COVID Transmissions for 4-30-2021
Containing the Indian epidemic
Greetings from an undisclosed location in my apartment. Welcome to COVID Transmissions.
It has been 529 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19. In 529, the Samaritan community rebelled against the Byzantine Empire, and were defeated. For that community, it was a historic disaster.
Unfortunately, what is happening in India with COVID-19 is also a historic disaster, which we’ll discuss today.
As usual, bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.
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Now, let’s talk COVID.
India approaches 400,000 new daily cases; this has global implications for vaccination
Sometime earlier this week I was hopeful that India was nearing a peak for new daily COVID-19 cases, but it appears that this isn’t the case. Yesterday was the 9th day in a row that India set a new record for new daily cases.
The surge there is a terrible human tragedy of a scale that I think everyone in infectious disease work wishes we had left behind in the 20th century. We’re supposed to have mastered infectious diseases, and to see millions of new cases of one each week while feeling powerless to contain it can induce a great deal of despair.
However, while India has some substantial human development challenges, it is also a country with a robust biopharmaceutical industry. India is currently the site of manufacturing for a great many doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and has used 130 million of those doses domestically. Unfortunately, that is not close to enough to contain an epidemic in a country with over 1 billion people.
There is a complication that this introduces, highlighted in this New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/world/asia/india-coronavirus-vaccines.html
You see, exports of the 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that the Serum Institute of India produces daily have been stopped, and those doses are all being used in India. The country is focusing on mass vaccination as a means to end this surge in cases, and so it needs all those doses to be used domestically. This means other countries that were depending on the exported doses are not going to receive them.
Unfortunately, though, even with those doses being used domestically, as well as additional doses being imported for use in India, it’s unlikely that this will catch up with the surge there. It takes weeks for the vaccines to become effective, and it will take a long time to manufacture and distribute doses.
I don’t know what the solution for the situation in India should be, or can be. A lockdown might be necessary, which is a colossal undertaking in a country so densely populated. I understand that some plans are in the works for one.
Whatever the solution, I hope it comes soon.
What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:
Finishing our move
It has been a while since I moved into my new apartment, but we had a substantial overlap between our old lease and our new one. Today is the last day that we actually have our old place. So instead of doing anything terribly fun yesterday, we made sure that the place was ready to turn over to our landlord. At least everything is all set now.
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See you all next time.
Always,
JS
Hi John,
Thank you for this newsletter!! My son and daughter-in-law (both vaccinated) live on The West Coast with their 3 & 5 year olds. They were hoping to travel to the East Coast where we live, this July for a visit. They are still very nervous about putting their little ones who are very active, at risk, at the airport and plane. What is your professional opinion about the safety of flying with children in July assuming we continue to keep our numbers down. We flew to the West Coast recently and witnessed many families traveling, much to our surprise.
It's impossible to actually know (because enough testing has not been, and cannot be, done) but by this time, a very substantial percentage of Indians have also been infected and survived. You have to assume their at-least-partial immunity will also help to slow the spread until enough vaccine can be manufactured.