India's COVID-19 emergency: overarching conclusions belie facts

The Editors¹ draw attention to India's economic capabilities, the challenges of a huge diverse population, and the dangers of false optimism amidst a second wave of SARS-CoV-2. However, some overarching conclusions belie facts and evidence.

First, no single strategy has worked totally in a country's favour with regards to tackling the COVID-19 crisis. This struggle is evident from infection and mortality rates in countries with differing strategies.² No country has been largely effective in tackling COVID-19 except China, which should encourage scientific minds to question the numbers and basis for no novel variants being reported there without independent verification.

Second, statistical modelling esti­mates by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation have been notably off-target previously in the USA.³ The Indian Council of Medical Research modelling also might have been inaccurate, but to call it false and to then rely on future mortality estimates for India from the same Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is equally on thin ice.

Third, as of June 16, 2021, India's so-called botched vaccination cam­paign¹ is only third (after China and the USA) in terms of total numbers of vaccines administered, according to the New York Times‘ vaccination tracker, and has achieved one of the highest rates of vaccination since its inception. The main challenge is in terms of the percentage population, considering that India's population is close to 1·3 billion people.

Lastly, for views such as “Modi's Government has seemed more intent on removing criticism…than trying to control the pandemic”, “The gov­ernment…creating mass confusion”, “self-inflicted national catastrophe”, and “Modi's actions in attempting to stifle criticism…are inexcusable”,¹ diametrically opposite views exist. The point is that readers of scientific journals look for evidence-based views. The fact is that international flights continued from Wuhan, China during the initial COVID-19 outbreak and the Wuhan laboratory was hidden from scrutiny⁴ requires investigation and scientific answers.