With rising cases, India far from flattening curve but low death rate a silver lining

In episode 528 of #CutTheClutter, Shekhar Gupta delves into data relating to India's test positivity rate, mortality rate, flattening of curve and Delhi's serological survey findings.

Representational image of Covid-19 testing | Photo: Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

New Delhi: India’s Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to rise, and the country may still be far from flattening the curve, said ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta in episode 528 of ‘Cut The Clutter’.

Among the major countries in the world, India is now the only one where the number of new cases as well as deaths have been rising everyday.

Although cases have been rising in the US as well, at a faster rate than India, the fatalities are not going up on a day-to-day basis.

Brazil, the country with the second highest number of coronavirus cases, is also showing some signs of plateauing, Gupta said. Similarly in Russia, while new cases are rising, fatalities are not increasing.

“Everybody talks about flattening the curve. India is one country, which is not flattening any curve,” Gupta said.

There is a three-week-lag between the curves depicting daily new cases and deaths, and therefore, the 40,000 new cases that crop up every day will translate to almost 1,000 deaths per day, three weeks from now.

Gupta points out that something needs to be done at the national level to bring things under control.

With the National Disaster Management Act and the Epidemic Act, the central government has enough power to be able to give directives to all states, Gupta said, but it has not done this.

Even with over 3.3 lakh tests being conducted everyday, India’s test positivity rate (TPR) — the percentage of positive Covid-19 tests — is over 10 per cent.

According to the World Health Organization, this metric should be under 5 per cent since a high TPR indicates that not enough tests are being conducted.

However, some experts argue that there is no point in just testing people and finding positives since most are going to be asymptomatic, and this will increase the burden on the health system. Gupta, however, disagreed.

“I don’t buy that. I think the more people we can identify, the better because even if they self-isolate at home, they can protect themselves better, they can protect their families better and they can protect their colleagues better,” Gupta said.

Delhi’s serological survey & low death rate in India

Delhi’s serological survey results, which were shared by the government Tuesday, revealed that about 23.5 per cent of those tested had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in their blood.

This means that about one in every four Delhiites has already been exposed to this virus.

This indicates that over 40 lakh people may have been infected with the coronavirus in Delhi, of which only about 1.2 lakh have been officially reported.

“It means that so many cases have been floating in the population without our surveillance system or testing system catching them,” Gupta said.

Moreover, it means that 77 per cent of the population is still vulnerable to this disease i.e. over six months into the pandemic, we are still far from herd immunity.

The silver lining is that if over 40 lakh people were infected in Delhi, and with about 3,600 deaths, the fatality rate is much lower than what has been reported so far.

“Much of the Western media, who are seeing much higher fatality figures in their own countries with much better health systems, are not able to believe that India’s fatality rate per million population is just over 20,” Gupta said.

In Belgium for example, the number of deaths per million is over 855.

With low death rates, Asia is an outlier

A number of reports by ThePrint have also pointed out that there is a discrepancy in the actual number of Covid-19 deaths and those reported in states like Delhi and Telangana.

As a result, there had been an audit of deaths and a correction in the numbers was made mid-June.

“India’s fatality rate, therefore has been a contentious issue,” Gupta said.

However, he added that despite these discrepancies, it is not possible for the government to continue to hide a very large number of deaths.

Moreover, a look at the situation in other Asian countries indicates that India is not really an outlier.

Bangladesh has 20 Covid deaths per million, Philippines has 17 deaths per million, Indonesia has 15 deaths per million. Pakistan and Afghanistan have 27 and 30 deaths per million respectively.

There has to be a reason that Asia is an outlier, which is not yet known, Gupta said.

Despite this, with the number of daily deaths steadily rising, India’s death per million could go up.

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