India has approved Sputnik V vaccine - the only foreign made vaccine on Indian market.

[Moses]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-vaccine/india-approves-russias-sputnik-v-covid-19-vaccine-economic-times-idUSKBN2BZ0ZQ

India has approved the use of Russia’s “Sputnik V” vaccine against COVID-19 based on strong immunogenicity data.

It would be the first 100% foregn vaccine on the marked and the third COVID-19 vaccine approved in India after manufactured by Indian Serum Institute AsztraZeneca’s Covishield, and after local firm Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN.

[StevieWonders]

Bloomberg has an interesting background article about why things are so bad in India . Essentially they bought the capitalist myth that private enterprise is always best.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-22/who-ever-thought-india-s-for-profit-healthcare-market-could-defeat-a-pandemic

[cdnmatt]

I've never understood the whole for-profit private healthcare systems thing. Quite obviously, that's not going to produce a patient-centric system.

I guess then that gets into the whole debate of whether healthcare is a right or luxury.

[gerefan2]

Bloomberg has an interesting background article about why things are so bad in India

Cases per 1 million people
UK 64518.
India 11775

Deaths per 1 million people
UK 1868.
India135

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[Brad the Impala]

India is in crisis with hospital beds running out and emergency cremation sites. I wouldn't take their desperation as endorsement of the quality of Sputnik. A parched man will drink seawater.

GF, you should know better than to quote such partial figures as a valid comparison, given the acknowledged surge in India, where there is overwhelming political will from Modi's government to underplay the covid reporting.

[Moses]

their desperation


Cases per 1 million people
UK 64518.
India 11775

Deaths per 1 million people
UK 1868.
India135

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Did you say "desperation"?

[latintopxxx]

gerefan...do u really believe the official figures as issued by the Indian government

[Brad the Impala]

Did you say "desperation"?

I did, follow live reportage from Delhi, not doctored govt statistics. Severely sick people are unable to access hospital beds or oxygen.

[Moses]

gerefan...do u really believe the official figures as issued by the Indian government

Too much long question. It should be

gerefan...do u really believe the official figures as issued by the government

[StevieWonders]

There’s a very interesting long article in this week’s New Statesman that examines the “why” of this latest outbreak. In summary, blame religious festivals and other gatherings that abandoned social distancing.

Although the article is behind a paywall you can read it for free by registering your email address - https://www.newstatesman.com/world/asia/2021/04/human-catastrophe-how-india-lost-control-covid-19

[Brad the Impala]

On Friday India reported 332,730 new cases of coronavirus, setting a world record for a second day running. Deaths were numbered at 2,263 in 24 hours.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56858403

[Uranus]

“The idea that a private health system focused on profit could adequately attend to almost 18% of the world is ludicrous.”
(Bloomberg)

[Moses]

On Friday India reported 332,730 new cases of coronavirus, setting a world record for a second day running. Deaths were numbered at 2,263 in 24 hours.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56858403

Cases per 1 mln yesterday:
France 3300+
Netherlands 3300+
...
India (60th row) 1500
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#weekly_table

How did you say "propaganda" in English?

[Brad the Impala]

Yeah right, the BBC is well known for it's propaganda!

Try this short Channel Four News piece. https://www.channel4.com/news/indian-hospitals-running-out-of-oxygen-as-covid-cases-rise

[Brad the Impala]

Really, this is all propaganda?


India has recorded nearly a million infections in three days, with 346,786 new cases overnight into Saturday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the situation in India was a "devastating reminder" of what the coronavirus could do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56870410

[goji]

Yeah right, the BBC is well known for it's propaganda!
The same BBC which had an hour long programme last month looking at why certain countries were so successful in containing covid. India was one of those countries featured as a success.

[Brad the Impala]

The same BBC which had an hour long programme last month looking at why certain countries were so successful in containing covid. India was one of those countries featured as a success.

What has that got to do with propaganda?!

In any case I assume it's the Panorama programme from a month ago, that looked at differing worldwide strategies that had had more success in containing covid, at that time, than the UK. Along with the usual relative success stories a short piece covered specifically the state of Kerala, making the point that this state, unlike the rest of India, had a relatively successful policy compared to the UK, with at that time only 4,500 deaths from 35 million people.

Interestingly the relative success was attributed to the thorough social care policy by the communist administration in the state that facilitated and fully supported those isolating, with visiting health care workers and free food deliveries etc.

Sadly even this has been insufficient to protect from a surge in the last month, although not yet as badly hit as most of India.

[StevieWonders]

The same BBC which had an hour long programme last month looking at why certain countries were so successful in containing covid. India was one of those countries featured as a success.When it suits his ideology goji avoids the notion of time changing situations. In his posts on tourism in Thailand he’s keen to stress a fluid situation. Here in his obsessive BBC-bashing he fails to mention that at the point in time when the programme was made it reflected the situation then. Two months later the situation has changed for the worse.

[cdnmatt]

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think goji was just pointing out that Moses blasting the BBC recent reporting on India as propaganda is a pretty weak argument.

[arsenal]

More propaganda for you Moses.

https://news.sky.com/story/fires-dont-stop-as-delhis-dead-pile-up-inside-the-new-epicentre-of-the-covid-pandemic-12286221

[arsenal]

Yet more of this pesky propaganda.


https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/uk-to-send-ventilators-to-india-amid-horror-second-wave-b931615.html

[Moses]

Yet more of this pesky propaganda.


https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/uk-to-send-ventilators-to-india-amid-horror-second-wave-b931615.html

Daily died in India ~2500 per day per 1500 mln population and it is "horor"
Daily died in USA in January ~4500 per day per 300 mln population (i.e. about 9 times higher than in India per 1 mln of population) and it was "heroical fighting"...

Russia sends ventilators to US and this is propaganda
UK sends ventilators to India and this is "urgently help"

Orwell


“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

[arsenal]

You should tell the Indian prime minister of your findings. I'm sure he'll be very relieved. And this below from sky news.

"India's 'massacre of data' - and why its daily death toll could be up to five times higher than being reported

India is seeing around 350,000 new confirmed cases a day - more than any other country at any point in the pandemic.

Daily deaths are now being reported at almost 3,000, bringing the total to more than 195,000.

But are these numbers accurate - and could they in reality be even worse?

Bhramar Mukherjee, epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, told the New York Times: "It's a complete massacre of data.

"From all the modelling we've done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported.""

[cdnmatt]

Crematorums are reporting 10 times the number of bodies as the govt is reporting deaths. Families are starting to do their own cremations at home, because the crematoriums are too ful.

Just announced US and EU are sending aid. Indian air force just returned from Singapore where they went to pickup a bunch of oxygen.

Sounds pretty bad out there... this new variant must be brutal.

[arsenal]

No Matt. They just need to realise that their official figures per million are less than the US and the rest is western propaganda according to Moses. Then everything will be fine.

Of course the most important figure is not how many people per million but how many people per available treatment and in that respect they seem to be fucked.

[Moses]

Bhramar Mukherjee, epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, told the New York Times: "It's a complete massacre of data.

"From all the modelling we've done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported.""

Yes, sure, Indian guy from Michigan watching his crystal ball and says what is going in India from opposite part of the World...

I can run model on my computer where all US will die in 3 days, but that doesn't mean what that model says true...

[Moses]

Crematorums are reporting 10 times the number of bodies as the govt is reporting deaths.

If number "10 times" is correct then that means what India has now the same death rate as US had at past winter.

[Nirish guy]

[QUOTE=Moses;277574] Russia sends ventilators to US and this is propaganda UK sends ventilators to India and this is "urgently help"/QUOTE]

Yeah the difference there being of course is the UK sent ventilators with the PLUGS on them so that might actually work when they arrived ..... :) *


(*That's just a JOKE Moses !!!!!! )

[cdnmatt]

If number "10 times" is correct then that means what India has now the same death rate as US had at past winter.

Yeah, exactly, and the US was in dire straits last winter. Don't you remember the stories of ICUs being setup in chapels and gift shops?

Is your disdain with the West so great that you think Westerners are sitting around happy and in glee that India is going through hell right now, or something? Canada has it really rough right now too, worse than laster winter.

[Brad the Impala]

Russians don't seem too keen on Sputnik 5. The government is encouraging take-up of the vaccine by offering the over 60s gift vouchers if they are vaccinated. Independent pollsters report that only 30% of Russians are willing to be vaccinated.

Perhaps they have been reading all the western propaganda.

Just to be clear that neither I, and nor I expect any one else, would be piling in on this if we weren't being fed the Russian propaganda! I pity everyone afflicted in this awful situation wherever they are.

[Moses]

Russians don't seem too keen on Sputnik 5.

Not to Sputnik, but to any vaccination, not limited to COVID. It is known phenomenon: when something is free and is available everywhere, then nobody count as a thing and everyone says "oh, I will do it tomorrow, or after tomorrow, or after-after tomorrow..." Every autumn they starts campaign for flu vaccination. We see ads in shops, cinemas, metro, on TV and in Internet, even in private taxis. And every time they have only 5-10% of population who got vaccination.

Any vaccine is available in any govt clinic in Russia, for free. You just need to visit your local doctor and ask for vaccination, visit is also free.

Govt is thinking about to give some preferences to vaccinated, but every time it meets critics from human rights activists "you cannot discriminate non vaccinated"...

[goji]

As I'm fairly sure I said before, I don't doubt the ability of the Russians to design a good vaccine.

What I do doubt is Mr Putin's government approvals process, particularly where they declared it safe before trials were done. Perhaps this is why the Russian population also distrust the vaccine.

As far as I can tell, India approved the Russian vaccine after conducting it's own trials in India. Since that ought to be reasonably independent of Mr Putin, this would overcome my previous objections.
So if I needed a vaccine and only Sputnik were available, I'd probably take it.

However, I don't need a vaccine, as I've had AZN.

Again referring to the topic title, I presume the main reason why there is only one foreign made vaccine on the market in India, is they have one of their own and another generously licensed out from the UK for manufacture in India.
The latter is a much more significant help, as it allows India to manufacture at serious scale.

The same vaccine was licensed out from the UK for manufacture in Thailand. Without the same progress by Thailand.

[StevieWonders]

As I'm fairly sure I said before, I don't doubt the ability of the Russians to design a good vaccine.

What I do doubt is Mr Putin's government approvals process, particularly where they declared it safe before trials were done. Perhaps this is why the Russian population also distrust the vaccine. Western analysis published widely in serious print media takes the view that Russia and China’s refusal to go through the same process for their vaccines as Western drug companies is part of a larger tactic. That analysis holds that Russia and China have deliberately chosen to abandon the post-WW2 idea of a rules-based international way of doing things because it is what underpins the “Western” style of government and international affairs. Part of that is the complete opposition to transparency. Its tactics include sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt about events and processes in the democratic societies, mostly by using “false equivalence” and presenting isolated examples as if they are typical examples.

[StevieWonders]

The same vaccine was licensed out from the UK for manufacture in Thailand. Without the same progress by Thailand.Can we look forward to your usual penetrating analysis about the principal cause of this?

[dinagam]

It is known phenomenon: when something is free and is available everywhere, then nobody count as a thing and everyone says "oh, I will do it tomorrow, or after tomorrow, or


India is to an extent a very traditional country where the majority Hindus still believe in the teaching and the healing powers of their gurus and holy priests for any disease or pandemic. What is soothing to the ears and the eyes will give them hope, even if it comes from a bell dangling on the penis of a holy man. One for the road, mate. Vaccine can wait!

[Nirish guy]

India Covid: Kumbh Mela pilgrims turn into super-spreaders

"When millions of devout Hindus gathered last month in the Himalayan town of Haridwar to participate in the Kumbh Mela festival even as India battled a devastating second wave of coronavirus, many feared that it would turn out to be a "super-spreader event". Those fears, it now seems, are coming true.......... 60 of the 61 - or 99% - returnees tested in a town in central Madhya Pradesh state were found to be infected (https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/mp-govt-orders-all-district-collectors-to-trace-quarantine-kumbh-returnees-101619816953849.html). Officials are now frantically looking for 22 others who are missing " ......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57005563

I cant think WHAT might have caused that to happen ......
11085

[StevieWonders]

Even more from India - cow dung does not protect against COVID-19 even if cows are sacred -

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-doctors-warn-against-cow-dung-covid-cure-2021-05-11/

[Khor tose]

I am not going to speculate on "whatever his crazy name is this year" insane theory on why Russia does anything. The science is in and it is on line for all to see. if you do no0t want to look it up here it is in very short form:
1. Sputnik V is the most effective drug out there for Covid 19.
2. It also has turned out to be the most effective against the many Covid variants including the Indian one.

Now it was tested in violation of normal standards, but more power to them for doing so. It was an emergency and this is not a new technique. For god sake the research was first done years ago by a women in Romania (Katalin Kariko). By 2005 she developed the technique, went on to help develop the pfizer vaccine. Moderna had no plans to use messenger RNA as a vaccine until covid. Smart Russian's bio-geneticist listened to brilliant women scientist long before Western scientist who actually ignored (sic) mere women scientist's research. Okay Moses, now tell us how messenger RNA was really invented by Stalin in 1933 as a weekend project for the glory of the revolution.

[goji]

I thought Sputnik was a modified Adenovirus vaccine, not an mRNA vaccine ?

[Moses]

I thought Sputnik was a modified Adenovirus vaccine, not an mRNA vaccine ?

Yes, it is. And for now it is only modified adenovirus vaccine against COVID in World with efficacy over 90% and still officially warranted 100% protection against severe sickness.

[StevieWonders]

Yes, it is. And for now it is only modified adenovirus vaccine against COVID in World with efficacy over 90% and still officially warranted 100% protection against severe sickness.As far as I’m concerned, the Chinese junk aside, all of these vaccines are as effective as each other in general use within the generally-accepted statistical margin of error.

What I find far more interesting is what’s going to happen this time next year when half the world is yet to get its first jab and the other half is lining up for the inevitable annual booster. None of these vaccines are known to give lifetime immunity.

[cdnmatt]

What I find far more interesting is what’s going to happen this time next year when half the world is yet to get its first jab and the other half is lining up for the inevitable annual booster. None of these vaccines are known to give lifetime immunity.

Pfizer is expanding operations with new plants in Singapore and China, and will begin producing 3 billion doses per-year. Obviously, they're preparing for the eventuality that an annual booster will be required worldwide, and aren't doing this for a one off vaccination run.

[StevieWonders]

Pfizer is expanding operations with new plants in Singapore and China, and will begin producing 3 billion doses per-year. Obviously, they're preparing for the eventuality that an annual booster will be required worldwide, and aren't doing this for a one off vaccination run.Yes and no. Big Pharma has realised that mRNA is the future of vaccines generally. Existing and new plants will be used for all sorts of new vaccines; it’s a wonderful time to be alive.

[Moses]

Yes and no. Big Pharma has realised that mRNA is the future of vaccines generally. Existing and new plants will be used for all sorts of new vaccines; it’s a wonderful time to be alive.

mRNA technology makes first steps in medicine... 2 weeks ago academic Ginzburg (chief of Gamaleya) officially under records said what Moderna's COVID vaccine has 25 times higher mortality rate after injection than Sputnik has... no objections from Moderna follows till now...

[StevieWonders]

mRNA technology makes first steps in medicine... 2 weeks ago academic Ginzburg (chief of Gamaleya) officially under records said what Moderna's COVID vaccine has 25 times higher mortality rate after injection than Sputnik has... no objections from Moderna follows till now...
An unbiased opinion is always welcome

[goji]

Yes, it is. And for now it is only modified adenovirus vaccine against COVID in World with efficacy over 90% and still officially warranted 100% protection against severe sickness.

When it's deployed or trialed back to back with other vaccines in an independent country where Putin does not control the media, I shall then be able to accept the results.

[Moses]

When it's deployed or trialed back to back with other vaccines in an independent country where Putin does not control the media, I shall then be able to accept the results.

It deployed already in 60+ countries.