Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

greatde · Post by **greatde** » 22 Mar 2020 23:51

Unfortunately , Janata Curfew itself isn’t the goal and thus foolish to call it a success. It is a long battle, and common people have to be committed for isolation at their homes for some time. It was very silly to see people gathering in numbers, celebrations, fireworks at 5pm.

suryag · Post by **suryag** » 23 Mar 2020 00:11

looks like California is flattening out, NY is scary with 100% increase overnight. Meanwhile, the effects of our lockdown will take another 1 week to show. BTW, any newer studies on hydroxychloroquie+azithromycin treatment efficacy ?

madhu · Post by **madhu** » 23 Mar 2020 00:15

Scientists warn we may need to live with social distancing for a year or more

nam · Post by **nam** » 23 Mar 2020 00:58

Agva health care seems to produce ventilators.

https://mobile.twitter.com/diwakarvaish ... 7640040449

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 01:10

How long before people start the shootings, assoaults, rapes, mass killings, suicides, drug overdoses?

Humans are fundamentally social animals and also territorial. The latter in the sense that they seem to have a diurnal need to patrol their territory be it school, work, recreation. I am looking at New York. It is the perfect laboratory. Highly urbanised, densely populated, availability of copius amounts drugs and alcohol, even more guns, class and race inequality.
Add dwindling resources and likely rampant inflation.

Extended lockdowns may be counterproductive.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 23 Mar 2020 01:25

Race against time!
So, who are the developers leading the race for the highly sought-after vaccine? https://www.jpost.com/International/US- ... ans-621844

Moderna
The first dose of the mRNA-1273 coronavirus vaccine, developed by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Moderna’s infectious disease research team, was given to the first participant in their Phase 1 study on March 16. The trial of the vaccine, built on previous studies of SARS and MERS, is intended to provide data on the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine, and is expected to enroll 45 healthy adult volunteers over six weeks.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based drug discovery company emphasized that it is "still early in the story," with no approved drugs to date emerging from its vaccine program and no previous human trials. The current trials are being carried out at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), described the study as "an important first step toward" finding a safe and effective vaccine.
CanSino Biologics
Authorities in China granted approval last week for Phase 1 clinical trials of a coronavirus vaccine developed by researchers at Tianjin-based CanSino Biologics and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
Tests of Ad5-nCoV in animals, researchers said, showed that the vaccine candidate can induce strong immune response and demonstrated a good safety profile. Pre-screening for the first human study has already began, and is expected to enroll 108 healthy participants at Wuhan's Tongji Hospital.
"“Having committed to provide unconditional support to fight against the global epidemic, CanSinoBIO is determined to launch our vaccine product candidate as soon as possible with no compromise on quality and safety," said CanSino chairman and CEO Xuefeng Yu.
MIGAL
Located in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, the MIGAL – Galilee Research Institute is working to adapt a vaccine initially developed to prevent the Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) in poultry.
Funded by the government, the institute hailed a “scientific breakthrough that will lead to the rapid creation of a vaccine against coronavirus" in late February, based on the genetic similarity between the avian coronavirus and the novel coronavirus. Human testing of the oral vaccine, the institute said, is expected to begin within eight to 10 weeks, and safety approval is expected within 90 days.
"We are currently in intensive discussions with potential partners that can help accelerate the in-human trials phase and expedite the completion final product development and regulatory activities," said MIGAL CEO David Zigdon.
INOVIO Pharmaceuticals
Pennsylvania-based INOVIO announced the receipt of a new $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on March 12 to accelerate the testing of its novel DNA vaccine for COVID-19, known as INO-4800.
Currently in preclinical studies, INOVIO plans to advance into US Phase 1 clinical trials next month, backed by up to $9m. in funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The company says it aims to deliver one million doses of INO-4900 and hand-held intradermal delivery devices to administer them by the end of 2020.
"Our team of vaccine experts are working around the clock to advance INO-4800 and we look forward to attracting additional partnerships to expedite its development to meet this urgent global health need," said INOVIO president and CEO Dr. J. Joseph Kim.
CureVac
Reportedly the target of an acquisition attempt by US President Donald Trump, German biopharmaceutical company CureVac announced that it is leveraging its mRNA-based drug platform to produce a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.
The European Commission has offered up to €80 million of financial support to CureVac, which plans to launch clinical tests in June 2020. If proven, the Commission said, millions of vaccine doses could be produced at low costs in the company's existing production facilities.
"The combination of mRNA science, disease understanding, formulation and production expertise make CureVac a unique player to fight against any infectious disease, no matter whether they are seasonal or pandemic," said CureVac CTO Mariola Fotin-Mleczek.
BioNTech
German immunotherapy company and American pharma giant Pfizer signed a letter of intent last week to co-develop and distribute an mRNA-based vaccine against the novel coronavirus. The partnership, originally formed in 2018 to develop flu vaccines, will accelerate BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine program BNT162, which is expected to enter the clinic by the end of April.
Just one day earlier, the Mainz-based company announced a strategic development and commercialization collaboration with Fosun Pharma to advance its mRNA vaccine in China. Fosun Pharma will pay BioNTech up to $135m. in upfront and potential future investment and milestone payments.
"We feel a duty to exploit our full technology and immunotherapy expertise to help address the COVID-19 pandemic emergency," said BioNTech founder and CEO Prof. Ugur Sahin, adding that the company is also working on a novel therapeutics approach for patients who have already been infected. Details, he said, will be disclosed "in the coming weeks."

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 23 Mar 2020 01:28

sanjaykumar wrote:How long before people start the shootings, assoaults, rapes, mass killings, suicides, drug overdoses?

Humans are fundamentally social animals and also territorial. The latter in the sense that they seem to have a diurnal need to patrol their territory be it school, work, recreation. I am looking at New York. It is the perfect laboratory. Highly urbanised, densely populated, availability of copius amounts drugs and alcohol, even more guns, class and race inequality.
Add dwindling resources and likely rampant inflation.

Extended lockdowns may be counterproductive.

Too pessimistic. It is a society with vast resources: social capital, intellectual capital, financial capital, law and order system. Focus has to be on defeating the disease. The economic recovery will follow.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 01:30

Vaccines are the easiest to design and in 2010 perhaps even trivial. However there is not one case of a successful RNA or DNA vaccine approved for use in humans or livestock. This is uncharted territory.

eklavya · Post by **eklavya** » 23 Mar 2020 01:37

^^^^
You know more science than I ever will. As a citizen, I would wish scientists to be provided all the support they could possibly require to find the vaccine / something that acts against the virus successfully. This is a medical, political and economic crisis. It’s global. The politics and the economics have to serve the science.

ldev · Post by **ldev** » 23 Mar 2020 01:45

Coronavirus is bringing a plague of dangerous doomsday predictions

By John Blake, CNN

Updated 10:16 AM ET, Sun March 22, 2020

(CNN)In the summer of 2008, an elderly psychic who claimed she started receiving premonitions at age 5 published a book that contained an ominous prediction.

"In around 2020, a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments," it said. "Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely."
The prediction faded from public memory and the book's author, Sylvia Browne, died in 2013. But the coronavirus pandemic has brought new attention to Browne's book, "End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World." It's shot up to No. 2 on Amazon's nonfiction chart, and physical copies are now selling for hundreds of dollars.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 01:46

Yes, it is researchers who will save the planet, doctors can only ever save individuals.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 01:48

Ah yes the day of judgement, qayamat wallahs. All I can say is: This is a good time to convert to these religions, Allah/Jesus will save you.

ldev · Post by **ldev** » 23 Mar 2020 01:50

sanjaykumar wrote:Ah yes the day of judgement, qayamat wallahs. All I can say is: This is a good time to convert to these religions, Allah/Jesus will save you.

Lol!!

Let us see if the 2nd part of her prophesy happens i.e. that it will disappear as suddenly as it appears.

ldev · Post by **ldev** » 23 Mar 2020 02:00

sanjaykumar wrote:Yes, it is researchers who will save the planet, doctors can only ever save individuals.

And yet would anyone have posited 6 months ago that medical science and knowledge would be be powerless in the short term to prevent the world being brought down onto it's knees in the face of an unknown organism?

Also, investors endlessly optimize their portfolios to achieve that perfect balance between risk and return. And yet the world showed a total disregard for risk management by putting anywhere from 50%-100% of all non automotive & non military manufacturing capacity into one country, China

sudarshan · Post by **sudarshan** » 23 Mar 2020 02:04

Worldometer playing roulette/ wheel of fortune with US numbers

. Yesterday they showed a high number of additional cases for the US, then reduced it by 1300, then increased it back up, and finally moved 2500 of those to the next day. Today they were showing +15,000 cases for the US, now they've scaled down to +8000 (which I guess includes the 2500 from yesterday?). What's going on with testing in the US?

I think the fatalities are a better indicator of infections, though they lag by a week or two. Those are going up about 30% a day. They haven't been playing roulette with those numbers so far, maybe they still have some respect for lives, if not for health.

Or maybe - they've been hacked again. Last time some joker put in numbers showing millions of % infection rate in the Vatican.

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 23 Mar 2020 02:14

https://twitter.com/EdselSalvana/status ... 8354677760

Dr. Edsel Salvana @EdselSalvana

Please don't take hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) plus Azithromycin for #COVID19 UNLESS your doctor prescribes it. Both drugs affect the QT interval of your heart and can lead to arrhythmias and sudden death, especially if you are taking other meds or have a heart condition.

devaraya · Post by **devaraya** » 23 Mar 2020 02:16

Another case of Bloody educated idiots cheating the thermal tests at airport !
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/covid- ... ssion=true

HYDERABAD: A man who tested positive for the Covid-19 virus on Friday after returning home from UK said that many students had taken paracetamol before landing in Hyderabad, to lower their body temperature and escape checks at the airport, reports Uttara Varma.

Akhil Ennamsetty , a 24-year-old Warangal-based lawyer, who was on a flight from London that landed in Mumbai on Wednesday, is currently in the isolation ward of Gandhi hospital.
Ennamsetty, a student of LLM in human rights law at the University of Edinburg, took a connecting domestic flight to the city with only 10 other passengers, who are also in quarantine now.
“Most of my copassengers in the flight from Heathrow consisted of students from various universities in the UK. They took paracetamol an hour before landing, to lower their body temperature and not get ‘caught’ in the thermal screening being done at the Indian airports,” said Ennamsetty in a social media post.

Ennamsetty warned health authorities that foreign returnees who masked their actual body temperature and symptoms were staying with their parents and was putting everyone else at great health risk.
Telangana has reported 18 cases of Covid-19 so far, with eight positive cases alone on Wednesday.

“Early this morning I have been (sic) tested positive for Covid-19. I am admitted to the isolation ward at Gandhi Hospital. My chain of contact confirms that no one else needs to be isolated in relation to my case as I have taken all precautions to not meet anyone post my arrival in India from the UK,” said Ennamsetty through a post on facebook.

A student of LLM in human rights law at the University of Edinburgh, Ennamsetty highlighted how students had “lied in the self-declaration forms given on the flight about the symptoms in order to escape getting quarantined upon arrival. These are the people who are now staying with their families and friends around you, maybe on the very next door (sic).”

Speaking to TOI, Ennamsetty, said he knew about 10 people who took paracetamol on the flight.

While appreciating the steps being taken at airports, especially in Hyderabad, he said it was not fool-proof, since they were relying only on thermal screening and he himself was largely asymptomatic.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 02:25

And yet would anyone have posited 6 months ago that medical science and knowledge would be be powerless in the short term to prevent the world being brought down onto it's knees in the face of an unknown organism?[/i

The physician knows the thousand ways to die, and that is about all one can say about that job. It is the poorly paid, unheralded social misfits in the obscure laboratories who are battling the enveloping entropy of knowinglessness.

I am somewhat optimistic that repurposed drugs and some serendipity will buy time. The AI systems may yield candidates but I know of no convincing demonstration that AI is any better than chance. A fascinating area of enquiry.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 02:26

Perhaps they need to do a point of care acetaminophen blood test on disembarking passengers. Random tests, if they have denied taking it, automatic quarantine for two weeks.

devaraya · Post by **devaraya** » 23 Mar 2020 02:40

Please see @florian_krammer and his protocol for #SARSCoV2 antigen expression and ELISA. Lots of Doctor’s, Univ Labs and Hospitals are very excited about this protocol.
He is a Professor at the Department of Microbiology Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

"We have drafted a detailed protocol for antigen expression and ELISA set-up for COVID19 serology. Download it her: Https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/krammerlab/covid-19/. This can be used to set up ELISAs in research labs but also clinical labs. The vectors for expression can be requested from my lab."

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 02:43

Yeah, it's pretty standard and expected stuff.

vijayk · Post by **vijayk** » 23 Mar 2020 02:50

Guys

I am hearing that no doctor in Central Government Hopotal in hyderabad has no gloves or masks. They are all being forced to come to work without any transport arrangements. Please reach out to anyone in Government if you can. This is dangerous

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Mar 2020 03:54

Doc, There also three Indian firms/labs trying to develop vaccine.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Mar 2020 03:55

UB is using his time off to create a pandemic predictor model. And getting it tested off line.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 23 Mar 2020 04:03

Indian pharma companies in race to make vaccine: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/co ... 025613.ece#

Zydus’s research involves two approaches. The first deals with development of a DNA vaccine against the major viral membrane protein responsible for the cell entry of the novel coronavirus. The second approach involves developing a live attenuated (or weakened) recombinant measles virus-vectored vaccine against Covid-19. The recombinant measles virus (rMV) produced by reverse genetics would express codon-optimised proteins of the novel coronavirus, and will induce long-term neutralising antibodies which will protect from the infection.

Zydus’s Vaccine Technology Centre in India is working on the plasmid DNA vaccine, and in Europe, its research arm Etna Biotech is working on the second approach.

Explaining the serum candidate, Dr Rajeev Dhere, Executive Director with the vaccine-major, said the company was using a different technology to modify the virus in a way that it was “attenuated”. The “tailor-made” virus would be non-virulent, he explained, and give the human body the “memory of immunology” to help it generate antibodies against the virus. The development is in collaboration with the American biotech firm. Reports quoted Serum Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla as being hopeful of a vaccine in early 2022.

“A live-attenuated vaccine has multiple advantages, including mounting an immune response to multiple antigens of the virus and the ability to scale for mass production,” the two companies had said announcing their collaboration last month.

mappunni · Post by **mappunni** » 23 Mar 2020 06:31

The rise of 3-D printed ventilators

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/the- ... rs-5155474

chanakyaa · Post by **chanakyaa** » 23 Mar 2020 07:10

Global mortality associated with seasonal influenza epidemics: New burden estimates and predictors from the GLaMOR Project (Oct 2019)

Until recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the annual mortality burden of influenza to be 250,000 to 500,000 all-cause deaths globally; however, a 2017 study indicated a substantially higher mortality burden, at 290,000-650,000 influenza-associated deaths from respiratory causes alone, and a 2019 study estimated 99,000-200,000 deaths from lower respiratory tract infections directly caused by influenza. Here we revisit global and regional estimates of influenza mortality burden and explore mortality trends over time and geography...

2019-2020 U.S. Flu Season: Preliminary Burden Estimates

flu illnesses: 38,000,000 – 54,000,000
flu medical visits: 17,000,000 – 25,000,000
flu hospitalizations: 390,000 – 710,000
flu deaths: 23,000 – 59,000

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 23 Mar 2020 08:16

A Plan to Get America Back to Work

we still do not have a firm grasp of the population-wide fatality rate of coronavirus.

“Income is one of the stronger predictors of health outcomes — and of how long we live,’’ Woolf said. “Lost wages and job layoffs are leaving many workers without health insurance and forcing many families to forego health care and medications to pay for food, housing, and other basic needs.

A surgical-vertical approach would focus on protecting and sequestering those among us most likely to be killed or suffer long-term damage by exposure to coronavirus infection — that is, the elderly, people with chronic diseases and the immunologically compromised — while basically treating the rest of society the way we have always dealt with familiar threats like the flu.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 23 Mar 2020 08:28

As Covid-19 spikes, ICMR to model best, worst case scenarios - Business Line

In the light of the spike in Covid-19 cases, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will release mathematical estimations of the best and the worst case scenarios on the number of new cases that could play out over the next few months.

According to academic modellings, the number of coronavirus cases in India could run into lakhs, with a few thousand deaths.

“We are looking at mathematical modelling estimates to predict the numbers and will release the scenarios on Tuesday. We have to calculate the need for diagnostic test kits now,” R Gangakhedkar, head, epidemiology and communicable diseases, ICMR, said.

Balram Bhargava, ICMR Head and Secretary to the Department of Health Research, said that 80 per cent of those with Covid-19 symptoms like dry cough will recover under home-based set-ups and their symptoms will not worsen. He added, “About 20 per cent will have exacerbated symptoms and discomfort, of which only 5 per cent will require hospitalisation,” Bhargava said.

Separate Covid-19 set-ups

All States have been asked to identify empty or under-utilised hospitals to prepare separate Covid-19 quarantine and isolation set-ups. “Delhi has identified the National Cancer Institute in Jhajjhar, run by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, as a Covid-19 hospital set up,” Bhargava said.

While Bhargava said that ICMR labs have the capacity to run 60,000-70,000 diagnostic tests a week, it has run 5,000 tests since the outbreak began. “We have till date tested 15,000 samples,” he said.

On roping in private players for testing, Bhargava said 60 labs had approached the ICMR for registration; their capacity to handle samples without it posing a bio-security hazard was being reviewed.

disha · Post by **disha** » 23 Mar 2020 09:44

suryag wrote:looks like California is flattening out, NY is scary with 100% increase overnight. Meanwhile, the effects of our lockdown will take another 1 week to show. BTW, any newer studies on hydroxychloroquie+azithromycin treatment efficacy ?

Northern California was flattening out (or even reducing) until SF City reported a 30% jump. Further, the national guard has been called out in So Cal (LA) to enforce lockdown.

Lockdown is helping. N. California is more resilient in terms of economy and is more wired so lockdowns have the desired effect of social distancing. Hopefully if the lockdowns continue till April 7 and county by county they start removing the lockdown they will be able to control this.

I think it might result into "pulse lockdown". That is, remove lockdown and then immediately put it in back. Managing cases in bursts and in the meantime buy time to get the medical facilities spruced up.

A study from france said that *quinine+azithromycin reduces the viral load and 3/4th did not have viruses after 6-day therapy.

In India, the state of TN is managing it the best so far.

===

Here is a personal take on this epidemic. A background, my father started a business that went on to become the largest medical distributor for two states in S. India. As I was helping my father, I have seen kids in heart-lung machines (polio), interacted with public health practitioners for NMEP, National Tuberculosis control program etc.

I fear two diseases mostly. Tuberculosis and Diarrhea (caused by rotavirus/amoeba etc). When HIV came to India, I saw multi-crores diverted from NMEP/Sanitation etc towards HIV. There was such a hue-and-cry that India will be awash in HIV and there will be deaths and 30% of Indians will be wiped out.

HIV is spread only by one way - exchange of body fluid and generally the high risk were persons indulging in unsafe sexual practices, drug addicts (sharing needles etc) and the other were vulnerable if they received contaminated blood/plasma. There was no discussion about restricting the high risk population. For example, would it have helped if public health did go to the red light district and just distributed condoms? Or just offer them money to get out of the 'trade'. Interestingly, lot of seminars sponsored by 5* NGOs in 5*/7* hotels talked about "India is doing nothing for the AIDS epidemic". Some 3 decades later, HIV is not even considered a problem.

However, every day hundreds of TB patients die in India. It is world's largest ongoing epidemic in India and nobody talks about it. Everyday approx. 750 Indians die of TB. Please let that sink in, every day 750 Indians die of TB and approx. 3 lakhs die every year.. 40% of Indians have latent TB.

Hence I do get flummoxed on the coronavirus epidemic. Yes it will hit the health care industry hard. And it is going to spread like wildfire, with cases doubling almost every day. What is the solution other than hand wringing?

My take has been simple. Yes contain it as much. Containment failed because of MeToo highly literate arrogant idiots. Now can we discuss phase III?

Even now, adapt social distancing. Clampdown curfews in several districts across India. It will be just like 1984-1991 period where half of India was under curfew for one or other reason. This is not new for my generation. Might be new for the newer generation who never saw major curfews post 2002.

Still, can we discuss phase III?

1. Set up tents on each and every apartment complex. 10 tents per apartment complex, each housing 3 cots and each having one ventilator (even hand pumped if need be made by a open-disseminated-jugaad) and over 40 apartment complexes in each city (hopefully with elevators), you will instantly have 1000-1200 beds. Apartment complexes already have the water, the food and the resources itself are available. Also human resources.

2. Set up tents on each 3*/4*/5* hotel. What is the difference between a hotel and a hospital minus the health care?

3. Set up tents in each indoor/outdoor stadium.

I think if done with a plan, each city can come up with some 10 thousand to 50 thousand beds overnight. Yes, they will require health care professionals. They will require additional services. Train the family to take care of their elderly. Anyway the schools are closed. Anyway the colleges are closed. If the youth are already exposed and have come through, then they are naturally immune. They can learn basic care. More importantly it will teach them something as a care giver. It is not difficult. My 7-year old niece knows how to care for her 75 year old Grandma - provides right pills on time!

Of course the bottlenecks are:

1. Qualified healthcare professionals
2. Medical equipment (oxygen bottles/ventilators etc)

It is doable.

disha · Post by **disha** » 23 Mar 2020 09:49

IndraD wrote:News of more and more young fit and well population falling severely ill with covid19!
From 35 to 47 year old are being ventilated in ITU with no precondition. Virus is unpredictable.

Do we know the dietary practices of the 'young fit and well population' ?

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 09:55

Ventilators mean more than a pump. Ventilation necessitates iv fluids likely antibiotics sedation paralysis blood gas measurement routine blood work radiological imaging hygiene intubation extubation and of course aseptic protocols.

You will note there is very little information on icu survival. How many get off the ventilator? How many cannot be weaned and have to have the ventilator turned off? The numbers are likely abysmal for the very old. Why put them through futile treatment?

VikramA · Post by **VikramA** » 23 Mar 2020 09:57

disha wrote:
IndraD wrote:News of more and more young fit and well population falling severely ill with covid19!
From 35 to 47 year old are being ventilated in ITU with no precondition. Virus is unpredictable.
Do we know the dietary practices of the 'young fit and well population' ?

I am going to venture a guess here that these 'fit' people are gym goers and into some sort of body building and take some steriods which are known to increase blood pressure .

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 23 Mar 2020 10:04

^^yes the HIV epidemic that was almost gleefully predicted in India never materialized. India managed to disappoint some people again.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 23 Mar 2020 11:05

I think Modi ji needs to address the nation again quickly and tell people that the one day curfew needs to be extended to one or two weeks. After the successful curfew yesterday things seem to be getting back to normal in cities which is a bad thing. The one day curfew should be a dress rehearsal for the real thing which should happen now. Possibly enforced by deploying CRPF and other central police forces to aid and supplement local police who seem to be going around asking people not to venture out unnecessarily. A greater presence by security forces might help since a lot of people don't seem to be taking the threat as seriously as they should.

I don't necessarily blame them. It is hard to comprehend the magnitude of the threat when the cases are still in the hundreds. Seeing CRPF jawans on the streets could go a long way. People are usually used to seeing them only when riots happen and it has the desired effect then.

My parents who have pretty much locked themselves down in their apartment in Mumbai were saying that the southbound traffic on western express highway (which they can see from their window) seems to be back to normal this morning. They were wondering where all those people were going since a lot of the South Mumbai offices have asked people to work from home and even the govt. offices are working with a much reduced staff. BEST buses also seem to be running almost full. Not an encouraging sign.

Manish_P · Post by **Manish_P** » 23 Mar 2020 11:19

^ +1

PM Modi has already tweeted that people need to take the social distancing more seriously and the days curfew was to show that it was possible.

I think he needs to address the nation again soon. Within a day or so

chola · Post by **chola** » 23 Mar 2020 11:23

SriKumar wrote:
chola wrote:
Kumar Ji, the global system won't disappear in the next year or five or 10 years. But it is dead in that globalization is no longer growing. The thought beginning in the 1980s was that efficiency will drive things so that industries will always find the lowest cost quality balance. The trade war broke that notion. The virus accelerated the implementation and affect of that notion. Countries are cutting off trade, travel and interchange with one another.
THanks for this and the other explanation. I was always uncomfortable about seeing so many Chinese goods in the US, purely from an economic standpoint. I cannot believe that a 10-cent plastic toy is actually cheaper to manufacture 10,00 miles away and transport it, rather than manufacture it locally. Yes, I know about economies of scale and mass production reducing per-part cost etc, but I suspect that a lot of costs were completely hidden and the real cost was never made public. In other words, these were heavily subsidized by governments (Chinese govt. which gave free money to set up industries) or even in the price of oil which is needed to transport goods across the PAcific and arond the world- no one factors in the cost of military delpolyments needs to ensure safety of the oil pipeline, on land or on sea).

No one in business actually thinks they subsidized low end products like toys. You subsidize select, critical industries until they mature. Cheen would have gone bankrupt ages ago and would have no infrastructure today if they had subsidized everything. It is economically impossible to lose money on every piece of export with subsidies and still have enough to build out cities and high speed rails. Thru made money selling that stuff

I dont think the last 2 decades were an aberration. The relentless focus on shareholder value and stock price driven by Wall street bigwigs and other financial and industrial captains hammered the sitution into what it became in the late 90's to date. That might well go away (i.e. we may see less globalization) but with the next political dispensation to come in 1 or 5 years, I think globalization is likely to come back as long as shareholder value and maximizing profits are given primacy, and these two factors have been accepted as self-evident truths in the last 2 decades- all challenges were thoroughly steamrolled at great cost to a lot of people. That story is over. Coronavirus could still change that, but with 'only' a 1% death rate, and the potential for post-inefction immunity and vaccines next year, unless there is a political fiat or a trade war, I see the global economy 'adjusting' to it in a year or so (it always finds a way) and carrying on as before to increase shareholder value and maximize profits (I dont have any fundamental issue with either of these two items, by the way).

It is not an aberration if you believe in the market. But there is something call national security that dictates that not everything should be made overseas.

The "global" supply chain before China's entry into the WTO in the 1980s were kept in the hands of US allies in the Far East. Japan, Korea and Taiwan (along with city states Hong Kong and Singapore) were given a chance to develop into advanced economies by the West allowing them entry into the supply chain.

In 1980s, people thought China signaled the beginning of a supply chain structure that would be driven by corporations instead of geo-politics. The idea was that after China has developed and become expensive, the supply chain would move on to the next country who might or might not be an US ally.

But that has all changed. I think the last country to develop from globalization is the PRC. Countries, led by the US, are literally walling themselves off. Developing countries will no longer be able to use exports as a means to advance.

Manish_P · Post by **Manish_P** » 23 Mar 2020 11:30

nachiket wrote:
My parents who have pretty much locked themselves down in their apartment in Mumbai were saying that the southbound traffic on western express highway (which they can see from their window) seems to be back to normal this morning. They were wondering where all those people were going since a lot of the South Mumbai offices have asked people to work from home and even the govt. offices are working with a much reduced staff. BEST buses also seem to be running almost full. Not an encouraging sign.

May i ask where in mumbai are they based, Nachiket ji?

I stay in the northern suburb of Borivali, Mumbai. All cars in our society are parked since saturday. Hardly any folk have stepped out for work/shopping/walks etc since saturday. 2-3 youth had stepped out today morning (separately) for buying some medicines (lot of senior citizens in my society). No maids, no sweepers, no delivery persons.

I can see the trains halted from my window. My building is about 100 metres from one of the busiest roads (S V Road) but i can't hear the usual amount of traffic (the vehicular pollution, which hits our society complex from an east-west flyover, is noticeably down too).

Please note that I haven't stepped out (been at home since past 4 days) to check it first-hand though. So i am stating this purely by sound (and to a small extent by smell)

Aarvee · Post by **Aarvee** » 23 Mar 2020 11:32

sanjaykumar wrote:^^yes the HIV epidemic that was almost gleefully predicted in India never materialized. India managed to disappoint some people again.

And I sincerely hope we do so once again

chola · Post by **chola** » 23 Mar 2020 11:39

I think officials are beginning to seriously think about herd immunity. When the governor of New York is publicly stating that 40 to 80 % will be infected and Los Angeles County is giving up on containment then it must be on the table now.

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... nt-testing

L.A. County gives up on containing coronavirus, tells doctors to skip testing of some patients

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/22/health/u ... index.html

Almost half of those cases -- 15,168 -- were in New York state, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday morning that an estimated 40% to 80% of residents could get the coronavirus over the course of the pandemic.