COVID-19 - India and the West

It’s been a long time since I wrote about COVID-19, so here I go again. When India’s active case count (number of people still with the virus) started dipping, I crossed my fingers and hoped we had turned the tide. It’s been a few weeks since then and touchwood, and this is how the graph looks now (it’s falling):

India is formulating its plans on how to rollout the vaccine (if and when that is available), hedges its bets by pursuing indigenous vaccines as well as trying out the Russian vaccine, identifies whom to prioritize first (doctors and other healthcare folks, truck drivers etc), and explores the option of using this as an opportunity to issue Digital Health ID’s for all. And even now, we hardly hear any politicking on the topic of the virus across states, across political parties.

 

On the other hand, there’s the US, which still shows no signs of reversing the trend of active cases (still rising, never fell):

But that doesn’t stop Trump from claiming not just success, but outright victory!

“The White House science office listed “ending the COVID-19 pandemic” as the top accomplishment of President Trump’s first term.”

 

Remember Italy, the country that got all the attention… until the virus hit everybody else? As the focus shifted, Italy turned the tide. But now, they are facing Round 2, and it makes Round 1 look minor by comparison: 

Then there’s Poland:

As the numbers spiked, you wouldn’t expect mass movements to happen on any front, right? Surely people would have the sense to not want to be right next to each other in rallies, you’d think? But no, when Poland tightened its abortion laws, “over 400,000 people” just came out in mass protests!


And finally, there’s France:



As the case count exploded (adjusted for population, it is registering 2 ½ times the number of daily cases as the US), the government issued a nation-wide lockdown. Right before a long weekend. Here’s what happened next:

“Many Parisians, who had had enough last time around, didn’t wait to be confined to their typically cramped apartments for four weeks.”

Resulting in:

“Logjams that stretched for 435 miles (700 kilometers) at one point Thursday evening.”

 

The West’s dealing of the pandemic is, eight months into the event, still weird.

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