here is another indicator of bad faith from Economist since you are all in on thinking critically. Since it it paywalled , I have outlined it
https://outline.com/mumxhq
**
True, the official death toll has fallen steadily for the past month, to half its peak of over 4,000 a day in mid-May. But evidence continues to accumulate that the government’s numbers represent a disturbingly small fraction of the real figure. This discrepancy does not just mean that the true level of India’s suffering has been glossed over. It has made the crisis worse, for instance by causing authorities to underestimate demand for oxygen and drugs.
News organisations including The Economist, as well as independent epidemiologists, have speculated that India has suffered perhaps five-to-seven times more “excess deaths” than the official number of covid-19 fatalities, currently just over 355,000.
***
The GoI press release has said that the methodology used by Christopher Leffler is not used anywhere else to estimate deaths.
You disagree and back it. Can you point out where this is accepted practice.
Using occam's razor. If cases & Deaths as 5-7 times, then this would be easily detectable, especially as the second wave dies down as per official figures.
So at peak the cases were 350,000 per day officially, as per economist it is over 2 million. This week the cases are 65k, so then it must be 380k cases as per economist. Same for deaths, officially 500 deaths and should be 3000 deaths as per economist.
Where are all these invisible cases & deaths?
If as per economist there were all these 5-7 times extra cases/deaths, the need for O2 would be far greater. There has been no crisi on that side for weeks now. Only for a 2 week period did capital Delhi have shortage due to the mismanagement of the state govt there that was pulled up by the courts.
So you are willing to consider opinion polling and patchy insurance claims( in a country that has minimal insurance coverage) that compared India with US figures over official figures that are collated by heath authorities.
It is far more believable that US media that has persistently painted India in negative light wants to continue the practice even when there are reasons to state facts as is and risk India being shown in a positive light.
I have already give you one data point where NPR pushed a untruth that you conceded. That was not even bad faith, direct fakery.
Is this how one thinks critically?
I have no problem if you want to believe fake news but lets drop the charade that you have no option other than trusting Economist or that they have a good track record. Information is easy to get in this day and age.
It is your laziness that lets such media spread fake news by appealing to your biases.
> There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article.
claim was it is true and nothing fake there, so you did a strawman there. Since that is true, it shows economist as acting in bad faith in best case scenario.
Opindia is reporting on Govt of India rebutting the Economists argument. These are not opindia arguments, they are paraphrasing GoI's. So the below part you quoted is a paraphrase of GoI
> "However, the entire analysis done in the article was based on ‘estimates’ based on randomly selected numbers"
I am reproducing part that shows Economist acted at the least in bad faith and you have continued on same basis by claiming that you checked out their research and back it over the actual data given out by experts in field of health and agency that collates the actual data
***
The unsound analysis of the said article is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence.
Studies which are used by the magazine as an estimate of excess mortality are not validated tools for determining mortality rate of any country or region.
The so called “evidence” cited by the magazine is a study supposedly done by Christopher Laffler of Virginia Commonwealth University. An internet search of research studies in scientific database such Pubmed, Research Gate, etc., did not locate this study and the detailed methodology of this study has not been provided by the magazine.
Another evidence given is the study done in Telengana based on insurance claims. Again, there is no peer reviewed scientific data available on suchstudy.
Two other studies relied upon are those done by Psephology groups namely “Prashnam” and “C-Voter” who are well versed in conducting, predicting and analysing poll results. They were never ever associated with public health research. Even in their own area of work of psephology, their methodologies for predicting poll results have been wide off the mark many times.
By their own submission, the magazine states that ‘such estimates have been extrapolated from patchy and often unreliable local government data, from company records and from analyses of such things as obituaries’.
Union Government has been transparent in its approach to COVID data management. As early as May 2020, to avoid inconsistency in number of deaths being reported, Indian Council of Medical Research has issued ‘Guidance for appropriate recording of COVID-19 related deaths in India’ for correct recording of all deaths as per ICD-10 codes recommended by WHO for mortality coding. States and UTs have been urged through formal communications, multiple video conferences and through deployment of Central teams for correct recording of deaths in accordance with laid down guidelines.
***
> In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over,
NPR has not given any source for this claim and if you look at the Minister's twitter timeline for the period , it shows the opposite.
All proof there shows that he & ministry was calling for people to be careful, warning about increasing cases, updating on vaccines & health protocols. Not the actions of someone who declared it is over.
So that is a explicit lie/untruth from NPR and your comments also show that you find it easier to believe that India is hiding deaths at unimaginable rates than India has done exceedingly well given its challenges.
Other publications which carried out the same news
Well if you are asking in good faith, then deep dive and find out if the allegation made here are true or not
The Govt of India has basically stated that Economist peddled baseless allegations and if look deeper you will see it is wrong and in deliberate bad faith.
> If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse.
well then the investors can't ask for the firing, they have to demand something else.
Govt responded via press release to the drama twitter was enacting.This was one of the key slap downs
"Twitter Inc., a USA based private company, in its communique says that it seeks "constructive dialogue", "collaborative approach" from the government of a sovereign democratic republic to "safeguard interests of the public". It is time that Twitter disabuses itself of this grandiosity and comply with the laws of India."
I met a guy in Chennai, India who sold Ultrasound machines some time back. On enquiry I learnt they don't sell any of the big brands cause they cost in millions and can't be afforded by most semi-urban or rural health facilities.
Instead the one they sell is locally made and costs around 10K tops. He did claim there is not much tech on these devices and I took him at his word then. It makes sense now.
** True, the official death toll has fallen steadily for the past month, to half its peak of over 4,000 a day in mid-May. But evidence continues to accumulate that the government’s numbers represent a disturbingly small fraction of the real figure. This discrepancy does not just mean that the true level of India’s suffering has been glossed over. It has made the crisis worse, for instance by causing authorities to underestimate demand for oxygen and drugs.
News organisations including The Economist, as well as independent epidemiologists, have speculated that India has suffered perhaps five-to-seven times more “excess deaths” than the official number of covid-19 fatalities, currently just over 355,000. ***
The GoI press release has said that the methodology used by Christopher Leffler is not used anywhere else to estimate deaths.
You disagree and back it. Can you point out where this is accepted practice.
Using occam's razor. If cases & Deaths as 5-7 times, then this would be easily detectable, especially as the second wave dies down as per official figures.
So at peak the cases were 350,000 per day officially, as per economist it is over 2 million. This week the cases are 65k, so then it must be 380k cases as per economist. Same for deaths, officially 500 deaths and should be 3000 deaths as per economist.
Where are all these invisible cases & deaths?
If as per economist there were all these 5-7 times extra cases/deaths, the need for O2 would be far greater. There has been no crisi on that side for weeks now. Only for a 2 week period did capital Delhi have shortage due to the mismanagement of the state govt there that was pulled up by the courts.
So you are willing to consider opinion polling and patchy insurance claims( in a country that has minimal insurance coverage) that compared India with US figures over official figures that are collated by heath authorities.
It is far more believable that US media that has persistently painted India in negative light wants to continue the practice even when there are reasons to state facts as is and risk India being shown in a positive light.
I have already give you one data point where NPR pushed a untruth that you conceded. That was not even bad faith, direct fakery.
Is this how one thinks critically?
I have no problem if you want to believe fake news but lets drop the charade that you have no option other than trusting Economist or that they have a good track record. Information is easy to get in this day and age.
It is your laziness that lets such media spread fake news by appealing to your biases.