One FLU over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The website of India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) gives us the lowdown on the status of Covid-19 in the country, in numbers. The status on the morning of 30^th November is:

Active cases	4,53,956
Recovered cases	88,02,267
Died	1,36,696
Reported	93,92,919
Tests done	13,95,03, 803
Population (inserted by me)	1,35,26,00,000

Numbers often do not leave room for doubt. Everything else seems to.

Of course we know:

• This data would include tests initiated by an individual as well as tests done as part of random testing and sero surveys or as part of some regulation, like asking air travellers to produce a negative certificate before boarding. It is possible that self-initiated tests have a higher incidence of positive cases, but that cannot be established from this data.
• Cases reported as positive include asymptomatic ones as well. The person would have gone about normal life without feeling any difference till told he was a ‘case.’
• There could be many untested cases that could not be established as Covid-19 cases. Even deaths. Though the government did put in a protocol of testing dead bodies for Covid-19.
• While the cases and deaths and recoveries are all person specific, and should not have any double counting, it is possible some people have been tested more than once. Elon Musk apparently had 4 tests in one day with the verdict of him being infected split right down the middle. Thankfully Mr. Musk is not part of the numbers on the MHFW website.

So?

For one, Covid-19 has broadened our daily-use vocabulary. Who used, or had even heard of, social distancing or quarantine or self-quarantine or community spread or flatten the curve or contact tracing or super spreader or antibodies or asymptomatic or case fatality rate or herd immunity or incubation period or PPE or shelter in place or ventilator. Rarely, if ever, have so many words been added to the common man’s vocabulary in one year.

The government has been able to make guidelines and rules. Unopposed. For once, they have been encouraged, nay forced to.

• Guidelines for international arrivals. Then revised guidelines for international arrivals.
• Standard Operating Procedure for passenger movement post embarkation.
• Travel Advisory. Additional Travel Advisory. Another additional travel advisory.
• Guidelines for workplaces. Then updated guidelines for workplaces.
• Guidelines on containment of local transmission.

So?

Hmmm. Not quite sure.

Before going deeper, let me state clearly that I am not a doctor. I probably won’t even know my Femur from my Tibia, assuming the body still has bones by these names, that I picked up in Biology class in school many moons back.

I am trying to make sense of the paranoia surrounding Covid-19, instead of playing dead and blindly following the blind. The blind who make loud noises to hide their blindness.

Have an ache, pop a pill.

Have a sniffle, pop a pill.

Have a reaction to a pill, pop a pill.

Unable to fight the next illness because it is now dependent on pills…you know the answer.

Of course, the rest of the world should do the same. Else they are irresponsible.

With the government, and big business, happily complying and salivating at the prospect of total control over the lives of people. Who you are. Where you live. What you ate today. Where you went today afternoon. Sorry, you cannot board that flight because the last vaccine shot was on Tuesday, 5th May, more than six months back.

You asked for protection, did you not?

Comfortingly, one of the vaccines mankind has set its hopes on has shown success rates of 90% apparently through a dosage combination arrived at scientifically as the result of an accident.

And all vaccines, at least from a lay person’s perspective, are aiming at a moving target, as apparently the virus keeps mutating while jumping from one human to another. So, the shot you eventually get might be effectively protecting you against a virus that was there last year. I think it has a 100% chance of success against a virus no longer there.

The data shared earlier is for a period of 9 months, give or take, since the, issue, started around end February and we have almost rounded off November.

I have annualised the data to make it more easy to understand and compare, since historical data is not normally be maintained for 9 months and 11 days or any such odd period. If 100 people have contracted Covid in 9 months, assuming the same rate of infection, for the full year, the number would be 100×12/9 = 133.

The annualised data now looks like:

Active cases	6,05,274
Recovered cases	1,17,36,356
Died	1,82,261
Reported	1,25,23,892
Tests done	18,60,05,070
Population (inserted by me, probably increased since then)	1,35,26,00,000

In a year, less than 1% of the population would be infected with Covid-19, and 0.0139% of the population will die. In other words, 0.139 people in a thousand or 139 people in a million will die of Covid-19. Based on 1,81,600 projected Covid-19 deaths in a year.

How does this compare with other causes of death in India?

178832 (1.78 lac) people are killed in road accidents in a year

15.4 lacs on account of Heart disease

7.2 lacs due to Diarrhoeal disease

5.1 because of Respiratory system issue

4.5 lacs owing to Tuberculosis (TB)

2.5 lacs caused by Diabetes

This is based on a study published in the Times of India in March 2020.

As many people die of heart diseases in India daily, as do people of Corona in the whole world.

But comparisons are odious. Of the above, only TB is communicable.

What should we compare with, if at all? What about influenza, the flu? The common flu. Which seems to be the closest cousin of Covid-19. Everyone in India gets it. Many get it multiple times a year perhaps.

Why don’t we have a comparison of Covid-19 with the common flu? We have many articles and reports and opinions, but little ‘data.’

Maybe because common flu is just that, common. According to the Centers for Diseas Control and Prevention (CDC) of the US, “each death due to influenza in the U.S. does not have to be reported, so there is never a direct count…Conversely, each death due to COVID-19 is being recorded.” In India, even testing the dead for the infection.

So, how does one get perspective? Should one bother about perspective? As they say, perspective is not popular at the best of times.

No answers. All I have is questions.

If two groups are constructed of a million people each, with a comparable distribution of age, precondition, etc., and exposed, one group of one million people to Covid-19 and the other to seasonal flu, in each group:

A. How many will not contract the virus?

B. How many will contract without symptoms?

C. How many will contract with symptoms?

D. How many in each of the three categories above will die?

E. People in which of the categories above, A, B and C, will be transmitters? For what duration?

G. If category A did not contract the virus, can they be considered to be immune? For how long?

H. Will people in categories B and C become immune as a result? For how long?

On to the vaccine now. The one with a 90% success rate.

It now seems increasingly apparent that everyone will need to take the vaccine.

Like to eat out? Have you taken the shot?

Fly to Mumbai? Taken the shot?

Attend college? Taken the shot?

Ride the metro? Taken the shot?

Without a vaccine, in a million people, 9590 get infected, and 990410 don’t. And 139 die.

After the vaccine is given to all million, whether they want it or not, and possibly lowering their immunity a notch for future mutations, at the 90% rate of success, 900,000 will be immune and 100,000 will not be. Which 100,000 we don’t know.

Out of these 100,000, 959 will get infected, and 13.9 will die. Which 13.9 we don’t know.

So?

Going Viral

It was Gol-Maal on Saturday. The original Hindi comedy about imagined twins, of early eighties vintage, with Amol Palekar in the lead.

On Sunday it was Article 15, about the reality of equality versus the utopian hope enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

Yesterday it was Highwaymen, a tepid, predictable period film with Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson tracking down Bonnie and Clyde.

Today’s movie is still to be decided. I expect a lot of decisions regarding movies will need to be taken over the next few days.

No football on TV. No cricket. No tennis. No nothing. At least nothing live.

A lot of people clapped at 5 PM on Sunday, as asked by the PM, as a token of appreciation for the medical people, working with integrity and at great personal risk, in these troubled times. I did not. Tokenism is not for me. I appreciate medical people at all times. Don’t need to clap at 5 PM to show my appreciation. I also appreciate the armed forces. Despite random people insisting we need to show appreciation for the armed forces, and that one would be unpatriotic if one did not forward a random WhatsApp message supporting them. And the police force. And the cleaners. And all sincere, honest, hard-working people trying to make a difference to the world we live in.

The people who did not clap are likely to be name-called by the people who did. Like unpatriotic. And asked to migrate to a neighbouring country. In my humble opinion, that is the nature of herd mentality. But, to be fair, the people who clapped are also likely to be name-called by the people who did not clap. Like sheeple.

One got to see pictures of many leaders, business leaders especially, clapping as asked by the PM. On LinkedIn. On Twitter. What good is clapping at the request of the PM unless you can get someone to take a picture and post it in places where there is some possibility that the PM or his minders will notice. Along with a patriotic, motivational message. In other words, a message that appreciates the PM’s vision and leadership. My neighbours who clapped are fools. I don’t think they took any pictures when they were clapping. Nor did they put up patriotic, motivational messages on LinkedIn and Twitter. I wonder how the PM, or the CM, or even the DM (District Magistrate) will know they clapped. But I will leave them to solve their problems. I have to focus on mine.

In my defence, I was misled. Or unled. How was I to know that the request from the PM to make sound at 5pm had a “very hidden scientific message” that I saw only too late. “Sound waves if created all over the country at a fixed common time will surely disrupt the travel of virus & repel them not to enter our vicinity. This is the reason why sound & noise is made at the dawn & sunset in the temples, in the old Churches in olden times and the holy Aazaan by the Muslims. Without the sunlight the virus & bacteria and all evil Spirits become more active. Hence this stand to create an aura of sound waves to shoo away all the negative forces entering and to save our country and the whole world.”  What would I not do to shoo away negative forces. Or weaken and starve evil spirits, and virus and bacteria, with sunlight. Since it was a scientific message, it had to be hidden. And since it was hidden, I could not see it.

As if that wasn’t responsibility enough for the spread of the Covid-19 virus, I also broke the chain. The one that required an uninterrupted chain of 10000008 people chanting the Mrityumjayamantra to be formed. If you must know, even people in Canada are chanting Mrityumjayamantra. Maybe one or two people, maybe in an entirely different context, but people in Canada nevertheless, which the person sending out this missive certainly would have known. And hence so must you.

When all this is over, and mankind looks back on this chapter in our evolution, and our struggle with Covid-19, I think I will be held responsible. Not only no clapping, but breaking the chain too. What was I thinking? I wonder if there will be second, or, in this case, third, chances.

By now we know that it affects the Chinese but not the French or Germans. We know it affects people living in hot climates but not those living in cold ones. We also know that It affects children and young adults but not the elderly. And it affects white-skinned people but not dark-skinned ones. Also, it affects people living in the Northern hemisphere only, and that too people speaking Spanish but not those who speak Mandarin or Russian. Most importantly, it affects the poor but not the rich. More specific to the Indian context, it impacts Jats and Rajputs, but not Kayasths and Brahmins.

Of course, we know nothing of the sort. If we do know something, it is that Covid-19 does not discriminate by nationality, language, religion, caste, or any other difference that humans like to highlight from time to time as a justification to maim and kill others for. If ever there was a doubt that human beings are a common race, hopefully the spread of Covid-19 dispels it.

This too, then, shall pass, is my belief. Of course, there will be Hell to pay. The old order will changeth, yielding place to the new. Some ways of life will undergo a drastic change. Many industries will be severely impacted. As will some sincere, honest, hard-working people, for no personal fault of theirs.

It seems President Trump was right. About the environment. We make too much of a fuss about it. Let us go about our assigned task of messing with it while we can. After all, nature will eventually reclaim its spaces, as people seem to be saying with Covid-19. Witness the once again beautiful sunsets across the Arabian Sea, or the once more breathable air in Delhi. Perhaps we have not crossed the point of no return. Yet.

It seems we had forgotten what it meant to go viral the old fashioned way…

In a Soup

Madhuri Dixit, a leading Bollywood actress of the nineties, is in a thick soup. Not an ordinary soup. A thick Maggi soup. 

It appears that a packet of Maggi, of which she is a brand ambassador, has been found to contain Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), a taste-enhancer, which is a restricted substance, without a declaration on the packing of the product. To add salt to Maggi, or insult to injury, the discovery has been made simultaneously in Barabanki and Muzaffarpur, remote towns deep in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, as well known across the nation for their rule of law and morally upright administration, as they are for the ethical, uncompromising stand on testing of food taken by the common man.

Such amateurish behaviour was not expected from an actress of her stature. It is learnt from reliable sources that she did not even rush to her private lab to check the ingredients under a microscope before signing on the dotted line. All she is reported to have done is seek confirmation from company officials regarding the quality of the product.

Such negligence deserves punishment.

The government, poor souls, have been forced to take this action against the brand ambassador, since they have no way of knowing that the product was manufactured by Nestle, one of the world’s leading packaged food manufacturers.

How can they?

Are they children who consume the product?

Or are they expected to read the printed matter on packets of the product?

Or are they expected to maintain records and governance information that could lead people to believe that they have some idea of what is going on in their jurisdiction?

Even if they did, how are they expected to know how to contact Nestle or how to serve a notice to them? So, as smart, reasonable government officials, they sent a notice to Madhuri Dixit.

The government is sending out a clear signal to the younger generation. It is just not enough to be a good, popular actor. You also need to have a private product testing lab.

Salman Khan, a popular Bollywood actor, who endorses a brand of cotton vests, is running scared. As is Aishwarya Rai, former Miss World, who is endorsing a commercial real estate development in Mumbai. With a fair and transparent government at work, there is no knowing which product MSG might surface in next.

Shopkeepers around the country who have stocked it are already under the scanner. Why did they not check the packets in their own labs before selling them, is a question baffling experts?

Sooner or later, it is bound to come back to the parents. What were they thinking? Don’t they even have labs at home where they can test the products they are feeding their children? Do they expect the government to do even that? When will they start taking responsibility?

The Information and Broadcasting Minister, having failed to detect the presence of MSG in the product, and allowed product ads to be aired on TV, in a principled stand, has resigned his position as Minister and become the governor of a state.

Realising that Madhuri Dixit started endorsing Maggi only recently, the government machinery is leaving no stone unturned to uncover the names of celebrities who have endorsed Maggi in the past so that blame can be placed where it belongs.

Following the lead given by the government, the courts are creating a precedent whereby responsibility for future indiscretions regarding a product can be clearly assigned.

If it is found that Fair and Handsome does not really make you any fairer or more handsome, who will the blame lie with? Of course Shahrukh Khan, another leading Bollywood actor, who endorses the product.

We don’t need to tell you whose responsibility it would be in case it is discovered, in Barabanki or Muzaffarpur, that Boost, the chocolate energy drink for children, does not really give any additional natural energy to children. Of course it will be Sachin Tendulkar’s responsibility. Everyone knows Sachin. And everyone should know why it is his responsibility.

The government and courts have also given a resounding endorsement of the decision-making capability of the common man. They possess such sound judgment, the government believes, that they are forced to buy all products endorsed by a celebrity, even though they have no use for them.

The product will be banned with retrospective effect, as has been so successfully done by some of our leaders.

But wait! Why should the product be banned? Is it the fault of the product? No way. It is the fault of Madhuri Dixit.

Con-science

Do you want more evidence?

The words were spoken calmly. Each syllable clearly standing out, much like the character of Professor Snape in the Harry Potter movies enunciating his lines, speaking to a young, disbelieving Harry. The voice was soft, barely audible. But they had the effect of a thunderclap on the listener.

A hush descended over the audience.

“Nnnno”, came the feeble reply, as soon as he came to. But for the audience the matter had already been settled.

The speaker of “Nnnno” was a renowned scientist. In a panel discussion on the existence and usage of an Access Control System superior to the ones used today, he had dared to question the veracity of claims made by a prominent leader of a political party, who had produced arguments in favour of the fact. The fact, as the leader had knowledgeably articulated, was that there were, indeed, Access Control Systems superior to the ones used today, that were commonly used. 

After some light debate, while patronising the lack of knowledge of the scientist and hoping he would back off and avoid a public embarrassment, the political leader had finally got irked and, rising to his full height, said, “have you not heard of the ‘Laxman Rekha’?” which had produced a stunned silence in the hall, to break which he had calmly queried, “do you want more evidence?”

Now who has not heard of the ‘Laxman Rekha’, the magical access control system practiced by Laxman who, while going away to look for his brother Ram in the jungle, had drawn a line around Ram’s wife Seeta’s dwelling to ensure nobody could cross that line and harm her? What was it if not access control? Created, not be maniacal data-punching into a computer and issuing plastic cards, but simply by drawing a line with the tip of one of the arrows in his quiver. Activated neither by proximity nor by insertion of the issued card, but by the mere presence of an individual in the vicinity, hence based on advanced bio-technology.

The scientist, clearly, had not researched his facts.

The Prime Minister had set the ball rolling immediately after winning the election and forming a new government, by informing an incredulous crowd at a rally that plastic surgery was commonly practiced in the country in ancient times.

His claim was met with a stony silence. The PM had paused, expecting a thunderous ovation. But he had reckoned without the rationality of the gathered crowd. Sensing the mood, which he was so good at, having only recently become PM, he weighed his options. Based on a long and old tradition, evidence was looked down upon, particularly when one had to provide it. But this was not your usual situation. The credibility of the PM, and of the new government, was at stake. He reluctantly asked, “How do you think Lord Ganesh got the head of an elephant?”

It was a rhetorical question, and the crowd erupted in response. The smoking gun, with fresh fingerprints, had been produced. No other evidence was required.

Soon after, in another rally, the Home Minister informed the gathered crowd that genetic sciences were commonly practiced during the time of the Mahabharat.

The crowd was taken aback. They had heard about the plastic surgery capability that had been revealed to a crowd at another place by the PM, but were not, it appears, ready for another blow to their dearly held beliefs. Displaying traits of an informed, logical crowd, they met the claim with a stony silence.

It was the Home Minister’s turn to be taken aback. After the tough time the PM had faced in convincing a crowd of the nation’s ancient plastic surgery capability, he had expected this disclosure to be met with less resistance. But he had reckoned without the rationality of crowds attending political rallies.

Faced with a similar dilemma as the PM a few days back, he asked, “how do you think Karn was born outside his mother’s womb?”

Once again, it was a rhetorical question, and once again, as only a logical crowd would, it erupted in response. Could this be real? Was it possible to produce two solid pieces of evidence in such quick succession? Who had not watched the serialisation of the Mahabharat on TV only a few years back? How had they missed this crucial part? But they were a generous crowd. They recognised greatness when they saw it. They acknowledged that the Home Minister had been able to rise to his exalted position only because of such powers of observation which he was now sharing with them. They had missed the part as they are ordinary mortals. With these happy thoughts, the rally ended.

The ruling party has been on a roll ever since. Skeletons have been tumbling out of cupboards all over the country.

We now know that we discovered Pythagoras’ theorem, even though we did not even have anyone named Pythagoras in any of our myths. Having had to make a choice between installing Pythagoras amid our pantheon of Gods and Goddesses and lending the discovery to someone else where the name would be more likely to appear in myths, we apparently lent it to the Greeks.

Flying was common. In aircraft alongwith other people, as well as solo. Who has not heard of Raavan flying off with Seeta in the ‘Pushpak Vimaan’? Who dare question that Hanuman flew off to ‘Doonagiri Parbat’ in the Himalayas to get the ‘Sanjeevni Booti’, a medicine, for Laxman, when he was struck by an arrow? Would Laxman not be dead if Hanuman had not flown solo? Even though not required, sketches have emerged of huge rectangular boxes which do not adhere to any of the laws of flying discovered by the modern world. If ancients could make those boxes fly, they could make anything fly.

And can anyone question the availability of nuclear missiles? Who can forget Ram and Laxman, in the televised version of Ramayan, touching an arrow to their forehead, saying a silent prayer, and unleashing terrible death and destruction with the missile? They even propagated the concept of the nuclear switch that has been adopted by modern rulers. Only the top two, Ram and Laxman respectively, had access to launching those missiles.

The Earth is round – this has apparently been stated by modern man a few centuries back. We have always known it. Don’t we know that Lord Vishnu’s Varaha avatar (incarnation as a boar) lifted it out of water to save it from deluge and destruction. Recently illustrated versions of the myth depict Varaha with the Earth on its nose. And since the Earth is round in these illustrations, it proves that we knew the Earth was round even in those times. Even though the story had not been illustrated with a round Earth in the times it had been told.

We are on the lookout for creating more such scientific and undisputable data. These discoveries are even more significant because nobody else believes them. There is a lot that remains to be done. We have to find reasons for claiming that we built submarines in ancient times. We need to find reasons for having discovered remedies to threatening ailments like Cancer that either did not exist in those times or had not been discovered. With the vast array of mythological treasure trove at our disposal, no peak appears too high.

Several noteworthy initiatives are already underway. A path-breaking research has been undertaken at a prestigious institution to prove that the chemical composition of water in the Nile, H2O, is the same as that of water in the Ganga. Does it not prove that Ganga is the font of all rivers in the world?

I am humbled by all these revelations and the ones still to be made. Nay, not humbled, ashamed. I have taken pride in our history and traditions without even knowing the facts. How am I any better than the unthinking masses who I often mock? I need to make amends.

As a first step, I consider it a humble duty to take forward this rich legacy; this rich legacy of writing great stories that have no fundamental logic underlying magical events. So that a millennia later, should some likeness of the magical events be translated into reality thanks to technological advances in the interim, our centuries-old technological prowess can continue to be proven without anyone else believing it.

And, I believe my generation is infinitely better placed than the sages of the past who penned most of our mythological literature, to do so. We have a purpose in mind; of continuing our great tradition of laying claims to technological advances that nobody else believes.

The old sages, in comparison, had no such vision. They did not have such political leaders to blaze the way for them. They were merely writing great stories of which, the two that I am most familiar with, ‘Ramayan’ and ‘Mahabharat’, remain the most relevant, riveting and compelling stories ever told. Cannot but feel pity for the poor sages.