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Covid hasn’t gone viral in India yet, but some in the world & at home can’t accept the truth

India isn’t going through a picnic. But our drains aren’t filled with bodies, hospitals haven’t run out of beds, crematoriums and graveyards not out of wood or space.

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Why are we talking movies in the era of Covid? Especially when it is neither Outbreak, nor Contagion. It is the 1992 classic, A Few Good Men.

Among the most quoted exchanges from that film is Tom Cruise as Lt Daniel Kaffee demanding the truth from Jack Nicholson’s Marine Col. Nathan R. Jessep, who famously throws a counter at the prosecutor: You can’t handle the truth.

That was about an ugly and inconvenient truth that Nicholson’s character was seeking to hide and justify. For this week’s argument, however, we are reversing that logic.

Can we confront you, therefore, with the same counter — you can’t handle the truth — when it isn’t as bad as you might have expected in this coronavirus crisis in India?

India is by no means going through a picnic. The entire country is locked down, more stringently than any other in the world, with all the attendant consequences: Economic stall, job losses, even mass misery in significant pockets, and hunger.

Yet, the truth that many, especially in the global commentariat, find so inconvenient is that contrary to what so many wise people with fancy degrees from a university in this league or that might have asserted by now, millions or lakhs, or even tens of thousands of us, are not dying. Apologies for letting you down.

Our drains are not filled with bodies, our hospitals have not run out of beds. Our crematoriums and graveyards are not out of wood or space. There is not even a cricket field-sized sliver of India anywhere that might help you make a convenient or macabre comparison with the Spanish Flu of 1918. The India of 2020 is not perfect. But it is a far cry from the India of that past.

That good news, or absence of expected bad news, is the truth that so many in the international community, and also within India, seem unable to handle. Isn’t it too good to be true?


Also read: Why India may not see the kind of Covid-19 outbreak rest of the world has seen


We seek refuge again in the eternal wisdom of N.R. Narayana Murthy: “In God we trust. The rest of you bring data.”

The daily Government of India briefing on the Covid-19 crisis is often criticised for opacity, lack of information, and some Yes Minister-style bureaucratic ducking and weaving. But it gives you a set of data. We have the right, then, to be suspicious. But we then have to find facts from somewhere to counter it.

One scholar who tracks this data each day and publishes a string of brilliantly informative charts is Brookings Institution’s Shamika Ravi. You can check these out on her Twitter handle here. Her key chart shows us how India’s infection numbers had picked up pace by 23 March, but then began a decline, especially once the Tablighi bulge was absorbed, by early April. The numbers went from doubling in 3 days to 5, then 4 (with the Tablighi cluster), and now stand at 8 days. Her chart also assumes that if there was no lockdown, India’s infections would be about nine times higher than the figure now.

You can extend the same logic to fatalities and positive tests also. Both have generally remained in the same ballpark, about 3.4 per cent and 4.1 per cent, respectively.

Now, how can this be true, you can well ask. Can you trust official data? Look elsewhere. As we did.

The data plotted by the darling of the public health community, World Health Organization, plots the rate of doubling in 7 days now. As does the European Centre for Disease Control. Most delightfully, the darling of the doomsayers, Johns Hopkins University, whose logo was used by a set of them predicting millions of us dead, and was called out for misusing it, plots this rate of doubling of Covid cases in India at 8 days.

Of course, you may still say this is too good to be true; that everyone, from a top UN organisation to a premier European institution to a globally-respected university are all complicit with the Modi government. You may be right. But we will repeat to you that Narayana Murthy caveat. Bring data. Unless you think you are God.

I spend most of my time, especially during the lockdown, reading up and watching whatever is available globally on coronavirus. Every couple of days, there is a story or a commentary insinuating and implying three things: One, India must be concealing figures. Sometimes a snide remark in a TV discussion. Two, that India will soon — and inevitably — be the worst victim of the virus with millions dead. And three, that we in the Indian media are either complicit with the Modi government and won’t speak the truth, or so intimidated that we can’t.

The fact is that all our reporters are also looking at the same set of data points with a high degree of suspicion. Something to prove that the government figures are a gross under-estimation or a China/North Korea style fudge. But we do not find such facts — at hospitals, in surveillance figures, from so many state governments where anti-BJP parties rule. Health, in India, is a state subject.

An easy option is to follow the way of the BBC which, earlier this week, ran a story quoting two anonymous doctors from an unnamed hospital in Mumbai claiming lots of people were dying of respiratory collapse but were either not tested for Covid or not declared its victims. Would they run a story like that on Britain, or any other country where they’d treat human life in a more dignified, less cavalier fashion? But this is the ‘bhookhananga’ India, what is the story if it isn’t at least a few hundred thousands of Indians dead? Especially when the UK, Italy, Spain, the US, are already floating in high five figures. Or unless you begin counting for bodies like our Holy National Accountant of Yore used to count notional losses, with series freely added.


Also read: Does India need more Covid-19 testing or is it an uninformed argument?


The truth so far, fortunately, is less “fun” than that. I am not wagering anything on the news not taking a turn for the worse tomorrow, especially after the lockdown opens, but we can’t make those presumptions now.

This is the most polarising global pandemic in world history. First, globally, because the virus came from China and the deputy superpower does not want anyone mentioning that fact. Second, because the two global leaders the liberal community detests, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, have bungled with its handling. And third, closer home, because Narendra Modi is seen as a member of the same Alpha Male Brotherhood. So sharply has this disease politicised us that even an 80-year-old drug like chloroquine has become contentious because Trump is prescribing it, and Modi dispensing it.

All stories do not necessarily turn out to be as lipsmackingly juicy as you might have expected them to be. The days when you could conveniently exaggerate, multiply and fictionalise mass tragedies in poor countries are over. And poor as India might be, its media, civil society, and most importantly, the common citizen, haven’t been mentally and spiritually transhipped post-2014 to North Korea or China that they’d pay no heed to fellow countrymen dying around them. Or to believe their government that claims there is no coronavirus victim, or that, oh, I got my count of the dead a little bit wrong, by just 50 per cent (to begin with) in Wuhan.

India, unfortunately, has a very recent experience of having been subjected to such callous and criminal excess by global influencers, especially from some sections of foundation-fattened public health mafias. Strong words, but why waste euphemisms on those who unanimously counted India’s HIV positive cases to be 5.7 million and rising? Until the summer of 2007, when a paper in Lancet derailed the gravy train? Everyone, from UNAIDS to WHO to the richest foundations, all conveniently rectified the numbers. You know to what: 2.5 million. India was being subjected to a 128 per cent exaggeration.

India’s numbers have been dropping since. You can read two stories from the venerable New York Times here and here on how everyone who had been complicit quietly retreated and reset. No one said sorry.

A few honourable Indians complained. Civil servant S.Y. Quraishi (then head of the National Aids Control Organisation or NACO) in 2005, and before that, Shatrughan Sinha as health minister in 2002, when Bill Gates arrived with a grant of $100 million for AIDS control and predicted that by 2010, India will have 20-25 million cases. They were ignored.

They all got away with it, including so many in our bureaucracy, activists and health NGOs, who had joined that well-funded, wine ’n cheese war to ‘save’ India. They all retreated. But the damage they did wasn’t just philosophical. It was real. The Hollywoodisation of AIDS in India took attention and resources away from more real issues. Like tuberculosis, to begin with.


Also read: Sick doctors, shut hospitals, no guidelines — a Wockhardt doctor on India’s Covid response


 

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127 COMMENTS

  1. I used to read your posts occasionally, Shekhar. And I had become more and more suspicious of your journalistic integrity. Now this tops it all. Such hubris which reminds me of 56 inch. Lost all respect, whatever little I had for you and the Print.

  2. A typical “it is not that bad” rejoinder of a man who is ashamed to be talked about in media all over the world. A local HC in Uttarakhand says the govt. is making itself a laughing stock. You know what I mean. Wel, either pity the shamed journalist here falsifying the evidence or call his bluff. Yes even editors get shamed to lie.

  3. Dear Mr. Gupta,
    I love Cut the Clutter and your analyses, and it is so refreshing to invest 15-20 minutes every day in your programs. I wanted to offer something — I have a PhD in Decision Analysis from Stanford University. I went back to my PhD advisor who was the co-founder of the field, and our dialog was around a very interesting idea — voluntary exposure to Covid-19. Here is the dialog:
    https://medium.com/@somikr/a-novel-way-of-tackling-the-novel-coronavirus-12f15298c920
    Sharing in case it is of some use in India’s context. Please feel free to reach out if you’d like a dialog with Prof. Howard.
    Regards,
    Somik

  4. Funny thing I noticed and couldn’t find in comments, apologies if already pointed out.
    The whole movie a few good men is about a system and people trying to cover up a crime and there being only a few good men who dared to question the actions of an all powerful “state”.

    The line attributed that you can’t handle the truth is actually one of the final admissions that you’ve been kept in the dark because it’s convinient and gate keepers (like journalists in this analogy) are liars who protect you from the ugly truth.

    Thank you Colonel Shekhar for your service. By this article you have assumed responsibility of those who will die because we’ve not listened to those with fancy degrees crying wolf, hope your conscience let’s you sleep with the “truth”.

  5. Mr. Gupta’s line seems to be that India’s numbers are largely unquestionable. But the ground reality may not be exactly the same. At least I have come across a first hand exasperation from a health worker that there are so many cases that they are not in a position to report all and also that he was not sure whether some deaths were of this pandemic or natural.
    Further, whether testing is enough in India is a question that has as many correct answers as there are those replying. With asymptomatic cases in the rise, it is anybody’s guess whether numbers are reliable if testing is not enough.

  6. These explanation are comments from regular news media or mass media channels. We need more scientific study on this, to predict.
    How many infected, should not be the issue. How many succumbed to virus is more important. Covid, spreads fast, but kills less, as compared to its previous clones. How many will recover when there is no cure available, is the subject matter and better to invest time in analyzing it.
    In spite of Jaamia episode and low testing rate, we are seeing low causalities, indicates some thing else. All scientific and data science, predicted during March 1st week have withdrawn their statement on India due to their pure mathematics or statistics. Spread also depends on the culture, geographical location and behavior of the region.
    This virus is going to stay for a year or so, until a cure arrives, but, it is our immunity system, which can fight it all alone. There are more asymptomatic persons carrying virus like a common cold virus, but are perfectly healthy. Tomorrow, medicine like a peppermint, may cure this, who knows, like an expectorant chews.
    Need of the hour is to reduce the spread as much as possible since we do not know what is the level of immunity at present, however, we are more strong as compared to other western nations so far. Reduce the causalities. Once, a person gets this and clears, he generates the immunity towards this, and possibility of second infection is rare.

  7. Mr Gupta,
    This is an interesting article, though not all of your articles are the same. Because you are looking at a political angle of this pandemic, perhaps you should comment on Suzanne Arundati Roy’s interview too. At the moment your credibility is very low, though you are trying to enhance it. Thus, your
    candid opinion on Indian govt committing almost a genocide on Muslims will be very welcome!

  8. There is nothing to gloat when number of mortalities are a low number. Any death is sad and destroys families. Real issue is the man made communal virus that is all over the place in India. Just few days back 55 Indians were massacred in north Delhi and Delhi Police, ministers and bureaucrats stood and did nothing . So until this communal virus is controlled society will only go downhill. So problem I is fixing this communal virus. Once this issue is addressed India will generate real good will.

  9. Yes , I agree with Shekhar Gupta that western media had exaggerated the numbers which India might have faced but ur missing a fact that all South Asian and African nations are faring well , scientists and researchers are yet to come up with an explanation but there seems to be a connect between warmer temperatures and R0 value of coronavirus , may be the virus stays less longer in air compared to colder countries which are witnessing the worst impact

    India’s main challenge lies ahead , because a economic disaster is looming ahead for India , NPAs would pick up , FPIs have already exited the stock market in droves , March had a record FPI pullout , our demand is at all time low , considering the way Indians prefer saving over consumption , the scars of coronavirus might further decrease their consumption spending , Migrants would be reluctant to go back in near future , Tourism Industry would be the worst hit , global demand is gonna git rock bottom and exports would decline

    We were already on a steep spiral decline before Coronavirus hit us , now it is really difficult to imagine , as to how the economy would again pick up , large scale unemployment would come back to haunt us

    It is important govt prioritizes migrant workers , lower rung of population before bailing out big corporate houses which have deep pockets to weather the storm

  10. I agree with you Shekhar ji.i am a Doctor in Kerala and can see quality care being given.the PM Shri Modi and CM of Kerala Shri Pinarayi Vijayan needs to be complimented.and also the common citizen of India.Jai Hind.

  11. Some of the comments here. Oh my god. Everyone is a WhatsApp University educated expert. Quoting unknown sources. Just proves how “apt” the headline and the whole article is.

  12. Absence of evidence, Mr. Gupta, is not evidence of absence! Without the kind of comprehensive testing that has been done in other countries, your argument that India has done better is really rather specious. Let us look at the facts, even in India, the number of samples tested have shown a linear relationship with the number of positive cases. Now if you consider the fact, that in a populous state like Bihar only 8000 samples have been tested so far, your argument that not a great number of cases exist in India just falls flat. One of my relatives recently travelled back from Delhi to Madhubani, he did the reponsible thing and went to get tested but was denied testing. He then had to go the route of calling up some influential people and pester the doctor himself before testing could be done. Now we hope his test results come back negative, but that just explains to you that if an educated, moderately influential person in Bihar has to jump through hoops to get tested, do you believe that the people who are most vulnerable, the poorer sections of our society are getting tested and such cases are being reported? Another question that a “senior” (no pun intended!) journalist like you should ask is whether the data being reported is for the individuals tested or the samples tested in India — initially both was being reported in India but, i believe since the start of April they are only reporting the number of samples tested. There are many flaws in the way that data is being collected and presented in India, so please stop being an apologist for this Government”s botched up response to the Covid crisis. It is another thing, that electorally these things may or may not matter but giving a free pass to the government, it does not really suit any journalist, surely not one like you!

  13. Coupta ji lost credibility the moment he called New York Times as “venerable.” This racist raga regularly pisses on India, but Gupta ji grovels before the white man.

  14. Unbelievable that you wrote there are no bodies in the drains. Do you wish to see that before taking action Mr Gupta? Are you not aware that at a premier govt Hospital in Mumbai, if people are brought dead, they are not even tested even though cause of death is shown to be respiratory failure, because the govt has not yet procured sufficient test kits? Just on Friday, there were 6 such cases of death, that failed to test for COVID. That’s 1 hospital in 1 city. This is a testing policy by the govt. so it is happening everywhere as doctors try to save lives. By any chance does it occur to you the scale of under reported deaths we will see in rural India which are currently not tagged to pandemic, simply because rural India has near zero testing capability? Please open your eyes to best practices around the world and acknowledge how far we need to catch up before you bring your arguments to the table. Articles like this, which foster an eyewash of the real issues, lower the reputation of your esteemed publication. CoVid does not seem to have gone viral yet for one reason and one reason only, grossly inadequate testing. It’s like saying black money does not exist in India because IT Dept no longer scrutinizes IT returns.

  15. Unbelievable that you wrote there are no bodies in the drains. Do you wish to see that before taking action Mr Gupta? Are you not aware that at a premier govt Hospital in Mumbai, if people are brought dead, they are not even tested even though cause of death is shown to be respiratory failure, because the govt has not yet procured sufficient test kits? Just on Friday, there were 6 such cases of death, that failed to test for COVID. That’s 1 hospital in 1 city. This is a testing policy by the govt. so it is happening everywhere as doctors try to save lives. By any chance does it occur to you the scale of under reported deaths we will see in rural India which are currently not tagged to pandemic, simply because rural India has near zero testing capability? Please open your eyes to best practices around the world and acknowledge how far we need to catch up before you bring your arguments to the table. Articles like this, which foster an eyewash of the real issues, lower the reputation of your esteemed publication. I wish you would investigate the real issues that we are seeing on the ground – hunger, shortage of PPE and test kits, illegal arm twisting of deducting one month’s pay from frontline healthcare workers, etc. If we as a country don’t acknowledge it, we won’t solve this problem.
    Also, tomorrow if economy opens, how do I know I am not sitting next to an infected asymptomatic person? No economy should reopen until they have reached a minimal sample size of testing. We are far behind the sample size, so let’s stop this foolish self congratulatory trend and make India a laughing stock. CoVid does not seem to have gone viral yet for one reason and one reason only, grossly inadequate testing. It’s like saying black money does not exist in India because IT Dept no longer scrutinizes IT returns.

  16. I see that there is a lot of emphasis on testing by Western media including the view that the the current data favours India because of lack of testing . Let us presume the worst that more people are affected by the virus. After almost 45 days of India being affected, can India hide deaths. Has the death rate in India increased abnormally over the last 45 days excluding Corona related deaths? Are people assuming that India is cremating or burying secretely? Is it possible with State Governments headed by Opposition in many States? India is not China where only State run media provides news. We have channels like NDTV, traditional press like Indian Express and The Hindu which are waiting for the Government to make mistakes to bring it to limelight. As of today, none of them have been able to bring out any data manipulation. As regards India having low infection rate due to heat, read about the pandemics that India has faced earlier. WHO in its communications has said there is no enough evidence to say the virus cannot survive heat. The main reason for the control of this pandemic according to me are two factors 1. Close cooperation by State and Central Governments 2. Self control by majority of Indian citizens.

  17. A good read.
    I agree with Shekhar. India is not offering a juicy tragedy to International media and influencers. Lock down has been vwry harsh. But bitter dose was required to save lives. All need to be continously careful because the virus is still there. The expert opinion is that lock down till 15 May is very likely to provide COVID free India by 15 Sep 2020 and lock down till 30 May will ensure COVID free India by 15 June 2020. The call is tough.

  18. The responsibility of convincing everyone that data is correct – verified and validated is on the who is making claims of accuracy. It is good if others can support or counter it. But it is secondary, at least in this case.

  19. There is no data available on public platform of anything related to COVID except daily numbers… It hope as a news media you are getting a better data. The real data is How many tests were conducted per day. Rate of positive cases per 100 tests, rate of self reported positive cases and the clinical condition of the persons at that time of self reporting… Testing strategy adopted in testing the patients, is it rapid antibody testing? Data of asymptomatic COVID positive patients. There is lot of data required to bring out actual course and predictions… Without this or without any such data… It is all Alice in wonderland.

  20. Shekhar gupta…. Today you have shown courage and optimism. Its a very redeeming piece. Congratulations. Can a leopard change its spots? Doubtful. Can a leopard try? For sure.

  21. The story smells like “who is right“ while everyone in the media has a right to question and express views . Unfortunately, till we KNOW how many people are affected in India and are without symptoms there is no way to say about the virus impacts. Second, we are in a LOCKDOWN that does not allow spreading, no doubt, brings down or flattens the curve of suffering and deaths. When it is all done and dusted After the lockdown is over, that may take anything from Months to even years to know the real health impact of the virus. Currently we know how many positive and how many die that’s all. Yesterday study from California predicted a low mortality rate in a population if you know how many people are infected. There are many stairs to climb yet Shekhar ! Hard to say who is right.

  22. Interesting,like every thing else that befalls India some how she SPIRITUALITY & materially survives to live another century on going with her unbroken continous civilization.good luck recoup India &move onnn.Nanastee…

  23. Shekhar Ji, i have become a big fan of your reporting, with media houses divided and influenced by their political leaning if not funding sources, i find print making a real attempt to present things as it is, without trying to paint it with what your political leaning might be. We need more of this type of journalism, rather than right wing version or left wing version of truth.

  24. I’m not sure which Western media house you are following, the ones which I’m following does not have such a grim picture that you have portrayed. Many of them have actually praised Kerela for bending the curve. There might be some skipticism but no one is in disarray as you have written.

  25. Hi Shekhar,

    I completely agree with you on your assertions. Infact all predictions of thousands dead and millions infected before april were lazy attempts at analysis.
    However i do not agree with your counter assertions. The 5 day moving average growth rates that shamika puts up is a sham. What should be worrying is that about 5% people are still testing positive, new hotspots and clusters are appearing every day and the ratio of % recovered vs % dead hasnt changed much over last few weeks.

  26. Amazingly naive and misguided analysis from a senior journalist. What eactly is your point? The danger has passed? Prophets of Doom have been exposed? India is Great? setting up a software company while believing in God and discounting data is better than acquiring fancy degrees — what, pray is your point?

    Should we have ignored the model estimates that came from people with fancy degrees? Should we have listened to Narayana Murthy on Covid19, left it to God and ignored the data?
    Should we applaud the government for declaring a harsh lockdown without preparation and then leaving it to the States to fend for themselves? When the Kerala CM appears on TV to give truthful and practical updates everyday, should we applaud the Central Government for behaving like the Big Boss, appearing once in 15 days to ask citizens to be dutiful?
    When politics — and divisive politics at that — keeps emanating from embedded journalists even in these difficult times?
    Moreover, 1200 people on any normal day die in India of diahorrea. Do we see our drains filled with dead bodies? Since when, and on what grounds have we decided that unless corpses appear in drains, an epidemic is not worth our attention?
    Finally, apart from your cronies, do also mention http://www.covd19india.org where a group of volunteers with fancy degrees are collecting data from the ground painstakingly to bring out an amazingly vivid and unbiased picture. They are doing a far better job than you journalists.

  27. You’re giving a publicity-seeking NRI academic hack whom a large section of India’s media sidled up with to demonstrate it’s biases and prejudices, a free pass. This is your page – I won’t name the so and so here – but you might consider naming and shaming him, even if that might reflect poorly upon former colleagues of yours for lapping up every lie that came from him, claims of Johns Hopkins backing his drivel being the least of them. India has many brilliant and scrupulously honest academics. Giving an NRI academic liar a pass just because he is an alumnus of an institution that some might slobber over, does a disgrace to the hard working experts in India whose laudable work gets sidelined in the public eye due to the exotic liar’s motivated lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    There are those of us who live away from India, who also are alumni of “name” institutions, and who are happy to recognize the hard work being done in India while some of our desi PT Barnums return to India and hog the attention only because they live outside. Please, Mr Gupta, let’s stand up for the “small guys” (giants, actually, for the work that they do!) and not hesitate to name the crooks who concoct and fabricate falsehoods to paint India in ugly colors in a way that hides good work that is being done. Best wishes!

  28. You are doubting if the BBC would run a story on Britain like the one it ran on Mumbai hospital. Well, it has boldly told off no less than the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, during war time! Thatcher was angry on it because it was maintaining neutrality between Britain and Argentina during the Falkland war. When Thatcher criticised it for its neutrality, it told her, a widow in Britain was no different from a widow in Argentina! Would an India medisa outlet tell Modi the same, that a widow in India is no different from a widow in Pakistan or China, during a war between the two countries? British media has criticised their government even during big wars.

    If Chloroquine has become “contentious”, that is not because because Trump is prescribing it, and Modi dispensing it. It is because the scientists and doctors think it is a Malaria drug, and may not be good enough to fight coronavirus. Trump himself has said that he is not a doctor, but doesn’t see what he has to lose if he tried it. A doctor had issued a rejoinder that he had his life to lose!

    Bill Gate has always been a well wisher of India. Didn’t he give a grant of $100 million for AIDS control? His prediction about the number of AIDS cases in India went wrong, as the predictions would go wrong sometimes. But he was also very prescient in his 2015 speech, in which he warned that the greatest risk to humanity was not nuclear war but an infectious virus that could threaten the lives of millions of people!

    Yes, the western media, like the Indian media, has been critical of the India government about thousands of stranded, jobless, hungry migrant workers trying to walk back home hundreds of miles. On the other hand, you ought to ask, why India has failed to convince the westabout its handling of the coronavirus crisis? It has also failed to convinced the west about what it did in Kashmir, and then about CAA, NRC, etc. Even the Indian origin lawmakers in the US are not convinced! The foreign minister, Jaishankar, refused to talk to the Indian-origin lawmaker Pramila Jayapal. On top of Kashmir, the CAA, and the Delhi riots, come the pictures of the migrants walking back hundreds of miles home! There are Indian writers, living in India, writing critically about India’s handling of coronavirus in foreign newspapers!

  29. Hahaha. Moderation is an excellent ploy to escape amswering difficult questions. In short a farcical commitment to facing criticism. Goenkaji may be turning in his grave. Pathetic

  30. So here is Shri Gupta, joining the race to the bottom of the pit. Kudos! Maybe its the safest strategy given the way law enforcement agencies have been busy targeting journalists falling foul of the central govt, with even the virus failing to stem their enthusiasm. While appreciating your pragmatism and self preservation skills, one must still try to set the record straight, with the media clearly not being in position to do so.

    Its a shame really that you need to follow the IT cell footsteps and create this category of “others” and then decrying them while holding forth the flag aloft for the some vague notion of achievement. The Indians you decry are as much patriots as you or others of your band, or perhaps even more. They worry because they care. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Since you pointedly decry the intelligensia with their fancy degrees, they worry because they likely know more and can therefore think through more. Kindly note what the respected epidemiologist Dr. Fauci had to say recently regarding Covid19 – If it looks like you’re overreacting, you’re probably doing the right thing.

    If fatality rates are actually low in India, we can count it as a blessing. Maybe we are lucky for some reason – BCG vaccine, Genes, weather, so many things. Is it an achievement of some sort to gloat over? For some maybe, but a for a journo with your experience and standing?!
    Or maybe its just the hammer of the lockdown that has prevented this thing to spiral over and kept the numbers low. Once the lockdown is withdrawn, in whatever way, how will the spread go, is anybody’s guess. But dont the side effects of the hammer count for anything? We may havesome numbers for COVID19 fataility, but what if we suddenly start seeing higher numbers for people dying from hunger and malnutrition?
    Or maybe the numbers are actually bad. Maybe we are not classifying some of fatalities as due to COVID. Maybe its something else. Surely you can recall the NSO report leak with alarming unemployment numbers before the central elections in 2019 and how that was portrayed as a draft with incorrect reportage by the central govt. Only for the same report to be accepted after the elections.
    Its no crime to try to envisage different scenarios, try to share thoughts with the govt agencies, share expertise, etc.
    Its no crime to have done the hard work to reach Harvard.
    Its no crime to be a patriot and not a nationalist.

  31. we had two advantages. our climate is hot humid tropical. our population is younger 96% of covid infectons are in climate less than 17 degrees. .

  32. Shekhar Gupta,
    Your journalistic style is becoming too predictable now: take a contrarian view vis-a-vis the majoritarian discourse, sugar-coat it with self-serving data-points and appear as an out-of-the-box wizard.
    Btw, the patent on this style is held by a 56-inch chest-wallah. So ,are you taking the first tentative steps towards your bhaktisation. Best of luck !!

    • Haha…this is hilarious Hynes!
      So true
      Plus, can’t believe a senior journolist like him won’t fact-check before posting (wrongfully attributing the data comment to Murthy)

  33. Nice to see that our reporting is coming of age at last. One always felt that when it comes to reporting on India, ‘good reporting’ is only if you found things wrong. It was as if nothing right can ever happen in our country. What a pleasant change. Yes, we have a long way to go and many connected issues to be tackled. But we seem to be doing a satisfactory job in fighting this calamity, so far. Let’s be proud of it. There’s nothing wrong in saying it in so many words as has been stated here by Mr Shekhar Gupta here.

  34. India , for a developing country , has done remarkably well under the leadership of our PM . When one looks at the mess in the developed world with their world class systems and what not , one has to commend what India has managed so far .But of course , it is not the end of the story as yet , unless a cure or vaccine is invented , we could still get in to trouble . But one suspects , the lock down , social distancing & other government measures may have worked , the Covid 19 is somewhat defanged in Indian circumstances , the truth about this theory will be revealed when the lock down is relaxed and it turns out that Indians are being infected at the same rate as the developed nations but some how the deleterious effects are not as damaging as in the developed nations .

  35. Shekhar ji, Will you do an article on west’s misrepresentation of India’s polity by focusing on their selection of Indian authors of opinion pieces about India? How can journalism by the vaunted NYT, Atlantic, WaPo and the likes be so one sided? Have they forgotten the basics of journalism? Or anything to defeat the “fascists” as defined circularly by the same set?

    (In a lighter vein.. I can’t decide if Shekhar ji is genuinely a left-of-center but genuine liberal or he is presenting himself as a gateway drug to the way-left-of-center anti-Modi writers at the the print, with an occasional Makarand thrown in).

  36. BBC probably had more of Pak origin journalists who obviously have anti India agenda.Mr Gupta needs to do some research in this direction

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