Should India Continue To Live In A State Of Denial On Pandemic?

India has been surging on the Pandemic curve even as the government leaders continue to claim that the nation has controlled the Pandemic better than anywhere in the world. Cherry-picking statics to bolster their argument has become the new normal.

India now climbed to the third position globally in terms of the number of deaths due to COVID 19. India already stands at the third position regarding the total number of cases with the United States and Brazil in the first two positions.

It will not be too long for India to surpass Brazil to reach the second position in the number of cases as there is only a difference of three lakh cases as on Sunday. India now has 35.42 lakh cases, while Brazil has over 38.4 lakh cases.

Of course, Brazil has twice, and the US has deaths thrice than India. The SBI research suggested that the nation would reach a peak in the number of new infections once it comes to a recovery rate of 75 percent. But, this was only a statistical modeling but not an epidemiological assessment.

It’s evident from the fact that India reported cases of nearly 79,000 cases in the last 24 hours as on Sunday, and their recovery rate stands at 76 percent with peak, not insight.
However, India has a death rate of 1.8%, relatively much less than the US and Europe.

The ruling dispensation often refers to a relatively higher number of cases and deaths in the United States and Europe to argue that India faired well in mitigating the Pandemic despite colossal population size and poor health infrastructure compared to the developed world. This is true. But, equally valid is that India fairs much worse when compared to Asia and Africa. India should be better compared with these developing countries in Asia and African continents.

The best way to compare anyhow is the cases or deaths per million rather than absolute numbers.
The US and Europe certainly have higher cases per million and deaths per million compared to India. But, Asia and Africa have a better performance record compared to India.

Let’s rank India among 106 countries in Asia and Africa in the best-performing country ranked first and worst-performing nation given the last position. India stands at 80 and 76 ranks in cases and deaths per million, respectively. This means 79 Asian and African nations performed better than India in controlling the infection. As many as 75 countries in these two continents could control the mortality due to Covid-19 better than India.

To be precise, let’s also analyze the cases per million and death per million. India has over 2450 cases per million, while Asia’s corresponding figure is over 1450, and Africa is 911. Similarly, the deaths per million due to Pandemic stands 45 for India, 30 for Asia, and 21 for Africa.

Should we still live in a world of perpetual denial and persist with the false claim that we have controlled the Pandemic much better than anywhere in the world?

Propaganda will not kill the virus. But, mitigation measures will do.

By — Prof K Nageshwar

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