India’s COVID-19 toll: one lakh and rising

India reached another unenviable milestone last week by registering one lakh coronavirus deaths, surpassed only by the United States and Brazil. Over 35 per cent of these deaths have been in Maharashtra; other States that have added substantially to the one lakh number include three from the south – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. At the same time, there is a dip in the number of active COVID-19 cases in the country; once again, it is Maharashtra which has contributed most substantially to this decline. India’s fatality rate from COVID-19 is well under the world average, but this appears to be a result of demographic rather than the effectiveness of our public health system. The likelihood of death from COVID-19 is much higher with the elderly and India is at an advantage here. The percentage of people over 65 is only about six per cent; the corresponding figure in Sweden, for example, is around 20 per cent. The country’s COVID-19 graph has been shifting in erratic unpredictable ways, and it is important not to rush to facile conclusions or make sweeping generalisations. Unfortunately, some academics, usually those in the business of economic modelling, and a section of the media have failed to observe the necessary restraint. The most striking example of this relates to Kerala, which was the subject of a string of puffy, ill-informed articles in the global and national media, that were based on the relatively low numbers in the State. Kerala’s success was attributed, among other things, to privileging science over stupidity, its relatively better public health infrastructure, and the fact that its Left-leaning government had a strong social commitment, If gushy pieces about corona slayers and rock star ministers have dried up, it is because the graph has shifted in embarrassing ways. As of October 8, Kerala is only behind Maharashtra and Karnataka in the number of active cases (92,161). It stood 8th in terms of overall cases, ahead of states such as Telangana, Bihar, Assam, and Gujarat. While the fatality rate is low, even this has come under a cloud with reports that it is not counting many deaths because of a unilateral change in the criteria used for declaring a COVID-19 death. The point is that just as it should not have been uncritically praised, the Kerala government cannot be entirely blamed for this rise. We need to look much deeper for the real reasons behind the dips and rises. The need for caution on interpreting coronavirus numbers and the importance of not making unsubstantiated generalisations cannot be overstated at a time when India unlocks and tries to restore some semblance of economic and social normalcy. We may be close to having a vaccine, but we still haven’t got a full grip on the way the virus works as it spreads and kills people around the world. If there is anything that the pandemic has taught us, it is to stay humble, careful, and honest about the fact that even though we are learning a lot more about the coronavirus, there is even much more that we still need to know. As Martin Luther King Jr once quipped, “The greatest enemy in the world is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”