Column: Cross Talk
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK, July 21, 2021 – In a Covid-awash world stricken with daily queasiness and doubt of the future of mankind, the rapid rise of new Covid-19 cases in the United States – which has been rocketing vertically in charts for the past three weeks; startlingly surpassed India, this week – is perhaps an ominous déjà vu of forced strictures and mask mandates in society.
The Daily Mail reported that the US recorded 52,111 new Covid cases on Monday with a seven-day rolling average of 34,682, which is a 224% increase from the 10,678 average recorded three weeks ago.
According to Worldometer, out of a total of 192 million Covid cases recorded globally, with more than 4.1 million deaths, the US accounts today for more than 35 million cases, with the number of deaths exceeding 625,000.
Nearly every state – aside from Montana and Iowa – and the District of Columbia, have seen infections rise in the last week, mainly because of the Delta variant, which now has a prevalence rate of more than 83% nationally.
Worryingly, as cases increase, daily Covid vaccinations continue to decline, with the seven-day rolling average falling below 500,000 per day from a high of 3.5 million in April, the Daily Mail analyzed.
India, on the other hand, which was the epicenter of the Covid pandemic only a few weeks ago, has seen an amazing improvement in its Covid count and death rate. India is only behind the US in the number of total cases, at more than 31 million, with deaths at more than 418,000, which is overall third in the world. Brazil has recorded more deaths, with plus 544,000. As of writing this, India recorded over 42,000 new cases on Tuesday, with 533 new deaths noted, according to Worldometer.
India, however, is showing greater zeal to stymie further spread of Covid; are increasingly wary of massive crowds congregating, especially through religious festivals.
Recently, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Delhi cancelled the religious Kanwar Yatras; and the country’s Supreme Court rebuked Kerala state government’s nod to allow Covid relaxations for shopping for the Eid-al-Adha festival. Kerala is the one state in India where Covid numbers have obstinately stayed high, with latest numbers showing more than 16,800 cases.
India’s rapid improvement in the Covid situation comes at a time when a report this week by the Washington, DC-based Center for Global Development – authored by Arvind Subramanian, India’s former Chief Economic Adviser, and two other researchers at the Center for Global Development and Harvard University, Abhishek Anand and Justin Sandefur – analyzed that the country’s total number of deaths during the pandemic could be a staggering 10 times the official toll.
The report said India’s deaths could be anywhere between 3 million to 4.7 million, between January 2020 and June 2021.
“True deaths are likely to be in the several millions not hundreds of thousands, making this arguably India’s worst human tragedy since Partition and independence,” the report said.
While those numbers by the Center for Global Development are appalling, the Indian government is yet to respond to it.
For now, India can take solace in reducing its Covid numbers, and rushing to inoculate as many people as possible. The country is not out of the woods yet: there have been reports of hospitalizations increasing in a few states, including in Bengaluru, with dire predictions of a third wave of Covid infections and fatalities coming as soon as next month.
On the contrary, the problem in America, despite its overwhelming stockpile of Covid vaccines, is how to inoculate the majority of the country, with deep skepticism of getting a jab, taking root in many pockets of the country.
Exemplary of this is a new study, based on a Yahoo News/YouGov poll, which analyzes that when asked which poses a greater risk to their health, more unvaccinated Americans say the Covid vaccines than say the virus itself.
The survey of 1,715 US adults, which was conducted from July 13 to 15, found that just 29 percent of unvaccinated Americans believe the virus poses a greater risk to their health than the vaccines — significantly less than the number who believe the vaccines represent the greater health risk (37 percent) or say they’re not sure (34 percent), reported Yahoo.
Shockingly, 93 percent of unvaccinated US adults — the equivalent of 76 million people — say they will either “never” get vaccinated (51 percent); that they will keep waiting “to see what happens to others before deciding” (20 percent); or that they’re not sure (22 percent), the poll revealed.
Asked to pick the “most important reason” they haven’t been vaccinated, for example, few say they lack “easy access to vaccination” (4 percent), “can’t get time off from work” (3 percent), or “already had Covid” (9 percent). More say they’re not worried about getting Covid (12 percent) or — far more frequently — that they don’t trust the Covid vaccines (45 percent), including for reasons like “concerned about long-term side effects”.
As America trundles to recovery, another study reveals the reason behind the lackadaisical approach to the situation exacerbated by the Delta variant, and the resultant complacency to the horrors of Covid, reluctance to get a jab.
According to Studyfinds.org, researchers from the University of California-Davis say society is becoming desensitized to the health crisis, especially when it comes to following pandemic-era safety measures.
The study, released on Tuesday, and the findings which appear in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Infodemiology, looked at both Covid new articles and reaction to these updates on Twitter to see how the public’s attitudes are changing since early 2020. Researchers say that despite the death toll continuing to increase, people are generally showing less concern about COVID-related news.
Studyfinds noted: “It’s a drastic change from where the world was just over a year ago. In the spring of 2020, many people started to hoard essential supplies like toilet paper, panic-buying whatever items they could find, and generally reacting with extreme anxiety on social media.
“The results show that as the months go on, the anxiety in Twitter reaction to new coronavirus news simply isn’t there. While widespread vaccinations may play a role in this, the researchers believe it’s important that people not become numb to the ongoing health risks still present.”
Of course, the US is at present much more capable of handling a new Covid wave, if it were to happen.
Compared with the start of the pandemic in March of 2020, the National Strategic Stockpile contains 35 times as many N95 respirator masks, according to Dawn O’Connell, the Department of Health and Human Services’ new assistant secretary for preparedness and response, reported The Washington Post.
Appearing Tuesday during her first congressional hearing, O’Connell said the stockpile, which her agency oversees, has 17 times as many protective gloves and eight times as many other types of masks. All the masks are now made in the US, she said, rather than relying on imports that were subject to global competition when federal officials sought to build up supplies during spring 2020.
There is also pushback to the CDC mandate of no masks required in schools, which would come as a relief to most parents.
In another report, the Post said the American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation’s leading association of pediatricians, released new, highly anticipated Covid-19 guidance for schools reopening this fall, recommending that everyone over the age of 2 wear masks, even if they are vaccinated against the virus — saying universal masking should be part of a “layered approach to make school safe for all students, teachers and staff.”
For now, one can only look at some positive news, to gauge the current situation in the US and India – the two countries hit hardest by the Covid pandemic.
For many in the Indian diaspora, especially, the US revising its travel advisory for India on Monday, lowering it from the highest Level 4, which means no travel, to Level 3, which urges citizens to reconsider travel, would come as a huge relief, and as an acknowledgement by the US of the Covid situation improving there.
(Sujeet Rajan is Editor-in-Chief of www.indiaoverseasreport.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)
