And it could get much worse there... If the infection rate in India was just half that of the U.S., India would have 4.7 million cases (more than double the total number of coronavirus cases in the U.S.). If deaths per million people in India were the same as in the U.S. – which would be miraculous, given the weak state of India’s health care infrastructure – around 500,000 Indians would die. The Nikkei Asian Review warns of a “lost decade” for the region... If the infection rate in India was just half that of the U.S., India would have 4.7 million cases (more than double the total number of coronavirus cases in the U.S.). COVID-19 has laid bare the underlying weakness of its economies, from poor public finances and patchy state infrastructure to reliance on migrant labor and remittances. There will be no rapid return to sustained fast growth, and far fewer resources to manage the pressing challenges the region must soon navigate, from agricultural reform and urbanization to the climate crisis. I’m guessing the notaries in India are busy, too...
In a country where the average person earns less than $6 a day, no job and pocket change for public support means for many people the equation is simple... If you don’t work, you don’t eat. And with the economy forecast to shrink by 4% this year, there’s a lot less work to go around. “Offices, malls, and stores are opening, with some conditions,” Rahul told me earlier this week. “There’s a level of desperation to work because people have to be able to make money.” So for all that, at least India is flattening the curve, right? Not at all... As I wrote in March, India is still a country you really don’t want to visit. India’s lockdown was “squandered,” says Bloomberg. It “failed in its basic objective of boosting capacity in an overstretched health system,” said the Nikkei Asian Review . The country’s total number of cases of coronavirus is now growing at more than 12,000 per day. That’s more than the total number of new cases reported in California, Texas, and Florida combined on any given day this week. India now has the fourth-most cases in the world, after recently overtaking the U.K. and Spain. And in a case of “the fireman is on fire,” India’s latest coronavirus figures include the health minister of the state government of Delhi, who tested positive and was hospitalized earlier this week. In terms of total cases per million people, India is at just 4% the infection rate of the U.S. That’s partly a function of much lower testing rates... For every 20 people tested in the U.S., India tests one person.
American Consequences
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