Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

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Amber G.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Amber G. »

Let me share reported deaths and it's projected value.
(Actual deaths may be a little higher - though not any where as close to made-up numbers by the likes of NYT or BBC)

Image

(One interesting aspect I see - virtually any reputable model I have seen good mask mandate, if we can enforce it, can reduce the fatality rates - (effective even if vaccine rates are slower)

This is true for USA .. In Ohio, at present per reputable data about only about 12% people are wearing masks --The numbers are similar in other states.. If mask mandates are done... dramatic effect on the death rates and infections per any model I see.
Mort Walker
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

^^^In the US, masks mandates were lifted in May 2021 by the CDC for spurious reasons. All the while the CDC knew of the impact of the Delta variant. Mask mandates should have remained until at least 60% of the total population of a state is fully vaccinated. The current US regime is entirely responsible for the upticks in deaths in the US, but are trying to blame individual states when the federal government has provided conflicting information and sowed doubt about vaccines like the J&J, and even the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy gives out conflicting information about masks as of yesterday. It all smacks of gross incompetence.
DavidD
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by DavidD »

Mort Walker wrote:^^^In the US, masks mandates were lifted in May 2021 by the CDC for spurious reasons. All the while the CDC knew of the impact of the Delta variant. Mask mandates should have remained until at least 60% of the total population of a state is fully vaccinated. The current US regime is entirely responsible for the upticks in deaths in the US, but are trying to blame individual states when the federal government has provided conflicting information and sowed doubt about vaccines like the J&J, and even the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy gives out conflicting information about masks as of yesterday. It all smacks of gross incompetence.
I agree the strategy has been faulty. Lifting the mask mandate would be more forgivable if the CDC had quickly reimplemented it when case counts started rising again. We've been seeing ~50% weekly increases for 3 weeks now, and from a not that low of a nadir, and yet no changes to mask guidance.

In the end though, what the CDC says probably doesn't even matter that much anymore. Mask wearing has become so politicized that pretty much everyone has already made up their minds about what to do already. Here in the bay area, the vast majority of people are still wearing masks indoors. There were a couple weeks when a good proportion of people didn't wear masks in supermarkets and such, but with the stories about the Delta variant almost everyone has gone back to wearing them, and most small businesses are requiring them as well. You go to the south, and few are gonna be wearing masks regardless of what the CDC says.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

In the US, in late May I drove through Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio and noticed hardly anyone wearing a mask indoors. This was including shopping centers, malls, and restaurants. It was after the CDC guidance which was then echoed by all of the major retailers across the US. My wife who is a scientist researching COVID-19 impact on cells was immediately aghast at the decision. At the time she claimed the decision was politically motivated and not based on scientific evidence and also claimed that some states would re-impose mask mandates by mid July.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by vera_k »

Looks like data available to ICMR is being closely held. Hopefully these are teething troubles and they can find a way to share it and distill recommendations down to local governments.

ICMR is making questionable decisions on Covid in India
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

Tuesday 20 JUL 2021 Day 186: 415,225,632
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737332

Monday 19 JUL 2021 Day 185: 411,355,665
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1736930

As of 7PM IST on Tuesday 20 JUL 2021: 3,869,976 doses administered.
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Mort Walker wrote:Tuesday 20 JUL 2021 Day 186: 415,225,632
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737332

Monday 19 JUL 2021 Day 185: 411,355,665
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1736930

As of 7PM IST on Tuesday 20 JUL 2021: 3,869,976 doses administered.
From the press release today:

Cumulative 32,85,33,933 first doses
Cumulative 8,66,91,699 second doses
Mort Walker
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

^^^Thanks. Looks like Our World in Data is still off by two days.
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Lot of good information in this story. I think the Govt released it quickly to counter misinformation about ICMR:

Two-thirds of Indians have Covid antibodies, another 40 crore still vulnerable to infection: Govt
Around 40 crore people are still vulnerable to COVID-19 infection as a nationwide survey found two-thirds of the country's population aged above six to have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, the government said on Tuesday as it stressed there is no room for complacency in the fight against the pandemic. Findings of the ICMR's 4th national Covid sero survey show there is a ray of hope, but there is no room for complacency and Covid-appropriate behaviour has to be followed, the government said.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) conducted the latest survey in June-July.

Addressing a press conference, a senior official said two-thirds or 67.6 per cent of India's population aged above 6 years were found to have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the latest national sero survey.

A third of the population did not have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, which means about 40 crore people are still vulnerable to COVID-19 infection, the official said.

According to the government, 85 per cent of the surveyed healthcare workers had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and one-tenth of HCWs were still unvaccinated.


The survey covered 28,975 general population and 7,252 healthcare workers.

The fourth round of the survey was conducted in the 70 districts across 21 states where the previous three rounds had been carried out.

Stressing observance of COVID-19-appropriate behaviour, the government said social, religious and political congregations should be avoided and non-essential travels should be discouraged.

"Travel only if fully vaccinated," it said.

The ICMR also suggested that it would be wise to consider reopening primary schools first as children can handle viral infection much better.

"Children can handle viral infection much better as they have lower number of ace receptors. So once the decision is taken and all the staff vaccinated, it would be wise to open primary schools first," it said.
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Here is another new press release to counter misinformation in the media:

Registration and Vaccination of People Without Access to Digital Technology(CoWIN)
All beneficiaries who have received vaccines in India are registered on CoWIN portal. CoWIN portal is single source of truth for vaccination status.

As on 16th July 2021, a total of 3.48 lakh doses (0.09% of the total doses administered) have been administered to persons without Identity Cards. State/UT-wise details are at Annexure.

Registration and vaccination of people without access to digital technology can be done through:

Walk-in registration of either single individuals or groups of individuals at COVID-19 Vaccination Centre (CVC).
Registration at Common Service Centres
Registration of up to 4 persons using a single mobile number to facilitate registration of people without mobile phones.


Detailed SOP has been issued for vaccination of people without prescribed photo ID documents through key facilitators at identified Government CVCs.

The Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar stated this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha here today.
Looks like Mandaviyaji is countering misinformation quickly with actual information and data. 8)
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Steps taken by the Government to enhance the manufacturing of Covid-19 Vaccines in the country
As per Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), CDSCO has granted manufacturing permission to private manufacturers for following COVID-19 Vaccines for restricted use in emergency situation: -

ChAdOx1 nCoV- 19 Corona Virus Vaccine (Recombinant) manufactured by M/s Serum Institute of India Pvt., Ltd., Pune on 03.01.2021

Whole Virion Inactivated Corona Virus Vaccine manufactured by M/s Bharat Biotech International Limited, Hyderabad on 03.01.2021.

Gam-COVID-Vac Combined vector vaccine (SPUTNIK-V) manufactured by M/s Ra (biologicals) Panacea Biotec Ltd., New Delhi on 02.07.2021.

Department of Biotechnology has informed that to support vaccine manufacturing in India, the Government of India has launched ‘Mission COVID Suraksha- the Indian COVID- 19 Vaccine Development Mission’, being implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) of Department of Biotechnology (DBT). Under the Mission, clinical trial lot manufacturing of promising vaccine candidates including DNA vaccine candidate (ZydusCadila); mRNA vaccine candidate (Gennova Biopharmaceuticals); intranasal vaccine candidate (Bharat Biotech) are being supported.

Further, as part of efforts for augmentation of Covaxin production, capacity enhancement of Bharat Biotech is being supported under Mission COVID Suraksha. Also, technology transfer of Covaxin production from Bharat Biotech to Gujarat COVID Vaccine Consortium (GCVC), comprising of Hester Biosciences and OmniBRx Biotechnologies Pvt Ltd, is being facilitated by the Department of Biotechnology.

The information was given by the Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shri Mansukh Mandaviya in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Current status of vaccine trials:

4 Covid vaccine candidates in human trial stage, 1 in pre-clinical stage, govt tells Rajya Sabha
Four COVID-19 vaccine candidates are at different stages of human trials while one, developed by Genique Life Sciences, is in the advanced pre-clinical stage, Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said on Tuesday. In a written response to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Singh said Cadila Healthcare Ltd's DNA-based vaccine candidate is in phase three clinical trial. It has also submitted the interim data for emergency use authorisation.

Biological E Ltd's vaccine candidate is also in phase three clinical trial.

Bharat Biotech International Ltd's Adeno intranasal vaccine candidate is in phase three clinical trial, while Gennova Biopharmaceuticals Ltd's mRNA-vaccine candidate is in Phase one clinical trial.

The Gurgaon-based Genique Life Sciences Pvt Ltd's vaccine candidate is in the advanced pre-clinical stage, Singh said.


Currently, three vaccines --- Serum Institute of India's Covishield, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and Russian vaccine Sputnik V --- are being administered in India.
Singh said 'Mission COVID Suraksha -- the Indian COVID-19 Vaccine Development Mission' was announced as part of the third stimulus package 'Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0' for promoting research and development of Indian COVID-19 vaccines.

"The mission is supporting the development of four vaccine candidates in the clinical stage of development and one vaccine candidate in advance pre-clinical stage of development.

"The clinical development of vaccine candidates is being undertaken across the clinical trial sites situated pan-India," he added.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by vijayk »

vera_k wrote:Looks like data available to ICMR is being closely held. Hopefully these are teething troubles and they can find a way to share it and distill recommendations down to local governments.

ICMR is making questionable decisions on Covid in India
Lancet which put fake data on HCQ has criticized ICMR for HCQ :eek:
vijayk
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by vijayk »

Image
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Now the official word about Bharat Biotech's production issues:

Bharat Biotech's Bengaluru unit has overcome glitches, says V K Paul
Bharat Biotech, the maker of the Covaxin vaccine, has overcome initial hiccups at its Bengaluru facility and is on track to go ahead as planned, said V K Paul, chairman of the national Covid task force, and member-health, NITI Aayog.

Paul said the company has added two facilities in Ankleshwar and Bengaluru as part of its expansion plans. While Ankleshwar has started production, according to schedule, there were some issues with initial stabilisation due to unforeseen circumstances.

“Production was a little behind expectations, but issues have been addressed. The production it had planned will be achieved,” said Paul.

Bharat Biotech is hoping to manufacture 1 billion doses per annum by the end of this year.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Tanaji »

Death toll on India 10x higher as per this study

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57888460

Need to check what study is being referred to here, whether its a newer on or old one. I dont see any links in the article.

What I don’t get is that as per the article they have taken number of infected from India and then applied “international” fatality rates to various age groups (what is an “international” rate?) Is it any wonder they will come up with huge numbers?

Also how do sero surveys give fatality rates?

Perhaps @AmberG can comment on the methodology
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Deans »

Tanaji wrote:Death toll on India 10x higher as per this study

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57888460

Need to check what study is being referred to here, whether its a newer on or old one. I dont see any links in the article.

What I don’t get is that as per the article they have taken number of infected from India and then applied “international” fatality rates to various age groups (what is an “international” rate?) Is it any wonder they will come up with huge numbers?

Also how do sero surveys give fatality rates?

Perhaps @AmberG can comment on the methodology
There is analysis that looks statistically robust, done by an Indian analyst which I posted about earlier. This is not what BBC refers to.
They are using simplistic / flawed methodology or trying to reinvent the wheel.
My understanding of the data the BBC refers to is: (I'm presenting a common sense view and don't have inside info).

1. Sero survey: It has to be a representative sample of India. Thus rural UP has to have a sample 10 times higher than Mumbai.
In the sero survey, the presence of Antibodies does not mean you had Covid at a level at which symptoms will show. If we accept that a lot more people got covid, we will have to accept that most of the incremental covid cases, were not just asymptomatic, but probably not at a level where there was risk of infection to others, hence fatality rates would be a lot lower. there could well be many times more cases with the same number of fatalities as current.
In states where the health care system is better developed and are small enough and urban enough to have a large percentage of the population
tested (Kerala and Goa), around 15% of the adult population have so far tested positive. It is around 20% of the adult population in large cities
It would logically be less for a more rural and less densely populated state.

2. Household survey: The most reliable indicators (based on sample size) would be the Govt's HMIS (covering a third of India, with more rural coverage) which is fairly timely data and Municipal registers of deaths (where there is some time lag and the figures may be inflated in expectation of ex gratia payments to covid dead). From whatever data is available, deaths during wave 2, appear to be 4x more than the official figure. This may normalize over time.

3. Fatality rate: Adjusting for age of the population - since older people have a far higher probability of dying, the fatality rate for India, should
be approx. 1% lower than EU or US, assuming other factors, like quality of health care, is the same. So, if Fatality rate for Europe is 2.1 and US
1.8% The Indian rate of 1.3% is normal.

In this context, our test positive rate does not suggest we are hiding cases. An example of a country understating cases is Mexico (and a lot of Latin America) where only 8 million tests are conducted (230 million) with a TPR of almost 33% !
The result would be hidden cases that would translate into more deaths. Thus the death rate in Mexico is 9% It would suggest that if testing were even at India's level, no of cases would be 5 times higher, for the same no of deaths. When the no of cases in India fell ,the TPR also fell to under 2%. If we were hiding cases by an order of magnitude, TPR would never drop. When we have done 450 million tests and found 31 million infected, how could we miss the so called 600 million who were infected and not detected.
A point to note here is that testing is done during contact tracing or when someone is symptomatic. If TPR is very low, there is no point testing. Its quite possible that many of those who tested negative had covid but with a low viral load and no risk of death or infecting others.
Deans
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Deans »

On the subject of serological surveys - those done in the US indicate that actual incidence of covid was several times higher than reported cases.
For e.g. in NYC (since it is the home of NY Times), serological surveys done around May 20 showed approx. 20% of New Yorkers were infected
compared to the official figure of 4% of the population infected by end May 2020 (371000 in an adult pop of 8.4 mil).
The 2 surveys themselves varied significantly.
I don't see the NYT talking about the missing 3 million dead Americans (extrapolating from NY figures in wave 1) or shoddy testing methodology
or vast conspiracy by the NY govt to hide deaths. I am willing to accept that, like other countries, the actual no of cases and deaths are understated, though not intentionally, but I'd reject any of the sensationalist stories from BBC/Guardian/NYT.
Primus
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Primus »

What else can you expect from the Bri$hit Bull$h1t Corporation?

The sad thing though is that this very piece of 'news' is being shouted across WA forums by various Indians settled abroad who always want to paint India under Modi in a bad light and derive ghoulish pleasure from the idea of increasing death and destruction in the land of their forefathers.
Mort Walker
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

The purpose of all of this is to instigate regime change in India by vested interests in the west and China. Don’t be surprised if this was all financed by 3 letter agencies in the US.
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Tuesday 20 JUL 2021 Day 186: 415,225,632
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737332

Wedenesday 21 JUL 2021 Day 187: 41,76,56,752
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737584

As of 7PM IST on Wednesday 21 JUL 2021: 24,31,120 doses administered.

Disappointing :(

As of this morning's press release: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737433
2,88,73,099 vaccine doses in stock with the States
53,38,210 doses in the pipeline

Hence I was expecting a much larger number of doses administered today. Not a fall to less than 25 lakh doses.
Suraj
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Suraj »

Yes an unusually slow day, in fact one has to go all the way back to end of May to see a week day with fewer vaccinations. Somewhat strange given that the pipeline itself is getting bigger and bigger. I wouldn't worry mainly because the supply is there.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

Isn’t it Bakr Id on Wednesday 21 July 2021? That would explain the slow day.
arshyam
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by arshyam »

Yes, it was a govt holiday in most states.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by jaysimha »

Walchandnagar Industries receives first order of oxygen supply worth Rs4.20cr
The order to manufacture and supply of Medical Oxygen Plant 250 LPM (Oty. 10 Nos.) is from DEBEL and DRDO.
July 20, 2021 5:21 IST | India Infoline News Service
https://www.indiainfoline.com/article/n ... 584_1.html
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Wedenesday 21 JUL 2021 Day 187: 41,76,56,752
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737584

Thursday 22 JUL 2021 Day 188: Tuesday 20 JUL 2021 Day 186: 42,28,26,035
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737887

As of 7PM IST on Thursday 22 JUL 2021: 51,69,283 doses administered.

Not bad!

Cumulative 1st dose administered: 33,34,75,688
Cumulative 2nd dose administered: 8,93,50,347
vijayk
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by vijayk »

Thursday. 7/22 https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737887
Wednesday 7/21 https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737584


7/22 7 PM. 42,28,26,035
7/21 8:30 PM 41,76,56,752

Total - 42,28,26,035 - 41,76,56,752 = 51,69,283

Total doses 42,28,26,035
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Vaccine doses lie unused in private hospitals as States cry for supplies
Contrary to expectation, private hospitals are seeing a slow pace of Covid-19 vaccination, leading to doses lying unutilised even as State-run centres face a supply squeeze.

With the demand for vaccines at private hospitals lower than the stocks available with them, some States have sought a review of the policy allocating 25 per cent of supplies to private players.

In Andhra Pradesh, although 35 lakh doses have been supplied to private hospitals since May, till date only 4.63 lakh doses have been utilised. In Tamil Nadu, of the 1.85 crore doses administered so far, just 5 per cent was at private hospitals.

While AP demanded re-allocation of unsed doses by private hospitals to the State, Tamil Nadu asked the Centre to reduce private hospital supplies to 10 per cent so that more doses would go to State centres. Maharashtra, too, is mulling interventions to put the unutilised private stocks to better use.

No private orders
Enquiries by BusinessLine found that the situation was not very different in Telangana, Gujarat, and Delhi. Recently, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had said that several private vaccination centres had not placed any order for the 25 per cent earmarked for them.

Anoop Lawrence, General Manager of Mumbai’s Global Hospitals, said a few hospitals were sitting on huge stocks, making it difficult for other vaccinating centres (government and private) to get doses. “The CoWin app should include a feature to limit the stocks that hospitals can order, if they are still sitting on unutilised stock,’’ he suggested.

Vaccination has, in fact, come to a halt in Mumbai, Thane and other locations the last couple of days due to vaccine shortage. Nashik, Sangli and Kolhapur too are facing shortages, though shots were available at many private hospitals. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said the State had not slowed its vaccination, but was waiting for stocks.

Pricing pains
Private hospital representatives admit to no demand from the middle class, as expected.

Gurpreet Sandhu, President, Council for Healthcare and Pharma, said the high cost of vaccines at private hospitals, at ₹800-1,400, was a deterrent for many people. “Large Huge hospital chains like Max Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, and Fortis have the strength...,” he said, indicating that smaller institutions may not have the paying capacity to procure in large numbers.

A Vadodara-based hospital network source said, “The purchases have to be on 100 per cent advance payment. Second, many people now prefer government vaccine centres either for free doses or for proximity and convenience. A paid centre involves costs of infrastructure and staff. And it isn’t viable if we don’t administer 100-150 doses a day. That is not happening now.”

Many private hospitals that had set-up paid vaccination centrers, have now suspended operations due to low turnout and unfavourable cost economics.

No issue, say some hospitals
However, several private hospitals indicated they were comfortable with the vaccine procurement and supply situation. Jyoti Mishra with Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, Dwarka, said they had vaccine reserves for more than a month, and had not faced issues. Similarly, Harish Manian, Chief Executive at Chennai’s MGM Healthcare, said, “enough” vaccines had been procured and they were “well-equipped” to cater to the demand.

An official at CIMS Hospitals (Ahmedabad) said, they would be happy to continue with vaccinations, provided there was clarity on the supply-chain.

At Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital, the focus was to get people vaccinated at their offices, said Chief Executive, N Santhanam. “With people working from home, the infrastructure is available and over two-three days, employees and their families get vaccinated,” he said, adding, there were no problems with procurement and supplies.

In the city’s suburbs, Jupiter Hospital’s Chairman and Managing Director Dr Ajay Thakker said, the hospital has about half a million vaccine stocks that will last them over three months, adding: ``There was no concern on stocks lying idle.’’

Of the 40,870 sites conducting vaccination on Thursday, 38,966 are government-run and 1,904 private sites, according to the CoWin dashboard.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by vijayk »

vijayk wrote:Thursday. 7/22 https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737887
Wednesday 7/21 https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737584


7/22 7 PM. 42,28,26,035
7/21 8:30 PM 41,76,56,752

Total - 42,28,26,035 - 41,76,56,752 = 51,69,283

Total doses 42,28,26,035
7/22 7 PM. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1737887 42,28,26,035

7/23 7 PM https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1738302 42,75,00,272

TOTAL DOSES for thursday 7/23 --- 46,74,237
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

It doesn't look like they're going to make it to 50 crore by 1 AUG.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by saip »

Moving the goal posts, eh? It was 40 crores by July 31 (look at the Hindu few posts back) and that was hit with 15 days to spare, now the target has become 50 crores?
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Mort Walker »

^^^You must be unable to keep up?
Go read what was posted by Kakkaji on 17 July 2021.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... content=23
“We are on path to achieving the target of 50 crore doses by July 31, this is crucial towards meeting our target coverage by end of this year,” the senior official said. Nearly 40 crore doses were administered across the country till 10pm Friday.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Some official data for Suraj San:

Centre’s vaccination bill nears Rs 9,725 crore, Lok Sabha told
Rs 9,725.15 crore – that is the vaccination bill for India so far.

The Centre has spent Rs 8,071.09 crore to buy vaccines and remaining about Rs 1,654.06 crore on operational costs for administering the vaccines, as per details shared by the health and family welfare ministry in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

In a response to a question from Congress MP S Jothimani, the ministry gave details of communication by nodal procurement agency HLL Lifecare for procurement of vaccines.

The first communication to the two vaccine manufacturers – Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India – was sent on January 10, six days before the vaccination drive rollout.

The first order was placed for 1.65 crore vaccine doses (1.1 crore doses of Covishield and 0.55 crore Covaxin). This was followed by second order on February 3 for 1.45 crore doses (1 crore Covishield and 0.45 crore Covaxin), third on February 10 for 1.5 crore doses of Covishield, fourth on February 24 for 2 crores of Covishield, and a fifth order on March 12 for 12 crore doses (10 crore of Covishield and 2 crore of Covaxin).


There was no communication by HLL in April and June.

The reply shows that a sixth order was placed on May 5 for 11 crore doses of Covishield and 5 crore for Covaxin. Till date, Bharat Biotech has not completed this order as 3.84 crore doses of Covaxin are still getting delivered.
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Covid: It is expected that all 18-plus beneficiaries will be vaccinated by Dec 2021, says govt
The pace of COVID-19 vaccination across India is amongst the fastest in the world and in view of the evolving nature of the pandemic, it is expected that all beneficiaries aged 18 years and above will be vaccinated by December 2021, the Lok Sabha was informed on Friday. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, in a written reply, said while there have been instances of vaccine wastage in states and Union territories (UTs), but extra doses have also been extracted from a given vial according to the Co-WIN portal.

"The vaccine doses wasted and maximum possible doses extracted beyond the labelled quantity are taken into account to arrive at vaccine wastage figures for a state," he noted.


The minister was responding to a question on whether the states/UTs are not keeping up the pace of the vaccination and wasting the doses.

"Between May 1, 2021 to July 13, 2021, a total of 2.49 lakh doses were wasted, while 41.12 lakh extra doses were extracted beyond the labelled quantity," he said.
vijayk
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by vijayk »

Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing

ANOTHER EFFICACY DROP—Not good—Israel Ministry of Health just released another vaccine efficacy update due to #DeltaVariant—only 39% Pfizer VE for #COVID19 infection, 40.5% for symptomatic, 88% for hospitalization, 91% for ICU/low oxygen/ death. More—waning efficacy too.

Gets worse, report also reveals waning potency, showing just 16% effectiveness against transmission among those 2nd-shot vaccinated in January, 44% VE if vaccinated in February, 67% VE if 2nd shot in March, 75% if vaccinated in April. Partly also age effect—but still bad.

Pfizer effect is waning over time :cry:
shaun
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by shaun »

Excess Mortality” due to COVID: A reality check

Dr Amit Thadhani

It has long been speculated that the actual mortality due to COVID pandemic is much higher than official numbers, not only in India but in several other countries. New York Governor Andre Cuomo has been caught repeatedly fudging mortality data. The UK government too was accused of under-reporting COVID deaths in the first wave of 2020. A study in Brazil suggested under-reporting of COVID deaths by approximately 40%. Several articles have speculated that India is massively under-reporting COVID-related deaths. Admittedly none of these are based on any hard data. The latest of these studies is from two researchers from Harvard and noted economist and former advisor to the Government of India Arvind Subramanian has also lent his name to it. The study claims that India has under reported its COVID deaths by as much as fifteen times and that the actual toll may be as high as six million and not 4.19 lakh. This is an extraordinary claim that has been widely reported across national and international media over the past few days.

It is certainly possible that deaths have been recorded but not mentioned as COVID, and there are several valid reasons for this to happen. Many patients passed away before being tested or tested negative despite clinical signs and symptoms suggesting COVID. Such deaths are generally recorded as SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) or pneumonia without a definite mention of COVID in view of negative test or lack of confirmed diagnosis. Researchers therefore try to calculate “excess deaths” during the year as compared to previous years. Some degree of under-reporting is inevitable due to the abovementioned reasons but a special claim of under-reporting to the tune of ten to fifteen times needs to be based on at least some concrete data and requires collusion at several levels, from treating doctors to the highest levels of state and central government. As a practising doctor working on the COVID frontlines since over a year, and knowing that health is a state subject with several different parties ruling various states, I can vouch for the impossibility of such a grand conspiracy.

Any study or research paper that makes extraordinary claims must be examined in detail. I was curious to see how exactly the Harvard team and Arvind Subramanian came to their conclusions, and read the paper in its entirety. It can be found here. For any scientific paper to be taken seriously, it must:

Not make pre-suppositions or special pleadings
Be based on good quality of data
Have a robust methodology
Unfortunately, the paper fails on each of these points. It has several pre-suppositions and special pleadings, is based on bad data, and has questionable methodology.

Pre-suppositions and special pleadings

The paper states upfront: “India’s official Covid death count as of end-June 2021 is 400,000.1 The reality is, of course, catastrophically worse.” (emphasis added). This is clearly a pre-supposition. A genuine researcher never pre-supposes, as it biases the study. The researchers suspect a higher death toll as India has had 0.3 deaths per capita as compared to over 3 for Mexico and Peru, and around 2 in Brazil, Italy, US, and UK. The researchers claim, wrongly, that infection rates are lower in these countries as compared to India. As a percentage of population, Brazil, US and UK have had far more confirmed cases of COVID compared to India.

Also, India’s mortality rate due to COVID is low, but not extraordinarily low. In a list of 200 countries, India’s mortality rate stands at 124 with several first-world countries and third-world countries clocking a lower mortality. The assumption that India is under-reporting because Brazil, Italy, US and UK have a higher mortality rate is deeply problematic and flawed and is a case of “special pleading” not backed by any proof or data. India has a much younger population than many of these countries, and it is perfectly logical that India would have a lower mortality than them as COVID mortality is highest in the 60-plus age group which is only 12% of its population.

Data Sources

The researchers rely on informal data sources in their paper. Primarily these are the sero-prevalence studies conducted by AIIMS and WHO, and the consumer pyramid household survey (CPHS) produced by the Center for the Monitoring of the Indian Economy (CMIE) in which one of the questions the interviewed person is asked is whether any family member had passed away in the previous six months. Both of these data are very unsuitable for making any such calculations.

Extrapolation from CPHS and SRS Data Sets

The researchers have relied in large part on the CPHS data set for drawing their conclusions. Admittedly, the CPHS data set is deeply problematic as the year 2019 shows an unusually high spike in mortality compared to the 2015-18 period. The pandemic did not exist in 2019. However, this does not deter the researchers from still continuing to rely on this data set and they call the 2019 findings problematic instead. Noted economist Ms Shamika Ravi, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, explains, quoting in part the researchers themselves, why the CPHS data is not a suitable or reliable source of data for determining actual mortality. In another article, Ms Shamika Ravi points out that due to better information gathering systems implemented by the Central Government over the past five years, the government’s Sample Registration System (SRS) data of 2019 shows a significantly higher number of deaths than that of 2015-18 average. As of 2019, an estimated 92% of deaths are being recorded by the SRS compared to around 70% earlier, and this number is expected to rise further. Any interpretation based on extrapolation of the 2019 data would end up showing over a million excess deaths over 2015-18, even at a time when there was no COVID pandemic. Hence, the use of SRS data in comparison to previous years is very unreliable. The researchers have acknowledged the severe problems with the data used by them but have still gone ahead to make sensational claims based on it, which is very unfortunate.

Extrapolation from antibody data in serosurveys

The researchers have taken the midpoint of the first and second waves, correlated the numbers with the WHO-AIIMS serosurvey of the same period and extrapolated it to deaths due to COVID by applying American CDC’s infection fatality rate (IFR) to the serosurvey data. This is a very questionable methodology, to say the least. It is well known that subclinical spread of SARS COV2 is far wider than actual number of diagnosed cases. For example, approximately 12% of the population of UK tested positive for COVID antibodies in December 2020. Extrapolating to absolute numbers, it suggests that 79 lakh people were exposed to SARS COV2 in UK at a time when the total number of actual cases was approximately 17 lakhs. If we are to calculate mortality based on 79 lakhs, it would be approximately 450% that of the actual mortality declared by the UK government at that time. Consider Mumbai, which has a seropositivity of approximately 60%. If we extrapolate this to the population of Mumbai, we would get a mortality figure running into several lakhs against the actual number of around 12,000. This should explain why it is foolhardy to make assumptions based on extrapolation of serosurvey data to IFR. Such a calculation is bound to show up highly inflated figures that are far removed from ground realities.

Standard Error in calculating excess mortality

For their forecasting, the researchers have taken different standard errors based on age group. The purpose of standard error is to estimate the deviation from the mean. A deviation of 3 would be sufficient to cover 99.7% of the target population under the standard Bell curve. The standard error indicates how far the target sample result is from the actual mean. In the concerned paper, the data table has the standard error of different population groups in brackets.

There are severe problems with this table. It uses the deeply flawed CPHS data, applies IFR of the US CDC to it and extrapolates from serosurvey results to calculate the output results, which are literally all over the place. Standard error in various age groups ranges from 0.21 for baseline urban to as high as 53.97 for over 80 population during second wave. A wide standard error means the sample does not represent the population being studied, and these are astronomically high numbers. Ideally, the standard error should not exceed 2, but in all the higher risk groups, it is noted that the standard error ranges from 4 to almost 54, clearly showing that the displayed result does not accurately represent the sample populations. Conveniently, the fact that the bracketed numbers represent standard error is tucked away inconspicuously in the text of the paper. It is very hard to take these results seriously as they are not representative of the samples being studied, which are based on bad data in the first place. One would be forced to wonder about the motives of brutally torturing data in this manner to force it to conform to the presuppositions of the paper.

Actual Under-reporting of Mortality

Some degree of under-reporting of COVID related mortality has indeed happened, and several states have added previously undeclared numbers to their mortality data. A prominent media house has claimed credit for having forced state governments to declare their mortality numbers honestly by their ground reportage, but several states that updated their mortality data were not “exposed” by this media house. Kerala failed to declare 6000 confirmed COVID deaths and their official toll is approximately 15,000 but Subramanian et al have still praised the state as having a low mortality due to better public healthcare infrastructure in their paper. Despite being lauded by many for allegedly reporting numbers honestly, Maharashtra added nearly 13,000 previously undeclared deaths to their tally last month. This additional number is 10% of the total death toll of 1.31 lakhs. Madhya Pradesh also added 1478 deaths to their tally, about 15% to its overall mortality is 10,512 as of 22nd July 2021. Gujarat has been accused of massively under-reporting COVID deaths as the state had appointed an audit team that certified every confirmed death only after conducting an inquiry, but West Bengal which followed exactly the same procedure did not face any such accusations. Clearly, the discussion on a very serious topic has been intensively politicised, and it is unfortunate that the researchers are knowingly or unknowingly contributing to further politicising what should have been a completely apolitical discussion.

Concluding Remarks

India does have a historic problem of reporting mortality due to the myriad data collection agencies in play. However, the Central government has been making substantial efforts at reducing the gap between reported and actual mortality and brought it down to under 10%. An exact number for the mortality due to COVID will never be known due to reasons outlined in the above article. We will at best have an approximation. However, any claims of a difference of six to ten times and millions instead of lakhs must be made on the back of reliable data and robust methodology. The Arvind Subramanian – Harvard paper, by using a flawed data set and extremely questionable methodology to draw its conclusions, does neither and hence it “fails the smell test” of objectivity in scientific research.
https://amitsurg.com/2021/07/23/excess- ... ssion=true
sampat
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by sampat »

I have asked previously about suggestions on vaccination for senior citizens with various ailments (Pre-diabetic, daily headaches, poor sleep, high BP,athrities, COPD and asthma, epilepsy and seasonal allergies). Thank you all for your suggestions. As advised here, I consulted the doctor and went ahead with the Pfizer vaccine. There were no side effects except for one person feeling slight pain on injection site.

Didn't want to clutter this thread but wanted to write this here as a data point in case someone else is also in similar situation. Thanks again!

PS: for context, Pfizer is the only option available for us, question was whether to get vaccinated or not.
sanjaykumar
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by sanjaykumar »

That is a incredible indictment by Amit thadani of the Haarvaard paper.

Incredible because it’s so trivially done.
Tanaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Tanaji »

sanjaykumar wrote:That is a incredible indictment by Amit thadani of the Haarvaard paper.

Incredible because it’s so trivially done.
Indeed. Even a lay person like me had pointed out the foolhardiness of applying US rates to indian serologic survey results… What is more interesting is none of the media houses either Indian or foreign did a basic sniff test to see if the results made any sense.

If deaths were 40L plus, I should be hearing of a lot more deaths in my acquaintances. I hear a lot of infections, but not a whole lot of deaths.

I didn’t expect anything else from Arvind and his gang but did expect intellectual honesty from others… The Express report said it was a CDc study, the above article seems to imply that they merely used CDC data and researchers were different.

@Amberji, can you please provide your take on this?
Kakkaji
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

7/23 7 PM https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1738302 42,75,00,272

7/24 7PM: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1738682 43,26,05,567

TOTAL DOSES for Saturday 7/24 --- 51,05,295 doses
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