Health ministry finally shares the serosurvey which shows 23% Delhi residents have antibodies to COVID19

Total Cases: 11,55191
Deaths: 28084

India is reporting around 40000 daily.

Here's what happened today:

Bhushan, health ministry: We are better than many countries. Some countries are doing 13x worse than India.

Our fatality rates are also better than most countries in the world.

Bhshan: Dont look at historical milestones and say India reported million+ cases.

We have only 4,00,000 active cases. That is the important number you should focus on

So far, our cases are lesser than the rest of the world, are fatality rate is better than RoW, our testing is aggressive. (its not)

We've handled the pandemic response well. Scientists are taking decisions. The govt is helping state govts.

Dr Singh, NCDC: was to present serosurvey but has so far been giving textbook def of what RT PCR & antigen test and is now rambling about ... not the serosurvey...

22% of Delhi has been affected. Delhi govt's data was massively under reported.

(The serosurvey literally has a bullet point about how the lockdown was successful. Why is the head of CDC selling the lockdown?)

Dr VK Paul, Niti Aayog - famous for predicting the end of pandemic on May 16- is back & is now saying how everything is great & our data is robust.

(This presser basically has India's top scientific orgs selling a politician decision. Unbelievable.)

VK Paul: Lockdown helped in control the spread of the disease.

( How are they saying 23% is less?!
Delhi population = 20 mn

23% is around 4600000)

Paul: our strategy has worked. We have contained the pandemic so far

(we are literally the no.3 in the world and are reporting 40,000 cases/day. This is Orwellian)

Q: Have experts contributing to COVID response?

Bhushan: Our decisions are led by science and this response is informed by scientists.

He is now rambling about science.. and how much this govt relies on science.. now rambling about renal & cardio vascular diseases..

Q: Delhi tests 3 times more than the national avg. Yet, it missed so many people who were infected- as the serosurvey proves. Are we testing enough?

Bhushan: We are not worried about delhi. People kept saying in June that Delhi's health system will collapse. .. rambling...

... still rambling...scientists came up with a strategy to inc testing. In July we were testing 25,000 ppl/day.

Yest Delhi only report 950 cases. Our strategy has worked

(how is this an answer to what was asked?!)

Now is saying how fishermen should cast a wide net... nothing is making sense..The govt will have you know that their strategy is

1. science based (we are hearing this a lot in this presser I guess because of growing coverage of this govt's science denialism)
1. Working.

Q: Has Delhi passed its peak?

Dr Singh from NCDC: Virus is not finding people.. isko usse co relate karenege toh usko puri tareh se nahin keh sakte. We will monitor

(what is this sentence. No direct answer)

VK Paul is more profound. If more people get infected, Delhi may peak. If that doesn't happen, we will beat the virus.

(kya baat hai)

Q: Delhi also has a high positivity rate. Are you worried?

Bhushan: No. Let the higher no of cases not over awe docs. When you test aggressively (we arent testing aggressively) there is bound to be high positivity rate. It will eventually come down..

(well.. eventually.. yeah)

Q: Things look frightening in Bihar...

(OMG Lav Agarwal came! and was silent all along) Anyway he went to Bihar. Its because of migrant population went back. The state has mgd the cases well. There is a lockdown till the end of the month.

now lav agarwal is gaslighting like nothings changed.... and I feel like we are back in April. Fond memories.

(has said nothing worth repeating here.)

I dont want to take credit here but I feel health ministry reads @thecaravanindia

From our previous story on science denialism & serosurvey: https://caravanmagazine.in/health/taske-force-scientists-say-delhi-serological-survey-results-delayed-pending-mha-approval

They are both back and brought NCDC director along with them!!

Most of this presser has been them saying govt takes "science based decisions" and I want to believe it is because they subscribe to @thecaravanindia caravan.

Q: Is there community transmission now?

Bhushan: WHO has given no definition of comm transmission. It permits that nations can come up with the category based on their contest.

(No direct answer. We have a million cases with no comm. transmission)

Our country has cluster of cases and pockets of lock transmission.

Its not imp what's the transmission classification. We should focus on what's being done on the ground in terms of containment. (wah!)

local transmission* not lock.

VK Paul is saying he will work hard in all areas & making vague promises about how govt will contain the disease.

Q: Why wasnt testing scaled up earlier (all my kingdoms to the one journalist)

VK paul: when pandemic began we had few labs. We scaled up capacity 'dheere-dheere'. In the beginning, we have restricted testing. There was no need to test liberally earlier. (this is not correct)

This is what WHO said in March : Test. Test. Test.

Our current pandemic is a result of not doing so, as the serosurvey shows https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-51916707/who-head-our-key-message-is-test-test-test