CoviDiary

April is about to end. It has been a good month. Full of learning new stuff. I have slowed down. Doing things at my own measured pace. Not being pushed or hurried. Enjoying the rhythm within me. Being mindful. Whether it is walking, cooking or practicing photography. Who would have thought that a month would offer such rewarding experience, even under isolation.  The experience of online teaching has been surprisingly pleasurable. I have found new ways and methods of teaching and testing. The feedback from the students have been good. They have rated their experience between 4 and 5. I feel good that I am making a difference. Schools and colleges will be the last to open after the lockdown is lifted. Students will be the most impacted by this rude disruption of the academic calendar. I think life will never be the same for students and teachers. They have to adapt quickly to new methods of teaching and learning. I am quite excited by my experiment and want to offer this as a mode

Photography has been my biggest obsession during the lockdown. Submitted these 2 pictures for the Tamron contest. Looks apt for the theme - creativity shines in isolation Another letter to Indian Express :  This refers to the article “Some Online Questions” (IE, April 29). Distance learning, especially for higher education, has to look beyond technology platforms like Zoom. There are many cost-effective models of delivering learning modules to students. These can not only expand the student population, but also allow them to learn and be tested at their own pace. Finally, we a great opportunity to break free from the tyranny of classrooms and oppressive examinations.  Pictures like these of men in Hazmat suits disinfecting public places have been common in media. What is the logic? Does it really help contain the spread of infection? Or is it mere PR optics that the government is taking care of us.  Does disinfecting surfaces really prevent the spread of coronavirus?

Heard a fantastic line in the Social Distance podcast of Atlantic – Pandemic pauses the present and forces us to live in the future. Kept mulling over it and used that thought in a letter to Editor, Indian Express: This refers to the article “A Judicious Balance” (IE, April 28). Indeed, our judiciary has set the example for “the new normal” that awaits us in the post-Covid world. Changes usually happen ever so slowly. This pandemic has gifted us an opportunity to leap across years and even decades into the future. Efficiency and effectiveness should be the guiding principles of our lives following the churn that is happening now. We should resist the temptation to revert to our old wasteful habits once the dust settles on the pandemic. I have a great example of the e-paper to lead in to my article on Distance Education for UDAAN. The e-paper we get every morning these days is an exact replica of the physical newspaper. Stories from page 1 spilling over to page 2. All the inconve

Analysis of Mortality Data in Europe The virus uses 2 types of cells inside our nose to gain entry.  Vaccine could be available later this year. 

Today I ventured as far as the station, the farthest ever during this lockown, to Mahalakshmi Stores to buy Sambhar Powder and tamarind and also as an afterthought Vadumanga pickle. They also had coffee powder, but with 49% chicory. I have been assured that supplies are on the way. The street was neither deserted, nor crowded. People wearing facemasks were maintaining social distance in the queues before grocery shops. I also bought 2 masks, from a hole in the wall tailor, for Rs 20 each. I may not wear them; they are good souvenirs of these troubled times.  The free Nikon School is easily the best thing to have happened to me during this lockdown. Watched a nearly hour-long tutorial on landscape photography. I must watch them once more before they are taken down this month end.  Meanwhile lockdown in Mumbai and Pune is likely to be extended till May 18.  WHO has dissed the idea of "immunity passports", saying that there is no evidence that the antibodies confer

One month of lockdown is complete. What have I been doing? 1) Walking 4-5 kms everyday inside home with the help of a pedometer. 2) Improving photography skills 3) Improving culinary skills 4) Listening to minimum 3 podcasts everyday, almost all of them related to coronavirus 5) Trying to teach remotely 6) Watching NCPA shows 7) Writing a COVID Diary 8) Cultivating a beard Results of the first round of antibody testing in NY state have evoked great interest all across the world. 3000 people were chosen randomly across the state for the test. 14% tested positive. Extrapoating these results, the officials say that 2,7 million people have been infected in NY state, without their knowledge. This means that the infection rate is much higher and the mortality rate is insignificant. These findings have to be validated on a larger sample. But it shows the way forward is antibody testing. The big takeway from this is that a big chunk of the population has been infected without th

In his daily briefing, Trump said  “I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. . . . Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that.” It was immediately met by worldwide ridicule.  Reckitt Benckiser, the makers of Dettol and Lysol, have been forced to issue a strong warning telling people not to inject or drink disinfectant. What makes the leader of the most powerful country say such things? People are encouraged to speak like that in a brainstorming session. The most novel idea will not come from a domain expert, whose mind will be conditioned. It is wrong to take Trump's suggestion at face value. It is also a wrong forum for him to make such preposterous statements.  The brilliant Harish Salve personally agrees that China is liable to pay damages, but doesn't see the suit winning in

For the last 2 days I was focused on writing the column. On how the chemical industry is contributing towards the war against the contagious coronavirus. How it is keeping the warriors at the frontline safe through its supply of hand sanitisers, disinfectants and specialty polymers for PPEs. It is a matter of great pride for an industry that has been much villified for many of today's environmental problems. A pride that I can easily identify with and share. The virus was away from my mind while I wrote. That is how it should be. Keeping myself engaged.  I pondered about this paradox. How honest citizens have been imprisoned in their homes, while the State is planning to release criminals from prisons.  The first human trials of the OU vaccine  began today. 

Coronavirus is emerging as a monster. There are several reports that it causes mysterious blood clots.  A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients Could Tiny Blood Clots Make COVID-19 More Lethal? How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes

The unthinkable has happened. Chile will issue world's first "immunity passports" to recovered COVID19 patients. A dreadully dangerous idea. Other countries are also planning to do something similar. It will be based on the so called rapid tests for antibodies, which are turning to be notoriously fickle. Thus we will have the spectre of people being wrongly cleared to work in hospitals and schools and ending up infecting hundreds and thousands. It will create an economic incentive for faking immunity, thus breeding corruption.  ICMR asked states to suspend antibody testing after the test kits imported from China gave errratic results. Much of the medical supplies from China have been defective. Probably deliberate?  The famous German Newspaper, Bild, raised a bill of $165 billion against China, as damages. Thousands of Americans have signed up for a class suit against China. Though untenable, they reveal the frustration of people and are sure to rattle China.

People are protesting in Pensylvania holding up placards saying "don't falsify statisics". Now this is something new - overstating cases and deaths to justify lockdown!  Yesterday we recorded the highest single day rise in cases so far - 1580. And some relaxation was to happen from today! The curve is far from flattening,  Novartis has announced Phase-III trials of Hydroxychloroquine .   Covid-Recovered will be the most important thing to have on your CV in the post-Covid economy. They may be fronting the economic revival and could command a premium. Their blood willl be highly valued for the antibodies. The convalescent plasma therapy in Delhi appears to be progressing well. Will people deliberately want to get infected with coronavirus to gain this prized immunity? 

Thane creek has turned pink with flamingos.  Chemists have now been asked to keep a record of people who buy medicines for cold, cough and fever. The theory is that many people are practicing self-medication and postponing to test for COVID until it is very late. The mortality rate in the country is currently 3.3% and 75% of those dying are 60+.  

A new routine has taken shape and I am beginning to like it. No specific time to wake up. But broadly between 0630 and 0730 depending on when I go to sleep. And then getting milk, newspaper. Vegetables once in 3 days. I am barely outside for 5-10 minutes and not beyond 50 metres from the building gate. Coffee and the paper between 0800 and 0900. Business channel between 0900 and 1000 along with breakfast. Byomkesh Bakshi at 1100. Cooking begins at 1300 and I have lunch around 1400. I walk 4-5 kms inside the house, in 3 tranches, plugged into podcasts. On an average I listen to 3-4 podcasts each day. NCPA livestreaming at 1800. Jazz today. And Telegram session with R at 1830. Television only at 2100, usually CNN. Sometimes NDTV. And this blog and online journaling at 2200. Internet Radio when I am working on the laptop. Hitting the bed around midnight. One more podcast if sleep eludes me. Where is the curve flattening? The 5-day moving average has leapfrogged from 735 last Saturday

Mumbai is changing the testing protocol. BMC has decided to selectively test asymptomatic high-risk people, against the ICMR guidelines to test all asymptomatic high-risk contacts between the 5 th and 14 th day of suspected exposure . Reason? “ Most of the asymptomatic people are getting tested unnecessarily resulting into negative results .” Mumbai is also changing the protocol for reporting death. Every COVID death will be audited before being confirmed as one. So much obfuscation with protocol and statistics to get good optics. Government is not concerned about death so long as the reason is not COVID. Highly likely that going forward, government may disown deaths due to comorbidities, even if coronavirus was the trigger. That will leave the senior citizens in the lurch. ICMR’s defence of the criticism of low testing rate (per million population) is incredibly juvenile. They argue that 350 districts in the country do not have any cases and hence tests per million is n

Got apples and grapes today, for the first time during the lockdown. That and noticing the cobbler in his corner gave me a fleeting sense of normalcy. Many conditional relaxations have been announced for the rural areas, starting 20 th April. E-commerce will be allowed for non-essential goods too. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters and similar self-employed people will be allowed to work. But cases continue to rise in Mumbai. And the morbidity rate of Mumbai is the highest. The explanation, following an audit of the deaths, is that people are getting admitted very late. Normalcy appears far away for Mumbai. Hydroxychloroquine is being given as a prophylactic to the high risk people in Dharavi.  HCQ figured prominently in today’s Social Distance of The Atlantic, my go to podcast every morning. Katherine Wells and James Hamblin enlighten and entertain. I send them an appreciative tweet after listening to today’s podcast. The drug is polarising USA, with Trump and his cronies goin

Government is actively promoting the Aarogya Setu app. An app that will help in contact tracing. How does it work? When two smartphones with the app installed in them come in each other's Bluetooth range the app will exchange information. If one of the user is positive, the other person will be alerted about possibility of being infected. Bluetooth has a range of 30 ft. These potential cases are then notified to government for further testing. There are reports that it may be used as e-pass in the future, like China is implementing now. But there are privacy issues . I think I won’t need it as long as I am cocooned at home. Government needs a critical mass of 50% if the app has to be meaningful. More than 50 million have downloaded the app so far. Long way to go!  Sent out learning material to the class, as a small experiment. I structured the PowerPoint a bit differently to make it engaging. Hope this approach interests the students. I will know tomorrow. Immersing myself i

Physical newspaper after more than 3 weeks. It felt like return of the civilization.  Lockdown has been extended till 3rd May. This is how the cases have progressed.   Total Cases Delta Fatalities Delta 25-Mar 657 11 26-Mar 735 78 16 5 27-Mar 886 151 19 3 28-Mar 1029 143 24 5 29-Mar 1139 110 27 3 30-Mar 1347 208 43 16 31-Mar 1635 288 49 6 1-Apr 2059 424 56 7 2-Apr 2545 486 72 16 3-Apr 3105 560 86 14 4-Apr 3684 579 99 13 5-Apr 4289 605 121 22 6-Apr 4778 489 137 16 7-Apr 5351 573 164 27 8-Apr 5916 565 184 20 9-Apr 6729 813 230 46 10-Apr 7600 871 252 22 11-Apr 8454 854 292 40 12-Apr 9212 758 334 42 13-Apr 10455 1243 361 27

Thomas cannot pay his credit card dues. The cheque drop facility that he has been using all his life is now closed. He doesn’t have a computer or netbanking facility. The nearest branch is not within walking distance of his home. He is too proud to ask his daughters. I offered to pay. There will be many such unusual problems faced by senior citizens. Read about asymptotic cases today. The first confirmation that coronavirus could be transmitted by asymptomatic people came in February, when a case study described a 20-year-old woman from Wuhan, China, who passed the coronavirus to five family members but never got physically sick herself. One potential group of asymptomatic carriers could be children. A study in Iceland, which tested a large segment of its population, showed that 50% of the people who tested positive had no symptoms. An analysis of the confirmed coronavirus cases aboard the Diamond Princess cruise found that 18 % of the infected passengers were asymptomatic. Dr.

Three weeks into this journal. Time to pause and look back. It is not shaping up the way I had intended it to be. It is becoming more about the pandemic, than me. I should be recording more of my thoughts, my anxieties, my fears. My fears and anxieties are still same as when I had begun this blog. Nothing has happened to allay them. On the contrary, they have grown. I am now additionally fearful of the lockdown being lifted and the haste to resume normalcy. I won’t be able to bring myself to act and behave normally for a long time. The lockdown hasn’t affected me in any material way. I can continue to lead a normal life inside the four walls of my home. But my moral dilemma is – should I? How do I respond with empathy to those suffering? I am consuming news and information, sometimes mechanically like a robot. Cases and casualties are daily statistics to be plugged into the spreadsheet. Let me try to breakdown my anxiety and fears: Short Term (next 30 days) . The anxie

To lift the lockdown or not is a Scylla vs Charybdis decision. If the virus spares the poor, hunger will get them. Maharashtra has extended the lockdown by 2 more weeks to 30th April. Many other states have done the same. But there is no country-wide decision yet. We have the wherewithal to distribute rations to the poor, but not to handle the deluge of sick. Mumbai has just 109 ICU beds for a population of 25 million.   Yesterday USA became the first country with more than 2000 fatalities in a single day. USA also surpassed Italy to become the country with the most number of casualties. Sad to see the most advanced country brought to the knees. Notwithstanding this, some pastors are planning to open their churches for Easter tomorrow. Thomas called me yesterday. He watched the Good Friday mass on his phone livestreamed from churches in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. CNN had an instant survey on whether the coronavirus will lead to demise of the handshake.The verdict was eq

Installed a pedometer on my phone. Want to walk inside home.  It is grossly incorrect to say that the coronavirus is a great leveller. It may have afflicted the Prime Minister of Britain. But in USA, blacks and Hispanics are accounting for 70% of the deaths. Also in the US, Chinese Americans are being targeted with verbal and physical abuse. The Daily Podcast on this was heartending.  A digital model built by Aalto University in Finland, shows how fast and far a single cough can spread the kind of aerosol particles that carry the new coronavirus through a typical grocery store.

Woke up to the news that Amma's building has been sealed. A man from a family on the 2nd floor has tested positive and is in hospital. Cops have been stationed outside and nobody is allowed to enter or leave. It is actually reassuring to see authorities clamping down quickly. Amma's neighbour is helpful and fetched her milk. She doesn't have to step outside the 4 walls. The virus is bringing people together. It is rewriting the rules of social responbility. If your neighbour falls sick, the whole building gets sealed. So take care of your neighbour in your own selfish interest. This rule can be extended outwards to cover the entire humanity. Even if there is one infected human being, the threat of pandemic looms.  The news of this sealing is spreading like wildfire on WA. Sister tells me that pictures of the notice posted on the building gate are being circulated on WA.  She got a call from her friend in London! Is it necessary to single out a building like this?   WA h