All over the world the pandemic is far from over, but at least now in this country we have a leader at the top taking this thing seriously

 

President Joe Biden is well aware that what will make or break his presidency is whether or not he is successful in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control, and the prevention of serious economic consequences because of it. Of course he can’t expect “help” from the Trumpists in power in states like South Dakota, Florida and Texas, who contributed to what new White House Chief of Staff Ron Clain called a “huge mess” inherited from the Trump administration.

The “mess” was first created by the failure of setting national standards by the Trump administration, and exacerbated in “freedom-loving” states which either deliberately ignored the health risks (South Dakota), reduced testing (Texas), falsified data (Florida), or “redefined” what qualified as a virus case or death (Tennessee). Meanwhile,  “Operation Warp Speed”—which bypassed normal safety protocols—has been more like “Operation Snail Pace” in acquiring and distributing the vaccine, even as the U.S. was averaging more than 3,000 deaths per day in the final weeks of the Trump administration. Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans—who are more likely to be working in close environments and have fewer health care options—are two-to-four times more likely to die from the virus, according to the CDC; in Republican states, this is known as “population management” and “purging the voters rolls.”

The Wall Street Journal’s news side reports that

Mr. Biden’s national strategy announced Thursday is part of a blizzard of activity to curb the virus in his first 100 days, including a federal mask mandate, the administration of 100 million vaccines, the establishment of 100 federally supported vaccination centers, and reopening of most kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools. The orders signed Thursday also call for studies, including large-scale randomized trials, to identify treatments and Mr. Biden’s administration will create public dashboards with state-by-state and national information on testing, vaccinations and hospital admissions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make vaccines available in local pharmacies beginning next month, and agencies will work on guidance for reopening schools and emergency temporary standards requiring employers to take steps to keep workers safe from Covid-19.

This is obviously a dramatic departure from the Trump administration’s “handling” of the pandemic, and almost a year too late for the hundreds of thousands who have already died. Trump had always seen the pandemic as a personal annoyance that he tried to wish away—and when it didn’t just disappear, he either denied it, suggested magical radium water-type “cures,” pretended that everyone could afford the $650,000 medical procedures he received when he caught the virus, and finally simply just ignored that there was a pandemic going on at all. If nothing else, Biden should be credited with at least taking the thing seriously.

Whether or not the rest of the world is doing a better job at “handling” the pandemic depends upon what part of the world you are talking about.  China claimed its first virus-related death since this past summer, and its positive tests have only increased by about 4,000 since then, according to Worldometers’ numbers, which tend to be higher than other counts, and thus more “accurate.” But the numbers in Wuhan alone are in fact at least 10 times higher than officially transcribed, due to the number of people who have been found to have coronavirus-related antibodies, but were never actually tested for the virus itself. Although an authoritarian regime like China can be expected to take harsher measures to enforce restrictions, the WHO has been critical of China’s failure to be more “open” about its data, and its official numbers should be taken with a strong dose of salt.

Australia has one of the lowest case and death rates in the world, which may be in part be explained by the fact that the population density of the entire country/continent is less than 3 people per square kilometer—less than one-tenth the density of the U.S., and somewhat below India’s 382 people per square kilometer. However, a recent “outbreak” of a dozen cases in Sydney led to the government being slammed for not imposing an immediate lockdown, allowing the virus to “escape” into the neighboring state of Victoria.

Europe saw a “second wave” of the virus that was much more dramatic than the first one.  This was likely due to a false sense of safety after the slowdown of infections over the summer while the U.S. continued to see high numbers. The re-opening of “normal activities” increased group activities, and such complacency led to the most recent surge that saw the death count rise even more dramatically than in the previous “surge,” especially in Germany. Belgium has the highest death rate in the world; one conspiracy theory links this to its close interactions with China. Sweden continues to “experiment” with “herd immunity,” which has resulted in a death rate ten times higher than that of its neighbors, Norway and Finland. Here is “herd immunity” in action from a Reuters image last October; note that no one is wearing a mask:

Many other parts of the world have at best only provide “estimates” given their resources, or lack the political will to contain the virus or report accurate numbers. At least one country, North Korea, has not provided any numbers at all. But one country stands out for its contradictory approach to the COVID-19: India. By the middle of October, India’s numbers had skyrocketed from almost none in the spring to just one million cases behind the U.S., and on pace to pass the U.S. in total number of infections by mid-November.

But then something strange happened: the number of cases and deaths reported by India declined precipitously to the low levels reported in the first months of the pandemic, while case and death numbers continued to surge elsewhere, to the point that the U.S. now has nearly 15 million more reported cases of the virus than India does. Could a country that is poverty-ridden, has one of the most poorly resourced health care systems, and is one of the most densely populated countries in the world actually have stopped the virus virtually dead in its tracks?

The India-based news outlet NDTV tells us what actually happened:

There are two ways to fudge the actual number of Covid cases. The first, more obvious way is to reduce the number of tests being conducted, as Donald Trump repeatedly suggested. The second, less obvious and more insidious way is to increase the number of Antigen tests and reduce the number of PCR tests.

As we all know, Antigen tests do not detect the Covid virus as well as PCR tests. In fact, the separate data, published by only a few states, on PCR vs Antigen test results, shows that PCR tests have a positivity rate that is 2.5 to 3.5 times higher than Antigen tests (for example, in Delhi the positivity rate for PCR tests is 14% while the positivity rate for Antigen tests is 4%).

From 100% PCR tests at the very start of the pandemic, India is now down to less than 60% PCR tests - while Antigen tests have risen sharply from a negligible number to now almost 5.5 crores, which accounts for over 40% of total tests. And, every week, there is a continuous rising trend of Antigen testing.

States with a high level of Antigen testing are likely to miss a large number of positive cases. Once again, Bihar - especially during the run up to elections - was the worst state in India in under-reporting Covid cases. The true number of Covid cases in Bihar was an outrageous 132% of the officially reported cases (that is 2.3 times the “official” number). Telangana and Gujarat have also grossly under-reported the Covid pandemic in their states.

The BBC reported that death counts also appear to be deliberately under-reported:

Since March, a group of volunteers in India's southern state of Kerala have trawled local papers and news networks for reports on deaths due to Covid-19. Led by Dr Arun N Madhavan, a general medicine physician, they checked the district editions of seven local newspapers and followed five news channels unfailingly every day. They took notes on every death reported in the news and obituary notices and diligently entered the details in a spreadsheet. "It's a useful method of counting," says Prabhat Jha, of the University of Toronto, who led India's ambitious Million Death Study, one of the largest studies of premature mortality in the world. As of Thursday night, the volunteers had counted 3,356 deaths from the infection in Kerala, which reported its first Covid-19 case in January and the first casualty in March. But the official death toll from the disease is 1,969.

One health official, Rajeev Sadanandan,  who “advises” the government on how it should “handle” the pandemic, confessed that "We did not count cases who were suffering from terminal or renal diseases and were found to be infected with Covid-19.” The Times of India noted that efforts to disguise the number of Covid-related deaths included the rapid use of crematoriums; in one such facility in Kolkata, workers were seeing cremations increase from “15-20 bodies per week to that same number per day.” India has not been the only country underreporting virus death; Europeans countries like the UK and Italy, and states like Tennessee and Florida, saw “unexplained” rises in the previous year’s death totals early on that were considerably above what could be explained by the official virus death totals. But such undercounts are clearly more significant in a country as populous and crowded as India.

Despite the rollout of vaccines, there is nowhere near what is required to stop the pandemic in the short-term, and some countries and states here seem to prefer—as Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick asserted—that vulnerable populations “consent” to die so that everyone else can “live.” That is clearly not the “humane” thing to do, and we don’t yet know if allowing the virus to simply run its course will only “embolden” its mutated successors to turn on the “less” vulnerable. This is obviously far from over, but at least we now have a leader in this country to take the right steps to “handle” it.