The number of fatalities is 10x-100x more than what is published officially. Most people died at homes due to them being rural and all hospitals working at capacity.<p>At government hospitals, you have to be tested and be covid positive to be listed as covid death.<p>Private hospitals in rural areas simply don't send the stats back.<p>I don't know any family in India that didn't have a death among their relatives.<p>They said injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere and this is probably the price to pay for letting Modi run his private circus of his kumbh mela and election rallies. The strain has escaped India and we don't know how it will affect the rest of the world.<p>All his political life, him and his supporters cried for statues and temples and now they stand on the ashes of million dead people and all they can hear is a deafening silence of their gods.
FWIW, even in normal times it's fairly common to "bury" dead people by putting them in Ganges. (Cremation is preferred, but can be prohibitively expensive for the poor.) Varanasi in particular is notorious for this.<p>For avoidance of doubt, it's clear that situation right now is much worse than usual, but it's also not <i>quite</i> as unusual as if we had bodies floating down (say) the Hudson or Thames.
Just to put some numbers on this, have a look at the “deaths/1M pop” column in this table:<p><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" rel="nofollow">https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries</a><p>It’s clear that the official numbers are almost an order of magnitude out vs countries that do more testing (e.g. US).<p>If you take the official global average death rate of 2% and apply it to India’s case count you’ll get roughly double the number of officially reported deaths.<p>The news coming out of India is tragic and given the lack of infrastructure in rural areas and the shortage of medical supplies we keep hearing about the “1 order magnitude out” is starting to look like a lower bound.
What is the best way for someone in the US to donate to help with the situation in India? I'm not Indian so I don't know much about charities in India but news like this is just heartbreaking and I want to do my minuscule part in helping.<p>Thanks in advance.
It's getting harder to get an empty vaccine slot. I think there is a huge shortage of vaccines in my state (UP). Fortunately, I got my first shot of vaccine yesterday. At the vaccination center, I saw people breaking the line, taking pictures of their relatives getting the vaccine, and in general not maintaining a safe distance. I guess many handled their ID cards and tokens without sanitizing their hands...<p>It's heartbreaking to see people suffer due to this pandemic. Reminds me of the privilege I have.
A body floating ashore is the start of a western detective story. What a different situation, to just cremate them. Can you really just murder someone, dump the body in the Ganges and have the police dispose of the body for you? It seems like that must happen if so many dead are in the river.
Why is this flagged? This news has been covered extensively before this BBC article. One of the downstream states had put a net to prevent those victims washing up to their shores. Looks like there is an effort to silence this news.<p><a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/coronavirus-net-across-ganges-to-catch-india-covid-19-corpses-2440211" rel="nofollow">https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/coronavirus-net-across-gange...</a><p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/bodies-found-floating-ganges-india-s-covid-death-toll-passes-n1267059" rel="nofollow">https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/bodies-found-floating-gan...</a>