 Welcome to NewsClick. We are going to discuss today the sudden uptick in the numbers of people affected by the novel coronavirus. We have with us the editor of NewsClick, Prabir Purkayas. Prabir, welcome to the show. Prabir, what is the reason for the numbers jumping from 3000 to 15000 all of a sudden? You see, it's not that the numbers have jumped per se. What has happened? The method of recognizing when a person is being transferred to the category of those who could be infected and who have been confirmed to be infected, that criteria has been changed. So effectively what has happened is that otherwise it would have taken perhaps longer to recognize the really worse suffering from coronavirus if they had gone through the set of tests which were being prescribed earlier and then only being transferred to the confirmed category. That is a one-time correction. It is not a correction which is going to persist. But what has happened is suddenly 15000 has been added instead of the 3000, 4000 which were going on earlier. So suddenly you see the base of numbers, base number has changed. So that is one issue. So two sets of related questions have come up. That where has this been largely seen? And it is clear that these number changes really that has taken place in the Hubei province or the Wuhan city which is a part of the Hubei province. This is where it has happened. And if you see the numbers today, you can see that in China all the other provinces the numbers are actually dropping while Hubei and Wuhan still continues to have the epidemic. And it is obviously taking place in this province in a fairly large way. It is still to be contained in the sense that the numbers are not dropping over here as of now. They are still going on. Whether they are steady or they will start to drop, we have yet to see. Why was this change of method adopted? The reason is that the testing is not an easy one. It is not something is a test instrument you can take to a place, test the people over there. That is not the way it happens. You have to extract the sample, send it to a lab. You have to see that the sample itself is contained in a particular way. In fact in India we are sending the samples to Pune for example where it is being tested. So the centres in China were there in Hubei, Wuhan and so on. But still the process was taking much longer and therefore the number of people who have been infected being large this was not proving to be something which is effective to give a quick diagnosis. So those who are clinically being diagnosed as coronavirus they have said now let's start recognising them as coronavirus infections or COVID-19 infections and because all as you know even flu and common cold are coronaviruses. So we are talking of a specific coronavirus and what they have now done is to recognise that if a pulmonary spots on your lung white spots on your lung in the CT scan that that should be considered as evidence that you have the COVID-19 infection and that is a much faster way of diagnosing because almost all hospitals have CT scans. So therefore it can really lead to isolating those patients earlier, being ready to provide them with the kind of pulmonary care they require, the intensive care support they may require because it's true that about 18% as of now of those who are infected are falling prey to serious illness. They are seriously affected so therefore they need intensive care treatment. So Praveed the idea is that now China has adopted different ways of testing. The method has changed. What is the new method? Not testing but diagnosing that you do a CT scan and you don't depend on the testing of the virus itself which is you take a sample send it to a laboratory then diagnosis this is it. You see let's take for instance what the CDC has done in the United States. They have developed 200 test kits of the new novel coronavirus or COVID-19 and they have dispatched it to 200 places. Each of these kits can test about 800 samples which means that you can test at the most 15,000 people in the whole of the United States. China is testing in Hubei province more than 20-25,000 patients virtually every day. So that is the scale at which they have been forced to operate. So that is the reason for changing the method of diagnosing. Who is a COVID-19 patient or who is not moving away from the test which takes much longer to confirm. It may take three days to confirm because of the huge number of patients you have. So that is the reason they have changed to a quick and ready reckoner of who is a COVID-19 patient and who is not. So you can isolate them and be prepared to treat them aggressively. Otherwise you and I may be having a coronavirus infection because you may be coughing, I may be coughing. Now that doesn't require that kind of treatment. So I think that's the distinction they're making that the conventional methods of testing diagnostic kits testing may work for different parts of China. But in Hubei this is not going to work therefore shift to this particular method. You know the interesting part of it is if you see all other provinces in China the numbers are dropping. So it's only the fact that they have quarantined Hubei and it is there they are still struggling to contain the epidemic. That's what we see. So what you're saying is that the sooner you diagnose and the cleaner your diagnosis is it, the better placed you are to actually treat the problem. Pragya let's be very clear. We can diagnose ready reckoning not clean. Not definite but 95%, 98% accurate. That in the conditions of the epidemic is better than waiting for a diagnostic kit which will confirm yes or no. That's the essential issue I'm making that it is not they're giving a better diagnosis suddenly but they've decided to do an alternative way of diagnosing so that it is faster. That has some loopholes but that is better than waiting. That's what they're saying. All right. So what happens now? Do you think China will be able to quickly control because till now we were seeing that China has set up hospitals very quickly to treat the illness. They have quarantined people. Is this part of the whole system that they put in place to quickly end this? You see let's listen to what they're saying. I think at the moment we need to listen to them not to the scary headlines you see in the western media who said, you know, it's all these stupid communists who are the problem. The point is that this is something novel. That's why it's called the novel coronavirus. Right. Now they've given it a name and it is something which is extremely contagious. It's clear that the rates of infection are probably on the higher side than originally thought of. And we also see that the death rates are also pretty high. So this is the certainly a dangerous virus that has suddenly jumped a species and started affecting the human population. They are effectively have been, they have Chinese have effectively been able to isolate this epidemic at the moment to one province. As I said, all other provinces that rates are dropping. So this is score one to them that they have been able to do this. Will they be able to contain the epidemic at the moment? I think yes, but it's going to take time. So what they have been saying is it is going to be at least one or two months before you see what is called the inflection point. That mean Hubei also the numbers of infections will start dropping and the number of deaths will start dropping. You must also understand because those who are infected, the large numbers who've been infected now, the death toll is likely to go up even if the infection rate new patients drop. Why is that? Because the numbers or total number is still higher. They will take 8 to 10 days to get well. Some of them 15 days to get well. Who are the ones who are affected and who are dying? Older people. They take longer to recover. The younger people recover faster. Obvious. This is also true for any infectious disease of the upper respiratory tract as well. So these are the set of people who are getting affected today. So the numbers, total number today, if you take out the people who have either died or who have actually got well, then effective I think the number of patients who are already still having infections are 52,000 or 53,000 in China. So that pool is still increasing. So until that starts dropping, the number of deaths are likely to go up because it is related directly to the number of patients you have. So this is where it is. But it's also true they have put in about 20,000, 22,000 medical personnel in Hubei. So the ability to provide intensive care, which is the critical issue here, is also there bolstering that. So hopefully that will also contain the death figures. But the numbers are so large at the moment that spread in the population is going to continue. And Hubei will continue to be under lockdown. Semi-lockdown in most places, certain other towns have locked down. The village areas, rural areas, you may see certain spread. Of course China is much more urbanized than for instance India. So that's not the epicenters of the disease. But it is still going to take one or two months before you see a downward curve. What you see in Hubei right now is fresh figures that are coming with the new criteria is about 4,000 to 5,000 per day. Now that is still a pretty large number. So we cannot talk about an inflection point there. What we are not seeing is any new medication that is effective. They've been trying various medicines. So they have now started saying that those who are recovered, about 5,000 people have recovered. The plasma from them will contain antibodies. And that treatment might help the patients who are already actually quite sick. They have started this and they've said with about 8 patients or 10 patients they have tried. They have seen some improvements. That is also tried for Ebola as well. So those are the kind of things that at the moment can still work. Because as the pool of patients who get released are larger, then blood plasma from them. Which is a very quite an old technique. So there's nothing particularly new about it can help the recovery of the patient. So that's something we need to see. But the vaccine is still anything between 4 to 12 months, 18 months. The figures we are not very clear on how soon can the clinical trials be done. And how soon production can be done to really use it for mass vaccination. So I think that is a longer term problem. Right now quarantine isolation and treatment is the only way that will work. And that's what China is trying. And I think we need at this point of time not to criticize what the Chinese are doing. But express our solidarity. I must also say the Chinese government or the Chinese Communist Party which runs the government has taken steps. They have been critical of how Wuhan authorities and the Hubei authorities have handled them. Handled this epidemic and they have actually changed the personnel. The leadership has been changed. So they are aware of the fact that this is something which should perhaps be addressed differently right at the beginning. But the point is nobody recognizes disease within two weeks. That doesn't happen. Particularly when it's a completely new disease. So therefore it takes any country time to recognize. Swine flu took in the United States much longer to recognize. And as you know there was no quarantine they did initially. And it spread all over the world. Yes. Something like 300,000 nearly 300,000 people died. Only 18,500 were recognized to be actual victims of swine flu. The estimates are much much higher. You mean that the test the diagnosis was very low but the death rate was extremely high. Yes because in most places in the world they didn't even have the ability to diagnose those people who had swine flu. The United States didn't control the swine flu epidemic in the United States. And of course it spread all over the world. So the Chinese have taken a very aggressive attitude towards this. But let's recognize this is also a more dangerous epidemic. This COVID-19 seems to be a much more dangerous virus than what we have seen in the past. So in that sense this is something which could be a bigger threat if it really breaks all over the world. And you have an epidemic, a global epidemic or what's called a pandemic. At the moment it's restricted to Hubei. Let's thank the Chinese for having been able to isolate it in one province and look of the lessons later. But at the moment I think this is the broad picture we see that we can talk about. And interestingly enough Japanese have handled the diamond princess cruise ship very differently. And you can see already among the 3,700 people 400 apparently something like 3-400 infections are already there. And the numbers are every day growing. So this is also a way to see that it's not that easy. And the Japanese basic problem they have they don't have enough test kits and enough samples to be able to test the patients continuously, test the people continuously on the ship. So I think these are difficult questions. Blame game is easy. But let's recognize when a new virus comes that the world has to react quickly to it. We still have to wait for science to give us the answers. Which I think in another 2-3 years the process of developing medicines and the vaccines will become faster and easier. But as of now this is the only thing that we can do. All right. Thank you so much for being for that update. That's all we have time for a news clip this time. Thank you.