Coronavirus Could Explode in India Very Soon

[ffr]

India’s health minister Harsh Vardhan announced Wednesday that there were 28 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country so far. After remaining a spectator to the pandemic so far, India is now officially under the grips of the disease.

India has the perfect conditions for the disease to become rampant: high population density, lack of sanitation and poor infrastructure.
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The official number of coronavirus cases and deaths in India could be underreported due to unreliable data gathering. Data suggest only 77% of total deaths in the country are registered. Of those deaths, just 22% receive medical certification.
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Judging by these figures, someone in India may have already fallen victim to the coronavirus. If that’s true, then the cases in India could already be in the thousands, according to the estimates of Professor Neil Ferguson. - CCN

India Reports 29 Coronavirus Cases, Govt Advises Schools to Avoid Large Gatherings of Students - News18

[Pachamama]

1. I was waiting and expecting this news soon....

[Wellstone ruled]

2. So it begins in India.

One of the worst went it comes to Hygiene as well as contaminated Water supply.

Another source of US manufacturing that will be interrupted for months to come.

The ugly side of outsourcing.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

5. I believe the primary supplier of most all our generic drugs.

A very flawed system of production as well.

KY.........

[Wellstone ruled]

6. That is just one sector .

The other big one is Steel,and semi and finished machined goods. Sub assembly and assembly parts. And Clothing.

[CatMor]

3. That is scary ...

they have 1.3 billion people. What a disaster it could turn out to be. Not sure there is much they can do.

[matt819]

4. And herein lies a big issue - reporting

I've been surprised at the low numbers in India, which could be because there aren't a ton of flights between the two countries. And while there are millions of Indian workers in the Middle East, the impact of the coronavirus in the Middle East appears to be relatively slight at the moment. That said, the China-India land border is more than 4,000 miles. On the plus side, there's a lot of China between Hubei and India.

So maybe the numbers will remain low.

But. . . it's a country of 1.3 billion people, and overall population density of greater than that of China. So if the virus does take hold, the odds of spreading strike me as substantial.

That said, the total reported infections right now seems low, given the size of India. Then again, you could say the same about the total number of reported infections in China (80,000 plus), with a population of 1.4 billion. Actually, the same can be said for any populous country. Once you get beyond the top four countries - China, South Korea, Iran, and Italy - the reported cases drop off dramatically.

Which make you wonder about the reporting. The US seems to have a policy of see no Covid-19 there is no Covid-19. Other countries may have the same policy, but it may very well be that the ability to test and identify the presence of the disease is providing a skewed picture.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

7. India is the most worrying nation for me because....

they won't take the draconian measures China did and probably don't have the quality or quantity of rapid-response supplies or infrastructure of China for large cities.

Plus, I believe there's a tremendous volume of travel between India and many nations around the globe......