Newslaundry Podcast

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by data journalist Rukmini S.Abhinandan begins by bringing up Rukmini’s piece in The Print where she wrote that India could see up to 30,000 COVID-19 deaths by May. She says this is not her prediction — it’s based on current growth rate of cases, trajectories of other countries, and predictable modeling done by statisticians that show similar pathways, so this could be the direction India is headed. “Even with significant intervention, there will be not an ending, but a reduction [in cases],” Rukmini says.Discussing how the 21-day nationwide lockdown was imposed by Narendra Modi to enforce social distancing, both Raman and Mehraj think India won't be able to handle that many patients. Mehraj asks what measures exist for the homeless, and those dependent on daily wages. Raman also cites data* on the state of public healthcare in India, such as the fact that India has only 9,512 ICU beds for