#FALSE OPTIMISM FULL#

Five States (Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala) account for more than 70% of active cases. Challenges This TimeĪ majority of the cases and deaths (81%) are being reported from ten (of 28) States, including Punjab and Maharashtra. Case fatality rates in some of the worst-affected districts were above 5%, similar to the 5% mortality level in the US.

#FALSE OPTIMISM FULL#

Many States made corrections in mortality figures, and the full extent of undercounting is being actively researched.ĭistrict-level mortality data, both in the first wave and in the current wave, confirm that the global case fatality rate of 3.4% was breached in several districts of Maharashtra, Punjab and Gujarat.

Many States have set up expert committees to re-examine and verify Covid-19 deaths after coming under criticism that reported death rates were not accurate.

“A death due to Covid-19 is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically incompatible illness, in a probable or confirmed Covid-19 case, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to Covid disease (eg trauma).” It is unclear the extent to which the health authorities across the States of India were complying with this. In April 2020, the World Health Organization clarified how Covid deaths should be counted: In a pandemic situation, the public health approach is usually to attribute a death with complex causes as being caused by the disease in question. However, The Lancet cautioned about the “dangers of false optimism” in its September 26 editorial on the Indian situation. In the first phase of the pandemic, India was lauded for its low Covid death rate (case fatality rate) of about 1.5%. A new double mutation is also circulating in India, and this too could be contributing to the rise in cases. Studies have found this variant might be more capable of evading our immune systems, meaning there’s a greater chance previously infected people could be reinfected and immunised people could be infected. A recent report found 81% of the latest 401 samples sent by Punjab for genome sequencing were found to be the UK variant. The second wave in India also coincides with the spread of the UK variant. Religious, social and political congregations contributed directly through super-spreader events, but this still doesn’t explain the huge rise in cases. Negligence can be seen in the near-complete lack of regulation and its implementation wherever regulations did exist across workplaces and other public spaces. The negligence is made out to be the fault of individuals not wearing masks and social distancing, but that is only part of the story. One word that has dominated discussions about why cases have increased again is ‘laaparavaahee’ (in Hindi), or “negligence”.

Residents in slum areas and those without their own household toilet have been worst affected, implying poor sanitation and close living have contributed to the spread. Health services and crematoriums are being overwhelmed, test kits are in short supply, and wait times for results are increasing. Night curfews and weekend lockdowns have been reinstated in some States. However, from the end of February, daily new cases began to rise sharply again, passing 100,000 a day, and now nearing the 300,000-mark. The current spike came after a brief lull: daily new cases had fallen from 97,000 new cases per day in September 2020 to around 10,000 per day in January 2021. doi:10.1037//0278-6133.14.2.India is in the grip of a massive second wave of Covid-19 infections, surpassing even the United States and Brazil in terms of new daily infections. Resistance of personal risk perceptions to debiasing interventions. Unrealistic optimism: east and west? Front Psychology. Shepperd JA, Klein WMP, Waters EA, Weinstein ND. Pantheon/Random House 2011.Ĭarver CS, Scheier MF, Segerstrom SC. The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain. Optimism bias within the project management context: a systematic quantitative literature review. Unrealistic optimism about future life events.

False optimism