Bharat Rakshak

Zynda wrote:This is the situation in BLR. BBMP has stopped supplying vaccines to most private vaccination centers & hospitals. Only a few big chain hospitals are getting vaccines from BBMP or have managed to secure order through other routes. Currently, most of the vaccines are going to Government hospitals and corporation health centers. Again very limited vaccinations are being done for 18-44 group...mostly in big chain private hospitals. Current vaccinations going on in Government centers are mainly for 2nd dose people and for 1st dose who are in >45 age group. Most private centers are saying that they are expecting stocks to receive only after June 1st week. They were receiving stocks from BBMP till April 30th. Read some where that Private hospital network are now pooling resources together and are placing huge orders with SII & BB directly. I guess situation wrt 18-44 vaccination won't pick up pace massively before June 15th...

If you look at the statewise table in the PIB Release I posted above, Karnataka is way behind other comparable size states in vaccinating the 18-44 group with only slightly above 10K doses administered so far.

Maharashtra has exceede 3 lakh doses, Delhi is close to it, Gujarat and Rajasthan are way above 2 lakhs.

Suraj wrote:I made this point recently when I posted about the Pfizer vaccine situation (https://twitter.com/surajbrf/status/138 ... 30565?s=20) - importing vaccines is simply not going to work for India. Especially so with Pfizer, but true for pretty much any major vaccine. This is because airplanes are restricted in how much dry ice they can transport due to sublimation and cabin pressurization risk, and thus an aircraft can carry the same amount of Pfizer doses as a trailer truck.

If you look at Pfizer supplies, it is concentrated in US where it is trucked from Kalamazoo, and in EU/UK where it is trucked in from Puurs, Belgium. These are the two Pfizer plants. All others get 300-500K doses per plane every week/fortnight/month. Do the math on that - there's no way Pfizer imports work, and even if some other vaccine has less ultra cold transport requirement (more doses/kg of dry ice) there's still a limit due to the sheer difference in air freight vs trucking rate.

Summary - India's going to solve its vaccine needs almost entirely by itself. We're fortunate we are able to do that - and with Covaxin and Zycov-D, we don't even have any IP restriction preventing us.

Suraj - Zy-Cov-D will not solve any problem because they have almost no production capacity due to lack of financing. Zydus can produce 200 million vaccines a year and it is a 3 dose vaccine. So, basically a drop in the bucket. This situation will only improve once Biological-e's vaccine + covaxin and covishield production increases.

Update: 5/8/2021 - SUTRA : (Will be interesting to see numbers one month from now)

- Yesterday's numbers actually came down - and it is the first time when the 7 day moving average has comedown too. It seems that the peak predicted quite a while ago (5-11 May) (The peak height is higher - but that is what the model did say - the uncertainty could be from 170K to 500 K from the phase - shift). Anyway this data is being shared with stake-holders (like GoI and state governments) and is being also tweeted .. hope fully a site will be setup soon to make it more easily available to all.


(Source: Dr. Vidyasagar).

When all is said and done, people are going to be needing more than drugs. Time for many Dharma gurus to start thinking about how to handle troubled mind.

Gujarat govt to buy 5,000 amphotericin B 50 MG injections to fight Mucormycosis
https://www.deshgujarat.com/2021/05/08/ ... ormycosis/
...
The Government has also decided to order 5,000 amphotericin B 50 MG injections worth Rs. 3.12 crore for treatment of mucormycosis.
....

https://www.timesnownews.com/internatio ... mic/754509

https://www.republicworld.com/world-new ... apons.html
China Discussed Weaponising Coronaviruses Before Pandemic, Predicted WW3 With Bio-weapons

Dr. Li-Meng YAN
@DrLiMengYAN1
·
23h
The mentioned breaking document to “predict World War III as biological war” is the PLA’s novel bioweapon textbook (by General Dezhong Xi, 2015) I’m translating into English with our Chinese volunteers! The brief introduction is in the 3rd Yan Repor

China probed weaponisation of coronaviruses
The paper obtained by the US officials were reportedly written by military scientists and senior Chinese public health officials in 2015, The Australian reported adding that it was a part of their own investigation into the origins of COVID-19. The new details once again raise questions over China's role in the spread of coronavirus with major concerns about China's transparency on the origins of COVID-19.

https://www.google.com/search?q=China+D ... 71&bih=931

Was searching for this. Not even a single US media discusses it. only Australian/Indian/UK non MSM media covers it.

Cyrano wrote:Thanks for your posts Amber G.
Is there a summary of the assumptions (or parameters, impact (+/-) and their weightages) of the models you are following? Unless someone understands the assumptions and agrees that are realistic, expressing confidence or lack thereof on any model is usually a gut reaction based to what the model is forecasting.
<snip>

You are welcome.
SUTRA model (and many other recent such models) is quite respectable. As I have posted this link before, one good place is to checkout - for those who have mathematical and scientific background - is arXive https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.09158. Authors are reputable scientist - Dr. Manindra Agrawal is world renowned
mathematician.
---
-- SUTRA stands for
S - Susceptible (ratio of population which could potentially catch the virus)
U - Undetected ( Causes may be various - not showing symptoms, undercount, authorities not reporting, untested population etc)
T - Tested positive
R - Recovered/Removed (People who died, Recovered, fully vaccinated , or who now have immunity and are no longer in other groups).
The model defines differential equation type relationships using a few basic parameters -- what sets it apart is that it has very good mathematical robustness and powerful statistical ways to determine the basic parameters from time-series data, and other data like sero survey, scientific data about viruses and effect masks etc -- -- even when some quantities (like U - if the testing is not that wide-spread etc) are fuzzy.

Again, am not sure if brf is place so I will stop here.
(I am aware of "criticism" or even abuses heard toward this model in common media , so I am stopping here..sometimes it becomes pointless to "discuss" depending on the audience)

--- Added later: Here is the abstract from the paper I quoted above:

SUTRA: An Approach to Modelling Pandemics with Asymptomatic Patients, and Applications to COVID-19
Manindra Agrawal, Madhuri Kanitkar, Mathukumalli Vidyasagar

In this paper, we present a new mathematical model for pandemics that have asymptomatic patients, called SUTRA. The acronym stands for Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach. There are several novel features of our proposed model. First, whereas previous papers have divided the patient population into Asymptomatic and Infected, we have explicitly accounted for the fact that, due to contact tracing and other such protocols, some fraction of asymptomatic patients could also be detected; in addition, there would also be large numbers of undetected asymptomatic patients. Second, we have explicitly taken into account the spatial spread of a pandemic over time, through a parameter called "reach." Third, we present numerically stable methods for estimating the parameters in our model.

We have applied our model to predict the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic in several countries. Where data on the number of recovered patients is available, we predict the number of active cases as a function of time. Where recovery data is not available, we predict the number of daily new cases. We present our predictions for three countries with quite distinct types of disease progression, namely: (i) India which has had a smooth rise followed by an equally smooth fall-off in the number of active cases, (ii) Italy, which has witnessed multiple peaks in the number of active cases, and has also witnessed multiple "phases" of the pandemic, and (iii) the USA which has erratic recovery data. In all cases, the predictions closely match the actually observed outcomes.

Russia was ready for epidemics. They had bioweapons and maintained research labs with capabilities of making vaccine as a matter of fact. This is how it must be done. First jabs of Sputnik were made available in OCT'2020. West ignore it, India ignored as well.

rsingh wrote:Russia was ready for epidemics. They had bioweapons and maintained research labs with capabilities of making vaccine as a matter of fact. This is how it must be done. First jabs of Sputnik were made available in OCT'2020. West ignore it, India ignored as well.

Did we ? To day, approx 30-35 million doses of Sputnik have been produced in Russia. India has produced an estimated 330 million doses of vaccine until now.

Russia might have some nice bioweapons labs, but they are no vaccine mass producer. There are only 4 entities in the world capable of that - India, US, EU and China. That is why Russia is dependent on India (Dr Reddy's Labs) to mass produce Sputnik.

^^^^^
I am emphasizing on readiness.. Just imagine if we had access to vaccine in Sept 2020.. we need dedicated labs that are always alert.
Same goes for civilian safety during nuclear threat.

If you’re going back and imagining things why not just imagine how things would have been if Covid had not happened ? This entire ‘redo the past’ approach is pointless. This is a resource discussion thread.

There were no vaccines that had cleared Phase 3 in Sept 2020.

Amber G. wrote:

Bart S wrote: <snip>

Sorry, but this model continues to be quite unreliable, for all the hype about it and attention paid to it in high places. There is frequent changes and moving of goalposts done citing 'phase shifts' including one today. There is limited use for it if it can't serve a predictive function with any accuracy, despite whatever excuses are made.

From the perspective of laypersons who were eagerly following it, it has been thoroughly discredited.

Okay.
My take is quite different.


<snip>
It may be that brf is not a place to discuss this so I will stop. .

Allow me to post this current video from Republic TV today -- you can listen to Dr. Vidyasagar himself about this model.
(Feel free to send other questions to him )
(I have another post - which may also help to those who are interested).

https://youtu.be/3Fn2wqOs7V0

Uttar Pradesh aims at getting 8 million doses a month via global bids

Uttar Pradesh is looking at getting 6-8 million vaccine doses every month through its global tender of purchasing 40 million doses, to be provided to within six months of the state granting the manufacturers the letters of intent, said the bid document floated by the state government.

The Uttar Pradesh Medical Supplies Corporation (UPMSC)had on May 5 invited global bids for purchasing 40 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, and a pre-bid meeting with bidders is scheduled to take place on May 12, while May 21 has been fixed as the deadline for bids. The state has said the funds for the purchase will be met through the state government budget. The manufacturers who win the bid will have to prove that they have their own cold chain transporting system or have a tie-up with a transporting agent.

Megha Engineering offers free supply of 35 lakh litres oxygen daily

Amid alarming scarcity of oxygen supplies causing an increased number of deaths of Covid-19 patients across the country, the Hyderabad-based infrastructure conglomerate Megha Engineering and Infrastructures (Meil) has come forward to offer free supply 35 lakh litres a day of oxygen to the hospitals, both public and private.

Massive COVID-19 vaccination drive in UP from May 10 for 18-plus

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said a massive coronavirus vaccination drive will be initiated for 18-44 years age group in the state from May 10. He said the drive will be conducted in 17 municipal corporations and Gautam Buddh Nagar area.

"The vaccination drive will be held in Aligarh, Agra, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Bareilly, Meerut, Moradabad, Lucknow, Varanasi, Saharanpur, Firozabad, Mathura-Vrindavan, Ayodhya and Shahjahanpur municipal corporations and Gautam Buddh Nagar," the CM said.

Speaking to reporters in Bareilly, Adityanath said despite being the most populous state in the country, Uttar Pradesh is fighting the disease effectively.

He underlined that vaccination is the best way to defeat the infection, adding that 45 lakh vaccines have been administered to people above the age of 45 years.

In the age group of 18-44 years, more than one lakh vaccines have been administered. The vaccination for people in this age group started on May 1 for seven districts in the state, namely Lucknow, Kanpur, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Meerut and Bareilly, he said.

"Special plans have been made as the demand for oxygen has grown many times, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved 61 new oxygen plants for UP. The process is on to set up one oxygen plant in every district by the sugarcane department," he said.

Vaccine supply looks to have dried up.

No buffer stock kept for 2nd dose: Maharashtra to Centre

Maharashtra is unable to provide the second dose to those who have completed more than four weeks after the first dose and in some cases, even six weeks.

We have not received any quantity of Covaxin for the 45-plus age group since long

coronavirus-pandemic-serrana-brazil-covid-mass-vaccine
An example of mass vaccination preventing serious cases overloading city level medical infrastructure.
This is with less effective Chinese vaccine.
Imagine how mass vaccination with better effective Covaxin in near future would help us to get back to near normality.

And people are asking:

Where is the RSS

analysis of covid spread and treatment effects with data
A lot more information is there.
From near the end of the article.

... the implementation of Ivermectin and Budesonide as a protocol appear to represent a population-wide early care regimen, the media is hesitant to report on this topic.

Also have a look at the image showingthe effect of ivermectin protocol on containing Covid spread, not being shared by mass media.

Why relatives are allowed near patients bed in hospitals? Are they not afraid of infection? Here in Brusselabad, visits to patients are strictly restricted (once every Sunday for 30 min).It is incomprehensible to see 5 family members surrounding the patient . Simple separation of patients from one another with a plastic sheets in neglected. How can we ignore such fundamental things.

durairaaj wrote:
Also have a look at the image showingthe effect of ivermectin protocol on containing Covid spread, not being shared by mass media.

err, how does he prove causation here? Lockdowns have become quite common during this time and also the general awareness (fear) of the new wave. There are so many confounding variables.

Raja wrote:

durairaaj wrote: err, how does he prove causation here? Lockdowns have become quite common during this time and also the general awareness (fear) of the new wave. There are so many confounding variables.

for the benefit of the forum members, I am sharing the link for recently published review paper on the use Ivermectin in mitigating covid spread.
...Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19

American Journal of Therapeutics: May 2021 - Volume 28 - Issue 3 - p e299-e318
doi: 10.1097/MJT.0000000000001377
Salient points extracted from the above journal article
To Raja:
Maybe Dr.Ratnadip ji or Primus ji can address your question with authority, as they are leading the battle against Covid from frontlines.

I am sure you would question the truthfulness or validity of peer review process of this article, as the article may not be supporting your view. I am not going to get into a needless argument with you. It's a waste of my time to argue with you or to spend effort in providing evidence, based on your previous replies to my post.

durairaaj wrote:coronavirus-pandemic-serrana-brazil-covid-mass-vaccine
An example of mass vaccination preventing serious cases overloading city level medical infrastructure.
This is with less effective Chinese vaccine.
Imagine how mass vaccination with better effective Covaxin in near future would help us to get back to near normality.

There is an in depth article in the Wall Street Journal of this:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazilian- ... 1620392401

Not everyone in the town was eligible, including minors under 18, adult women who are pregnant or nursing, and others with serious health problems. Of the roughly 27,700 eligible adults, 27,150, or 98%, were vaccinated, according to town officials.
...
Town officials and residents said they are thrilled with the results so far. Infections are down 75% from a March peak in Serrana, while there have been no deaths from Covid-19 among the people who were fully vaccinated, suggesting CoronaVac is also effective against the aggressive P.1 variant sweeping the region.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Serrana’s mayor, Léo Capitelli. “It worked!”

In the waiting room of the town’s intensive-care unit, the effects of CoronaVac are already visible. “Only three weeks ago, this was so full, people had to stand,” said Lucia Elaine Caldano, the unit’s administrator, pointing to rows of empty chairs. In the past three weeks, only one person has been put on a ventilator—a woman who had refused to take the vaccine.

Brazil is going through a pandemic even worse than India. Its death rate is six times higher. But once people are fully vaccinated, the virus is stopped in its track completely even if it is in a raging pandemic storm like Brazil.

The only issue is that in a situation like Brazil or India the infections will outpace vaccinations. With so many people being infected each day and those in turn infecting many others the next day and so on, the jabs can never keep up.

It is really a race between the vaccination campaign and the virus to see who gets to more people first. One needs to slow down the virus with social distancing but in this situation it might need to be done coercively with a mandated nationwide lockdown. Break the chain of transmission and then vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.

can we produce 150 mil shots in a month?

durairaaj wrote:
To Raja:
Maybe Dr.Ratnadip ji or Primus ji can address your question with authority, as they are leading the battle against Covid from frontlines.

I am sure you would question the truthfulness or validity of peer review process of this article, as the article may not be supporting your view. I am not going to get into a needless argument with you. It's a waste of my time to argue with you or to spend effort in providing evidence, based on your previous replies to my post.

Err, I don't even remember you. I don't have any point of view regarding the medicine. I was just curious how you were establishing the causation. So are you of the opinion that the slow down in the cases is primarily due to the change in covidv treatment protocol?

chola
In India, infections while still very high, are not outpacing vaccinations. We are doing 25 to 30 lakh vaccinations a day while fresh cases are in the 3.5 to 4.0 lakh range.

Raja wrote:

durairaaj wrote:
To Raja:
Maybe Dr.Ratnadip ji or Primus ji can address your question with authority, as they are leading the battle against Covid from frontlines.

I am sure you would question the truthfulness or validity of peer review process of this article, as the article may not be supporting your view. I am not going to get into a needless argument with you. It's a waste of my time to argue with you or to spend effort in providing evidence, based on your previous replies to my post.

Err, I don't even remember you. I don't have any point of view regarding the medicine. I was just curious how you were establishing the causation. So are you of the opinion that the slow down in the cases is primarily due to the change in covidv treatment protocol?

Decline in number of patients is mainly due to lockdown.. Almost every physician is using Ivermectin since last wave.. It is usefull in mild cases.. But it cant be reason of decreasing cases..

From India Today:



This seems about right. When I look at the latest data and according to the SUTRA model, India as a whole and Bihar are close to peak. UP, Delhi and Maharashtra have already peaked. Karnataka is also likely to peak soon. ( R0 could be a little lower). Hopefully all the measures will taken for covid appropriate behavior.

Also, after what was described as phase transition, R^2 (regression analysis) having a very nice fit for last week or so this gives more confidence in the parameter values of the model which stopped "shifting".

Also "The active cases" (which has much less jitters than daily new cases in reporting) has a very nice fit with the predicted values of the model -- also giving the "super modeling team" more confidence that their parameters are close to real value .

(Note that their is lag of about 10 days between active cases and new cases)

Finally just when on plots "Change" (= Today's cases - Yesterday's cases) and take 7 day averages one gets


India is nearly at a peak. It is fluctuating close to the zero Mark

Kakkaji wrote:Uttar Pradesh aims at getting 8 million doses a month via global bids

Uttar Pradesh is looking at getting 6-8 million vaccine doses every month through its global tender of purchasing 40 million doses, to be provided to within six months of the state granting the manufacturers the letters of intent, said the bid document floated by the state government.

UP needs 400 million doses based on its population, why is it only ordering 40?

vijayk wrote:can we produce 150 mil shots in a month?

By August we should be able to as covaxin is scaling up.

We have been concerned over vaccination rates on this forums way back in March. I was hoping we will scale up to 5 to 10 M/day. We couldn't scale up or We couldn't motivate people. We also followed western model instead of setting up camps and do mass vaccination. The result is disastrous.

Hope once we scale up the doses, we take it to the masses.

Meanwhile - some 7 months ago .. some one posted this in Brf:

sudarshan wrote:Amber G ji, maybe you could suggest to Dr. Vidyasagar et al, that the bijaganita (tr.: algebraic; literally: "seed mathematics") terms in that supermodel could use Sanskrit aksharas instead of Greek letters. There's more than enough letters in Indian languages, and after all, the concept of bijaganita did originate in India.

The Model is now called SUTRA . I do like the name! .

Friends have been sharing the Ivermectin/ Budenoside asthma drug effectiveness for months now! Our la-di-da " hexperts" of the ICMR and entrenched babudom in the capital are allegedly sabotaging any out-of-box standard medicine efforts/treatments
for reasons best known to Big Pharma.

For one year now I know of attempts by the Ozone Forum of India , to try and get approval for its widespread use ,Oz. therapy, which is having huge success privately in small clinics, to no avail. Those in Bombay can contact Dr.Milli Shah for more details, it works.Bisleri have connections with the OFI. There is another simple drug easily available ,details of which I'll shortly post.Oz.T. also makes those who've recovered from CV very quickly.

Watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNFJ_IP ... rdoPersaud
Povidone Iodine nasal application and throat gargles.

The use of coconut oil in the nose 3/4 times daily is another simple preventive method, which I've been using for over a year. Steaming also helps if you feel a tickle in the throat or sniffle. There's a freely available Sri Lankan ayurvedic satchet for cold,etc. called Samahan,taken with tea ,coffee,etc.,a few times a day which boosts the immunity.

Please circulate these emthods to relatives,friends,etc. It will save lives.

Today's vaccination numbers:

COVID-19 Vaccination Update- Day 114

India’s Cumulative Vaccination Coverage achieves the landmark of 17 Cr doses

More than 2.43 lakh beneficiaries of age group 18-44 Vaccinated today till 8 pm

A major milestone has been achieved today as the country surpassed the landmark of 17 crore vaccination doses. The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country stands at 17,01,53,432 as per the 8 pm provisional report today.

2,43,958 beneficiaries of the age group 18-44 years received their first dose of COVID vaccine today and cumulatively 20,29,395 across 30 States/UTs. Table below shows the cumulative vaccine doses administered to 18-44 years age group till now.

As on Day-114 of the vaccination drive (9th May, 2021), total 6,71,646 vaccine doses were given. In view of today being a holiday/Sunday, many States and UTs did not organise vaccination sessions. 3,97,231 beneficiaries were vaccinated for 1st dose and 2,74,415 beneficiaries received 2nd dose of vaccine as per the provisional report. Final reports would be completed for the day by late tonight.

With respect to vaccine drive, here is an interesting observation, I saw from tweeter thread - by Prof. Ravi

This has been intriguing me for some time. The second wave of infections in India seems to be closely following the vaccination drive - with a short time lag. Has this been the experience elsewhere?
Scientist friends: pls share literature, data that can explain these trends.

Could this be this due to the drives where long Qs are taking place - which are all turning into a spread. ( two are almost in-phase (allowing for 2-3 days for symptoms to develop) -- could be some correlation - in *any way* my advice, PLEASE observe covid appropriate behaviour about good *masks* whenever you are in a crowd.

---

BTW I do have some interesting background/perspective on vaccine drives - on How/which group/when etc decisions ought to be taken by scientific principles --- there have been various models studied for US and India's situation which I am aware of. It is a complex subject - sometimes intuitive answers may not be the best . Bottom line, IMHO, issue is *not* vaccine availability as much as vaccine hesitancy (or game playing for political reasons)... it is possible/practical to ramp the speed at 5 million, or 10 million or even more per day -- if we can get people to take these shots. We will see how this pans out. In short time-frame ( 2-3 weeks) having appropriate masks etc are the most important things in aam public's hand.

The incubation period for the Wuhan virus is 5 days (2-14).

Vaccination shadows the cases likely because human behaviour is cues by risk assessment. Higher with higher numbers and so greater acceptance of vaccination.

vijayk wrote:We have been concerned over vaccination rates ....
Hope once we scale up the doses, we take it to the masses.

Some takeaways from KFF Vaccine Monitor in USA..
India, from what I know, I have some serious concerns from those who made so much opposition to vaccines ... more than anything else the vaccine hesitancy has to be dealt-with.. (studies suggest that even if vaccine shortage goes away completely out vaccine rate will be fairly similar to what it is at present and *not* become > 5m/day *unless* we do some serious work in educating people)



We in India have similar groups - those who spread rumors "it's a BJP vaccine", "it is not as good as Western", "it is untested" "it will xyz.." ..

A concern for me currently is getting vaccinated at a crowded place i.e. hospital kind of environment. Actually, from what I've heard, BBMP local wards are much better in the sense that most of the waiting happens outside (even though the current waiting can stretch sometimes 2+ hours before the actual jab) and only one person is allowed inside where a nurse administers the vaccine. Also small diagnostic centers are another decent place to get the jab done...currently for 18-44 age group, in BLR, either its a big chain private hospital (which also happens to be treating covid patients) and Government Hospitals where they are administering vaccines. Hopefully, once the vaccination expands to small diagnostic centers, I would be more comfortable in getting the jab.

https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin- ... f03564c038
Please read in full. Also note the role of the Lancet.