Boris Johnson cancels India trip amid rising cases (opens in new tab)

Although the variant is in the U.K it's not yet believed to have come from overseas travel. So maybe this is a variant that has a higher likelihood of mutation in a specific demographic (e.g. Indian).

Speculation at this point to be honest.

The change from January to March is what's surprising.

25% seems to low even. I've been to India a few times and the vast majority of people don't use the public health system (it's very bad) and prefer to die at home. I wouldn't be surprised if deaths were much higher and corrupt officials in private hospitals were downplaying the amount of cases.

Beginning of the summer months.

I live in India. Just got my first dose (Covishield -- which is the AstraZeneca derived vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute). The process was really smooth. Just went to the website, (I could have used the AarogySetup COVID app, but preferred not install it,) was given an appointment date. Turned up on the appointment date, stood in line (a longish line -- a 3 hour wait) and got my vaccine. Was made to wait for 30 mins post vaccination to check for anaphylactic shock then then sent home with a couple of fever pills (paracetamol I think). Was contacted two days later by a robocaller to get my feedback and the vaccine certificate was available for download immediately. The process was REALLY smooth. The thing is, its easy to sit in a tiny country like the UK and say the vaccination program is going well, India is vaccinating at rates similar to the rest of the world 3-4 million per day. But India is so huge that, at that rate it will take several years to vaccinate everybody. Harsh lockdowns sadly are even worse for poor people. They literally caused more deaths in the early days due to starvation (from not having the money to buy food) than the virus itself. It is complex to manage a vast and complex country like India. So glib, short comments on social media sites make good reading but are not reflective of the actual effectiveness of the government in power. And I say this as an ardent critic of the current Modi administration.

We cannot generalize here. Holi is mostly a north-Indian festival. Kumbh is for all; so there we can say that it affects everyone. But this year very few people traveled.

Also when we say "Medical systems collapsing" then we should be specific. Because there are 700+ districts and there is a different story everywhere.

My father and mother went to the community clinic at a walking distance from my house and there was no queue at all. No wait. Now on 1st of May, it is my and my wife's turn.

- Why single out Holi and Kumbh, where there are large gatherings like political Farmers' protests, Ramadan and other religious gatherings are still going on, while the Kumbh (where entry into the district was with RT-PCR negative certificates) & has been called off at the Prime Minister's request.

- The majority of cases come from Maharshtra: 670388, UP:191457, Karnataka:133543, Chattisgargh:128019, Kerala:93683,Delhi:74941 (for a single city state these numbers are high) - which are non-election states. [Source]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103458/india- novel-coronavirus-covid-19-cases-by-state/

- Poor vaccination drive: Nothing can be father from the truth. India is one of the countries which has superb last mile vaccine delivery capability and connectivity till remote villages. Currently vaccination for 45+ age group is being rolled out successfully (with Covishield and Covaxin both). If anything there was lot of anti-vaxx created by media and politically vested interests which resulted in vaccine hesitancy. Now, the same voices are crying hoarse why we cannot vaccinate 1.3 billion people in a single month?

i don't think decisions that affect millions should be based on body language