A Study Shows Over 60 Million People in India Might Have Been Infected With COVID-19

By
George Yang
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At this moment, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stands at 33.5 million, with over 1.01 million deaths.

The country with the most number of cases is the US with 7.22 million cases, followed by India with 6.15 million cases and Brazil with 4.78 million cases.

While it seems like there’s no end to this, the curve has indeed been flattened since July; here’s how the graph looks like now:

Goody?

Goody, but there’s one problem that we’ve forgotten: undetected cases.

And if this study is true, the number of undetected cases might be much more than the reported cases.

Active Infections Vs Past Infections

Before you can understand this article, you need to know about the two types of COVID-19 test.

We’ve done a video about this which you can watch here (and please subscribe to our YouTube channel for more informative videos, too!):

Simply put, one type allows us to detect active infections (i.e. virus still active in body and is infectious). This is called a PCR test and it takes more resources as a lab needs to process the samples. In Singapore, we mostly do PCR tests so as to find and isolate infectious patients.

The second type is called a serology test—some would call it an antibody test. When a person is infected with the coronavirus, the body will develop antibodies to fight the virus, but it might only be present in the body after many days. This is how people recover from COVID-19, and once the antibodies are in the body, they’ll stay there forever (hopefully so; because the coronavirus is so new, scientists are still checking whether the antibodies do indeed stay or not).

So the antibody test is pretty useless in detecting active infections since it’d take too long for the antibodies to be present, but it helps to check whether a person has once been infected without him or her knowing.

After all, remember: many COVID-19 patients have no symptoms at all. In June this year, it was reported that half of Singapore’s total cases have no symptoms. And nowadays, the new cases reported in Singapore daily are usually asymptomatic as they’re detected through routine testing.

Which brings us to the next point:

A Study Shows Over 60 Million People in India Might Have Been Infected With COVID-19

Over in India, which has a population of 1.3 billion people, there are currently 6.15 million confirmed cases and 96,318 deaths.

While it sounds serious, the country appears to have it under control in the later part of September:

But here’s the bad news: there might be a lot more undetected cases.

They’ve just done a serological survey, whereby they test a number of random people for past infections.

And with the survey, they came out with a grim conclusion.

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) director-general Balram Bhargava said at a health ministry press conference, “The main conclusions from this sero-survey are that one in 15 individuals aged more than 10 have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 by August.”

SARS-CoV-2 is the official name for the coronavirus.

They had tested 29,000 people in 21 regions between mid-August and mid-September.

But could they’ve been infected many months back?

Maybe not.

In their first serological survey done in May this year, it’s estimated that about 6 million adults in the country had been infected.

More Infections in Urban Slum Areas

As a city boy or girl, you might find the phrase “urban slum” unfamiliar. Here, a picture will speak a thousand words:

Image: Wikipedia

They are settlements, neighborhoods, or city regions that cannot provide the basic living conditions necessary for its inhabitants, so if you think living in an HDB is hell, remind yourself that in this world, about one billion people live in slums.

Needless to say, hygiene is hard to maintain in the slums, and people generally don’t wear masks because they don’t even have working blankets.

According to the survey, virus exposure was more prevalent among people tested in urban slums (15.6%) and non-slum urban areas (8.2%), than in rural areas, where 4.4% of those surveyed had antibodies.

It was also reported that other studies also shown that densely packed cities like New Delhi and Mumbai have suggested more infections than the official numbers say.

Many Imported Cases from India

Between April to August, 63% of the total of 292 non-Singaporean imported cases had arrived from India.

This led to the authorities implementing a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for people coming in from India: All Covid-19 pre-departure test results for travellers from India entering Singapore must come from recognised labs which are internationally accredited or endorsed by the Indian government, and those without the required valid documents will not be allowed into the country.

The Ministry of Health had said, “Travellers found without the required valid documents will be refused entry into Singapore. We will not hesitate to take action against those who present forged documents to seek entry into Singapore, including barring them from entry to Singapore in the future.”

And by the way, similar to anyone coming in from other countries (except Brunei and one-sided love interest New Zealand), they’d still have to go through SHN even with the valid documents.

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George Yang
Email: [email protected]