Why Are We Testing People for COVID-19?

Why are we testing people for COVID-19?

Here's why it's a meaningless exercise.

By Dr Arindam Chaudhuri

Former Advisor to the Consultative Committee to the Planning Commission of India in the areas of Social Sector & Education

India is in a hilarious state. We get an update every evening, today we have 20k cases, and we did 30k tests and added 1350 new cases, and we are doubling every 10 days instead of 7 days till last week.

What we don't tell people is, when we were doing 2k tests also we were getting 4.5% new cases. And now at 30k tests a day also we are finding 4.5% new cases. Then why are we lying that we are doubling every 10 days?

It's in our hands to decide to announce how many days we are doubling in. If we do 60k tests, we will get 2700 new cases and that would amount to doubling every 5 days. If we do 6 lac tests then in one day we will add 27k new cases and double every 18 hours!

Yes, that's the fact.

Today New York Governor referred to the following research and said he believes that the cases are far far more in reality in New York. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-new-york-coronavirus-antibody-survey-20200423-4mulrpltbvflrpmq6miw7yhzlq-story.html

What this basically means is more than 20% of New York's population have already got the virus... That's 1.6 million-plus in New York alone.

In India, I don't even want to say 4.5% already have though our daily results suggest that. In case 4.5% have then in India alone we have 65 million cases - more than 25 times the globally declared numbers. At 1% we have 14 million cases, more than 5 times the globally declared numbers.

What are we really trying to do by testing? Keeping ourselves busy?

India has a population of 138 crores, even if we do 1 lac COVID tests a day we will take 37 years to reach the last man- that too without taking into consideration the rate of growth of our population.

When we know that most of us get mild symptoms and that in 18 months, most likely, we will all get it. All we need to focus upon is on having emergency health facilities for those who show symptoms and come to the hospitals. We must now forget about keeping track of the numbers. It’s a totally foolish and a fake exercise. As I just showed India itself might be having far far more than the number of cases reported in the world till now. Who knows it actually has. 

After all, we have 750 districts. Even if 10 extra deaths happen in each district daily, won't we won't come to know... that's 7.5k deaths a day. Poor in India just die. They have no clue why they die. In Indore, there were suddenly 5 times more dead bodies coming every day in a graveyard. They found out they weren't COVID victims. Obviously. They never went and tested. 

The good news is, as I have been saying from before the lockdown, India might escape being severely affected because coronaviruses break down at a temperature of 26-28 degrees and viruses are less effective in humid conditions. And that probably is what will happen soon as a research has actually established: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/sunlight-destroys-coronavirus-quickly-say-us-scientists2217319 

But till the time we reap the benefits of the Indian heat and humidity, we need to do the right things. 

We need to only focus on awareness. Awareness that we need to home quarantine 

>>>our elders, maybe 55+

>>>those with multiple health issues 

>>>and those who are obese

These are the only the high-risk categories.

Out of the rest many probably already have as found out in New York that 14-20% people already have antibodies. Similar will be the case with us soon. I believe 2-4% might already have.

We also need to realise and spread awareness that *those who have developed immunity and have antibodies already can still spread the virus... Not for a few weeks but up to even two years*... That's how viruses work. That's how Ebola came back again. And as this article says

https://www.livescience.com/59996-ebola-virus-stays-in-semen-for-years.html

So developing immunity means nothing, you can still be passing on.

So till we have a vaccine, I repeat, we need to keep all those who are 60+, all those with multiple health conditions and all those who are obese; Pretty much quarantined and away from the rest of the population. 

Rest of us will get it and probably recover and carry antibodies. 

What we need to focus upon is emergency medical facilities in every district to take care of those who get critical, to avoid a global famine and a massive economic pandemic that's staring at us.

And I again request our PM to get his teamwork on an Economic Stimulus Package and Emergency Health Facilities as outlined in my previous recombination below, as soon as possible.

https://www.facebook.com/76429890015/posts/as-india-becomes-becomes-the-country-with-the-highest-day-on-day-growth-rate-of-/10158560632110016/

Oh yes, one last point.

If we really need to make sure that Chinese investments don't take over our assets then the current measures won't help at all. Any investor would know countries like China and its Fortune 500 companies such as Alibaba and the likes invest globally through multiple level trusts incorporated in regions like the Cayman Islands. It is almost impossible for the Indian government to even have a whiff of what's going to happen. Even the SEBI Takeover Code (that prohibits any kind of an undisclosed share purchase of a publicly listed company by any private body, domestic or foreign, beyond 5% each financial year) can be easily gamed by bringing in multiple investment firms that quickly each lap up 5% and take over the target company.

Just as an example. HSBC India is owned by HSBC Group in London, which has a significant investment from Fisher Management registered in Washington (which has its investments into Alibaba, Taiwan Semiconductor Company, Alphabet etc routed through various entities in Cayman). I believe HSBC is fully owned by the Chinese government. Look at the amount of money and the number of Mutual Funds they operate in India (https://www.moneycontrol.com/mf/mfinfo/amc_sch_listing.php?ffid=HS). How can anyone control those investments?

So what the government has done is a good beginning.

Now that Trump has openly said America has been attacked, I believe many countries will soon evoke an enemy country act and maybe nationalise everything that's directly or indirectly linked to China. And if say Europe, US and India were to do it together then most likely all their investments would be revealed and ruined.

The Chinese have been through the entire 2019-20 accumulating gold reserves, perhaps anticipating - like Russia under Putin did long back - that keeping money stored in dollars is not that safe after all. So the sale of gold to China must also be regulated simultaneously. 

All in all, one needs to do much more in that front too. And yes not just stop China from buying up our companies cheap, maybe even global giants from other countries also from doing the same.