And the award for the best Covid Management goes to…
Uttar Pradesh is the state with India’s largest population. As per 2011 census, about 200 million (20 crore) people call UP their home. Yet the state registered new Covid positive cases in single digits for almost 3 months from August to October, 2021. The state was conducting anywhere between 150,000 to 200,000 test every day. This works out to a positivity rate of about 0.003%!. Yes, you read it right. Kerala, with the highest number of daily reported cases had a positivity rate of 10% till late October, 2021. Most other states in India (with the exception of Bihar) had a positivity rate (number of positive cases/total number of tests conducted) between 0.5% and 5%. How, then did UP achieve this feat, you might wonder. Let’s consider the following scenarios:
a) Herd Immunity: A large population of UP may have already been infected during the devastating second wave between April and May. For any epidemic to become limited in progression (essentially a manageable linear progression), about 65%-70% of the population needs to be infected and have natural (if only limited) immunity to the virus. We can safely assume that the virus was not benevolent on the state of UP, just because it is too holy a place by virtue of lord Ram being born there. So, a population of 20 crores means, about 13 crore people were infected. The officially recorded cases in India until last count was 3.43 crores! Assuming that residents o of UP did not have magical immunity to the virus, the most important question to be asked is: how many people perished because of the virus? As per official figures, India had 4.6 lakh fatalities out of 3.43 crore positive cases as of 04-Nov which translates to a mortality rate of 1.4%. Applying the same mortality rate to UP, we get a figure of 17.5 lakh deaths. Yes, you read it right. Let me repeat in bold: 17.5 lakh deaths. The officially recorded deaths in UP because of Covid till date is 22,900. So, the calculated number is 77 times higher. Bold again: 77 times higher. Let’s give a benefit of 20% margin of error to UP, (just in case the virus was somehow demoralized looking at the construction of the grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya), the number of deaths comes to 14 lakhs which is still 61 times the officially recorded figure.
b) Under reporting of positive cases: There is a possibility that people of UP do not have herd immunity (a large section of the population was not infected during wave 2) yet and the number of cases per day are highly under-reported. Taking a very conservative positivity ratio of 1%, we would have 1700 cases every day if 1.7 lakh tests were conducted daily. This is 340 times higher than officially recorded figure of 5. Daily deaths would be 24 while the officially recorded number is zero or an occasional one. All these figures have been arrived at in the post wave 2 situation. The situation during wave 2 is simply unimaginable. However this raises another serious question: how bad can a state’s testing strategy be to be off by 340 times the expected number??
Which of the above scenarios you chose or reject both is upto you. Either way, it’s an extremely worrying situation. But hey, who are we to question anything when our revered Prime Minister mentioned that UP’s Covid management has been unparalleled. He cannot be wrong after all. The world has shown such stupidity in not recognizing and emulating the efforts of our Knight in shining (and saffron) armor — the chief minister of the state. Only if they had adopted the unparalleled UP model of pandemic management, they could have saved so many lives (on paper at least). A million lives lost to a mere virus doesn’t look good on paper, so it’s not on paper. It’s unaccounted. We will never ever know. Hey hey, but what’s accounted for are the 9 lakh diyas (earthen lamps) by the banks of river Sarayu and another 3 lakhs lit in temples across Ayodhya on the occasion of Diwali. Of course that matters, as each of those diyas is a beacon of the return of Ram Rajya, where everyone’s happy, well fed and safe from a pandemic. It’s another thing that after the VIPs and reporters are gone from the banks of Sarayu, poor, barefoot and homeless women and kids rush to salvage whatever oil they can from the diyas, because if they had to buy cooking oil, they would have to shell out Rs 210 for a liter.
Closing remarks: Nobody in India died of oxygen shortage during wave 2 of the pandemic. Says who? You know who.
-A very worried anti-national
