Posted on 05/18/2020 9:12:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
India long has been seen as a land of mystery, and with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Asian nation is keeping with that tradition.
The number of coronavirus cases in India have been surprisingly low, given the country’s huge and highly dense population and its poverty levels. Experts are puzzled, but they think there are a number of factors that could be contributing to the low infection rates.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a solid answer,” Jeff Smith, South Asia research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email. He said it’s possible the low numbers can be attributed to some of India’s “protective characteristics, including climate, that has insulated it from some of the worst effects.”
India’s population is more than 1.3 billion people, second only to China’s 1.4 billion. Johns Hopkins and Worldometer both place the number of COVID-19 cases in India at 85,784, compared with China, which has reported 82,933 cases, as of May 15. The United States has seen nearly 1.48 million cases within its comparatively smaller population estimated at 328 million.
Anup Malani, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and at the Pritzker School of Medicine, in a recent Quartz India article offered explanations as to why India might not have experienced a higher number of coronavirus-related cases and deaths.
“Your age may play a role in both your probability of getting infected and in the degree to which you are going to have symptoms,” Malani said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal, adding that there’s a very strong “correlation between age and how severe our symptoms are, and particularly probability of death, given the symptoms.”
Overall, India’s population is quite young. “In India, only 0.8% of the population is above 80,
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
All excellent points, I would think the young age of the population is probably one of the more important factors explaining their lower death toll.
I would also point out lower rates of obesity and general fatness.
CV thrives on the very old and those who are younger with health problems stemming mainly from being overweight.
The author of that article thought BCG vaccine and hydroxychloroquine were the same thing? I see that’s been corrected in the updated article.
FWIW, I ran across this Israeli article saying BCG vaccine isn’t protective sgainst COVID-19, so maybe It’s hydroxychloroquine use or something else helping in India.
The article leaves out completely the fact that in India Hydoxychlorquine is commonly given as a prophylactic claimed to prevent a Wuhan Virus infection, and given to tons of Indian health care workers and the general public who asks for it.
Any study that is done that only considers the factors mentioned in the article and leaves out the Indians’ use of Hydroxychloroquine will not be a truly scientific study.
India’s medical system is so non-existent that it has no way to gather valid statistics on CV-19 rates in India. The same is true for ALL of India’s neighbors save China, and even China doesn’t have the capability in its tiny and isolated border areas with India.
“Wasn’t quinine first used in India? By the British soldiers.”
Gin and tonic. Cheers.
India? Lockdown? Uh, no.
As it spreads through fecal matter, and Patient Zero in China is November 17, 2019, then it is a certainty that it swept through India over (our) holidays just as it did here, and those numbers are barely hidden under the surface, either categorized as undiagnosed or given over to H1N1 or B/Victoria without actually testing, just as has happened in the US.
Thus like the US, Indian has established herd immunity; but as noted in the article, their over-80 is fractional compared to the US....quelle surprise...
Binge
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