The Only Way is Up

We are led to believe that there’s only one way to deal with the pandemic – our way, but the story of the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in India suggests an alternative. Before looking at their strategy let take a look at the results.

UP’s population is over 200 million, close to four times that of the UK. They’ve had 22,899 deaths up to October. The UK has had 138,000. That means we’ve had over 2,000 deaths per million and they’ve had 114.5 – that’s 18 times better than the UK.

Have more been infected in the UK? I looked at the confirmed cases divided by the number of tests for both the UK and UP and they come out about the same at 0.2% – 0.26% for UP vs UK. The UK has both tested more and thus confirmed more cases.

Are less covid deaths reported in UP? It’s entirely possible. Or are the UK’s covid deaths, within 28 days of a test an over-exaggeration of the actual covid death toll? That’s possible too. With a greater proportion of people being tested that could doubly skew the figures.

What else is different? 79% in the UK have had a double dose. In UP it’s 13% – a sixth.

But here’s a big difference. The UK largely ignore treatment of mild symptoms. UP, on the other hand, provide kits to covid patients with mild symptoms including vitamin C, D, zinc, Ivermectin, plus painkillers and antibiotics. (Contrary to a BBC report UP has not stopped using Ivermectin for covid patients.) The vitamin D is given as a weekly tablet of 60,000ius for three weeks. The Ivermectin dose is 12mg. Ten vitamin C and zinc tablets are provided. Why do we, in the UK, not get supplied with, or told to take vitamin C, D, zinc on infection? Why can UK GPs not even prescribe Ivermectin for their covid patients? Isn’t it time that other approaches were seriously considered?