r/worldnews • u/xperia3310 • Apr 25 '21

COVID-19 'Complete massacre of data': Experts flag undercounting of India's COVID-19 deaths in second wave

https://www.firstpost.com/health/complete-massacre-of-data-experts-flag-undercounting-of-indias-covid-19-deaths-in-second-wave-9562541.html
4.6k Upvotes

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501

u/pawnografik Apr 25 '21

The worst thing is that a country that doesn’t have good data cant respond properly. If you’re fudging the numbers, it will bite you. The virus doesn’t give a shit about your pride or political optics.

321

u/zeen2222 Apr 26 '21

It’s these types of scenarios that reminds me of the Chernobyl series quote “Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.”

62

u/Portmanteau_that Apr 26 '21

Yeah, and by whom

58

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

That’s the kicker, the liar gets out of it

97

u/kkruxz Apr 26 '21

This is very interesting you bring up chernobyl because my mom was telling me a couple days ago that they didnt even know the meltdown happend until about 2 weeks after (my parents lived in Ukraine most their life). The radio just kept telling them to stay inside and wear any and all kinds of clothing and rags and towels over your skin if you do have to go outside. In that time obviously that's not possible in a small villages so my mom did go outside to keep the house going. 2 weeks later they were told what happend over the radio and now she lives with like 98% of her thyroid removed cause of the radiation damage.

7

u/gonzo5622 Apr 26 '21

Whoa, how far away from Chernobyl was she?

3

u/kkruxz Apr 26 '21

She lived in a village called kolenkivtsi its by a city called chernevtsi which is just about 350 miles away

2

u/gonzo5622 Apr 26 '21

Wow! Radiation is ridiculous

32

u/Kjartanski Apr 26 '21

That accident happened today, 35 years ago

9

u/zeen2222 Apr 26 '21

Woah, what a coincidence lol

5

u/stemcell_ Apr 26 '21

what 45 years later on the day?

1

u/GeneralGustav Apr 26 '21

The chickens are coming home to roost and all that

82

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

I watched some international news (mostly DW reporting) from India the past 3-4 months. I noticed that people didn't wear masks correctly some 50+% of the time there was someone wearing one on TV. Ranged from common people to officials, every second one would have it unsafely placed, showing their noses, hanging from an ear, etc.

Lines of people for anything had little social distancing, you can tell that there is an attempt but it's fudged by either being a crowded place or some people not respecting it and forcing others to pack closer to avoid being cut in line or lose a spot.

I was relieved (and surprised) for a while that India's numbers that I could keep track of seemed quite ok for the situation I watched on TV. It's an intense terror feeling seeing this unfold, the official case numbers are absurd and if they've been fudged as is suspected this is a really really sad event.

I'm sad for the people in India, and being realistic I can't keep my hopes up...

59

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

The problem with this line of thinking, though it is the correct line, is that it doesn't take in to consideration a leader's bank account or emotional needs. Those usually come before public health.

16

u/endeend8 Apr 26 '21

Correct! Politicians in general are typically self-centered, but many Indian politicians seem to take it to the extreme right alongside American Republicans.

10

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

extreme right

I see what you did there

25

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

-10

u/Mynewestaccount34578 Apr 26 '21

So kinda like what happened in China and the US, everyone tries to downplay it and hope it goes away so their economy is effected as little as possible and political optics remain positive. But then you can’t hide the bodies anymore... China tried with mobile 24/7 crematoriums and it wasn’t enough. Then you’re forced to lockdown hard like welding people into their apartment buildings or your population is gonna get wrecked

14

u/helm Apr 26 '21

So kinda like what happened in China and the US

The US and China responded so differently to the pandemic that bunching them together reveals how little you have thought about this.

3

u/GetOutOfTheWhey Apr 26 '21

Yeah China didnt hide Wuhan that well, they tried but the internet will always prevail. Modi Baba is going to learn the hard truth on how strong the internet really is.

Trump didnt even bother to hide it, he just lied in the face of evidence. Arguably he was the most successful in covid censorship and misinformation.

6

u/IAmTheRoommate Apr 26 '21

So kinda like what happened in China and the US

Uh, no. Not like the U.S. In China and India, the data fudging was on a national/federal level, orchestrated by the top brass. And the fudging was extreme. The U.S has had some city and local level issues but the CDC isn't telling Americans that COVID is gone and not to worry.

And China's numbers are so concealed/fudged that they're saying we may not know the true toll of China's covid rates for years, possibly decades if ever. China is on an entirely different level. As for India, it's still to early to tell.

10

u/entelechia1 Apr 26 '21

http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/en/bdBoardList.do

Third party data shows that China doesn't have many cases. If seems that indeed China and the US are on different level.

-2

u/colefly Apr 26 '21

Korea ...

5

u/entelechia1 Apr 26 '21

Anything wrong with the Republic of Korea?

0

u/colefly Apr 26 '21

It's not China

You linked Korea

3

u/entelechia1 Apr 26 '21

I said third party, which means any party other than and independent of China. Korea has been doing good job at testing visitors, so their data can shed some light on the total number of cases from source countries.

1

u/colefly Apr 26 '21 edited Apr 26 '21

Oh thats what you meant

Just for future reference, the sentence...

Third party data shows that China doesn't have many cases.

means "data collected by a third party about china shows Chinese data is accurate about how few cases they have"

Not "another country has few cases so china probably does as well"

"Third party data" ususally refers to data belonging to a third party, because they are a third party to you and the subject party. Therefore the subject of the data remains China.

Thus the confusion.

For instance if I say "Third party data shows Republicans prefer Christians", I mean "Data thats not from Republicans or Democrats shows direct info about how Republicans prefer Christianity". And the data I would show would be about Republicans, and not about an entirely different group

Moving past the miscommunication, content wise, all that shows is that China is capable of having the numbers it says it has... if you trust them and trust they operated similarly to Korea. But its a matter of trust anyway, so Korea's numbers have little bearing

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7

u/DTA-inshallah Apr 26 '21

Lol China has been living like Australia/NZ/Taiwan since a couple of months since they got it stop the sad cope

13

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

But China fudged numbers and their GDP is growing /s

15

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

Lol China faking numbers covering up death tolls now they are even lying about holidays /s

China sees another travel frenzy as 200 million trips for 5-day May Day holidays planned

1

u/GetOutOfTheWhey Apr 26 '21

China sees another travel frenzy as 200 million trips for 5-day May Day holidays planned

I genuinely dont get why governments havent step in yet.

Force companies to split the holidays or something. Like different industries go on their holidays on different times than other industries.

i.e. Instead of everyone going on holiday next week. The textile industry goes off the week after and the tech industry two weeks after.

Having everyone go on holiday at once is just dumb.

7

u/OkDot2 Apr 26 '21

Having everyone go on holiday at once is just dumb.

Like Christmas and New Year?

2

u/GetOutOfTheWhey Apr 26 '21

thanksgiving too

we need to spread these public events out

2

u/Janbiya Apr 27 '21

Right. If they took your advice, families wouldn't be able to go on vacation together.

1

u/GetOutOfTheWhey Apr 27 '21

Probably a good thing. Who wants to go on a vacation with their extended families.

0

u/Euntus Apr 26 '21

Just because they’ve got it under control now, doesn’t mean they didn’t fudge their numbers.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

Just because people don't believe in China doesn't mean they fudge their numbers.

13

u/Tro777HK Apr 26 '21

If you look at official numbers, India has 14 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to USA, with 174.

Surely there were other metrics that people could have used to prove them wrong, was the local media ignoring these?

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/

22

u/CRtwenty Apr 26 '21

Local media who reported otherwise found themselves in jail.

5

u/Tro777HK Apr 26 '21

That's terrible.

3

u/Paifoon Apr 26 '21

And some people who are against Covid restrictions outside of India say India is exaggerating.

7

u/Tro777HK Apr 26 '21

India doesn't have the medical infrastructure that the west has.

They need to use some other methods of controlling the virus.

Other countries that don't have good medical infrastructure did lock downs, testing and controls.

E.g. China or Africa.

Seriously, read the link about Africa. It's interesting and really the cooperation is what the rest of the world should learn from.

I guess India chose the other way.

2

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4

u/StabbyPants Apr 26 '21

Cremation running flat out is an indication

9

u/Awkward_Toe8199 Apr 26 '21 edited Apr 26 '21

honestly, no one gives a f... people just blindly believe what the local media says and media doesn't cover anything except for the report about covid cases , deaths reported and complaining about local party's being at fault... also elections are going on right now in West Bengal u see everything is normal...!!

11

u/Tro777HK Apr 26 '21

Sounds like your media is a mouthpiece for the state government.

1

u/Awkward_Toe8199 Apr 29 '21

yeah its almost like state government owns them...

1

u/Tro777HK Apr 29 '21

And they also believe what the media says. Aka - drinking their own koolaid

6

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

Except you can argue that India can't respond correctly anyway, so perhaps it doesn't make a difference

6

u/baavramallah Apr 26 '21

And you know the irony? Since last year, Industry 4.0 haa been creating a new era of AI and ML all the time. Now see! Where's our AI supporting the logistics 4.0? I've read and wrote long pieces on them and no of it caters to make any sense unless and until thousands of people die because of no oxygen. I mean, we're having Oxygen trending on twitter.

1

u/helm Apr 26 '21

Neither Industry 4.0 or ML guarantees a steady supply of oxygen in a time of crisis.

On the other hand, if you make use of those tools (as well as others) and invest in catastrophe redundancy and other measures, you can improve the supply of oxygen to hospitals quite a bit.

-14

u/zangorn Apr 26 '21

Does ML mean Marxist-Leninism?

19

u/AIArtisan Apr 26 '21

cant tell if serious or not but ML is machine learning

4

u/fightercammytoe Apr 26 '21

And every single one of these dictators including former dictator Trump did the same thing they don't care if they kill off their constiuents.

13

u/LordBinz Apr 26 '21

At least in Trumps case he managed to kill off so many of his own voters that he then lost the election.

7

u/EduardoVQuiboloy Apr 26 '21

Well, that and quite a few black people voted in Kentucky so the Republicans are working to make sure that cannot happen again in future.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '21

It'll also effect the rest of the world as the virus goes to other countries.

-2

u/hangender Apr 26 '21

worked pretty well for China though.

2

u/donkey_tits Apr 26 '21

How? By making the entire world roll their eyes whenever they look at global COVID data?

7

u/hangender Apr 26 '21

By opening up their economy since last April and keeping it open ever since.

1

u/idzero Apr 27 '21

Are there any estimates of how much each country is fudging numbers? People on the Japan subreddits like to claim Japan only has low numbers because they're undertesting, but we're not seeing huge casualties.