How does India, a country of 1.3 billion people, have around 1,000 coronavirus deaths?

[LeftInTX]

Very interesting article. It sounds like things are really working in India. Well, you know how they always say negative things about India? Take this all the way to the bank Trump!

(In India only 4% of tests are positive. There is no general increase in deaths from nonspecific causes. The United States is average 17% positive.)

As of Tuesday, India had reported 31,360 coronavirus cases and 1,008 deaths, or about 0.76 deaths per million. Compare that to the United States, where the number of deaths per million is more than 175.

Some experts say that India's relatively positive numbers suggest the country's nationwide lockdown to halt the spread of Covid-19 could be working -- for now."India didn't wait for the problem to escalate," India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on April 14, as he extended the country's 21-day nationwide lockdown until May 3. "Instead, as soon as the problem appeared, we tried to stop it by making swift decisions. I can't imagine what the situation would have been had such quick decisions not been taken."

But the reality behind India's numbers is more complicated -- and experts caution that it is too early for India to congratulate itself.
"At least in this round, it appears that the virus has not been able to damage as much as been feared," Srinath Reddy, the president of the Public Health Foundation of India, a non-profit that works on training, research and policy development. "I don't think we can say that we have completely closed the book on this."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/india/india-coronavirus-outbreak-explained-intl-hnk/index.html

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. It's a mystery.

[Bucky]

2. It arrived there later than here.

I think India may be in for a difficult ride in the couple of months ahead. I do know that their population is on average less mobile than ours is. That's an important factor working in their favor

However another possibility is that they don't have adequate numbers of testing kits. Recent studies show that 1 out of 8 New York staters have had the virus, one out of 5 people in NYC have had it,and as many as 80% people in the Bronx have gotten the virus. But only a fraction of them have gotten sick or even been tested.

So before we share a sigh of relief that India is dodging this bullet, we might need to wait to see what the summer holds for them.

[HarlanPepper]

16. No real signs of any of that at the moment.

[Funtatlaguy]

3. India and China either can't count or won't count correctly.

[dpibel]

9. You think U.S. numbers are correct?

Check out Florida and Texas, just for starters.

Check out excess deaths.

Check out the bit of antibody testing that's happened so far.

[Caliman73]

14. No, the US numbers are not correct. Neither are India's or China's

Each country has a strongman or wannabe strongman at the helm of the country, therefore in each of the countries that actual count is not accurate.

There is no way that a country as densely populated as India can have 1000 deaths related to COVID-19.

In the US, the deaths are being counted by state, county, and local municipalities and being reported nationally. Trump is likely pressuring and making decisions to keep those numbers down. You can bet that Modi and Xi are also pressing authorities to keep the numbers down.

[Funtatlaguy]

15. No. But China and India are ridiculously off.

[JI7]

4. In poor areas when older people die or those who have been ill they are unlikely to be seen

by any medical personnel. The person dies and the family cremates/bury them . And they most likely die at home.

They aren't testing enough people. So an older person that died of covid or a person who was dealing with serious illness that died from getting covid will not be counted in the poor areas.

The population is younger compared to the countries that have been hit badly and if they are less affected this is probably the biggest reason.

[patricia92243]

5. Reported is the keyword.

[obamanut2012]

6. Simple: because they have much more than 1,000

[Baclava]

7. I don't think India gets many Chinese tourists, the hot virus spreaders never landed there early

Thats my take, they never got infected early during Chinese New Year

[Maxheader]

8. Amazing!!

Every success story I've read is about strict soc. distance and enforcement..

Either by the people or the authorities..

And they're talking here about going back to work...Tough decisions for

our leaders..trying to balance between another, worse wave of corona. And

people screaming to get back to work..In an election year...

[JCMach1]

10. BCG Vaccine and younger population

Something similar seems to be going on in Kenya

[roamer65]

12. Glad I have the BCG vaccine.

[JCMach1]

13. There was an article in Newsweek this week talking about BCG

Some pretty serious looks at this coming out soon...

My wife and son have BCG... I don't

[blitzen]

11. A big part of this is simple Geography:

Latitude and Climate.

Humidity is a major deterrent to the spread of viruses.

And this has for the most part been a Northern Hemisphere event so far, since we were in winter when it started.

See the Johns Hopkins map. There is a reason why India's region is called South Asia.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

[former9thward]

18. India is in the Northern Hemisphere.

But it is hot and humid most of the year and I agree this is what is keeping the virus from making a show. That and a young population which is not affected by it.

[blitzen]

19. I know that. Look at the Map though. You'll see...

a very clear difference between North and South, and you'll see that the southern parts of the Northern Hemisphere have been hit much less hard. Draw a latitude line through the middle of India and you'll see what I mean. And yes, the humidity for sure.

I'm referring to the Johns Hopkins map, where the larger circles indicate more cases. It's a very top heavy map--the farther north (until you get well north of the 45th parallel), the larger the circles.

Of course, this imbalance is also in part due to variations in population density.

[tblue37]

17. They dont. Next question. nt