanding the spread of the disease.This will also make the outbreaks far more difficult to address given the abysmal state of health infrastructure in the interior regions of the country. The home ministry is now in discussions with state governments to find shelters for them, and access to food rations to address this crisis.
Italy’s situation shows that delays in locking down the crisis hit Lombardy region and movement of residents to other parts of the country, led to wider outbreaks, crippling the country.
5) This photo essay by Danish Siddiqui highlight the challenges of migrant workers walking hundreds of miles.
Yesterday, the Indian government finally announced an economic package, which involved food and cash transfers, that could ease the suffering for the millions of daily wage workers and marginalized who have a hand to mouth existence. In addition to daily wage laborers suffering from a lack of wages and shelter, lower income people are unable to buy bulk amounts of groceries to survive the lockdown. The economic package will include 5kg of wheat or rice, 1 kg of lentils for the next three months. 800 million people would be eligible. Will it be enough?
6) In an Op-Ed in the Hindustan Times, Devesh Kapur describes the delicate balance the present moment requires--“Too limited a lockout period risks the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands of people; too restrictive a lockout could result in the eruption of serious social unrest.”
In the first three days of the lockdown, there have been numerous reports and citizen mobile videos cropping up on social media of local police beating up people who are “breaking curfew” to buy groceries like milk or rations. In West Bengal, it is alleged a man died after suffering blows from the police.
7) In Scroll, Rohan Venkataramakrishnan writes, “Public health emergencies are complex situations, yet they are ultimately for our own good – they are not meant to be punishment.” Read his full piece, “Indian Police Need To Understand That Coronavirus Cannot be Beaten With a Lathi.”
From India to the U.S.
The United States now has the most confirmed cases of coronavirus in the world, over 85,000. According to the Washington Post, on Tuesday March 24, New York City’s Emergency Medical Services received the most medical calls ever, higher than on 9/11.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress finally pulled it off: an overall “agreement” on a $2 trillion package, which according to the NYT, is “the largest of its kind in modern American history.” Details of the bill are here, which includes $100 billion dollars for hospitals, $1200 for individuals making under $75,000, increased unemployment benefits ( “$600 per week for up to 4 months in on top of state unemployment benefits” )
1) Politico: Here’s What’s in the $2 Trillion Stimulus Package
Social distancing works! Keep it up!
Most of us have been in quarantine/isolation for a week or two, and it will take a few weeks longer to see the effects in terms of the number of infections, because it takes upto 14 days for virus symptoms to show up.
2) However, some preliminary data and graphs from Kinsa Health are detailed here in this Quartz story, that shows how social distancing is slowing the spread of COVID-19 in some U.S. counties.
There has been a debate within the U.S. political establishment this week on whether the social distancing should end soon. NYTimes Opinion has come up with this fantastic modelling that shows how the outbreak would get worse if the interventions in place don’t continue. You can also play around with the graph yourself, and see how the rate of infections and hospitalizations would change:
3) “Trump Wants to ‘Reopen America.’ Here’s What Happens If We Do.” By Nicholas Kristof and Stuart Thompson, The New York Times
Covid-19 has been described like a severe flu, but symptoms can vary and we are still learning how this new virus manifests itself. These are two accounts that give a scary but important window into what this infection can feel like for both young and older adults, and their families. Both are from the NYT umbrella:
The first from Deputy editor of NYT Magazine on caring for her infected husband:
4) By Jessica Lustig, “What I Learned When My Husband Got Sick With Coronavirus.”
The second is an Op-Ed from a 26 year-old who was hospitalized after being infected. Her story highlights how this virus can severely affect young people as well.
5) By Fiona Lowenstein, “I’m 26. Coronavirus Sent Me to the Hospital.”
Along with many of you, I have been feeling angry, paralyzed, anxious, depressed, confused, and finally, somewhat accepting of a time where we have a new reality, and really have no idea what we will find on the other side. This article gives name to what many of us may be feeling as “grief.” Grief about our world the way we know it, about control, and about the future.
6) “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief,” by Scott Berinato, Harvard Business Review
There’s been a lot of chatter from American politicians to the local Indian media, a lot of it racist, referring to the novel coronavirus as the “Chinese” virus or the “Wuhan” virus.
There is currently rampant harassment of many Asian-Americans in the U.S., and even northeastern Indians within India because of this rhetoric, and inaccurate characterization that they are responsible for spreading it.
Read detailed accounts to The New York Times’ Sabrina Tavernise here, that might shed some light on how damaging furthering this rhetoric can be. I’m sure many South Asian Americans will remember how the community was targeted and racially profiled after 9/11. Many Americans of Chinese or East Asian descent are now facing similar kinds of harassment.
7) “Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: Chinese-Americans Fear for Their Safety”, by Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times.