Rice and Arsenic and Ceylon Education

Rice and Arsenic and Ceylon Education

I have reproduced below an article from Scientific American in entirety, because of its Public Health Implication to US (Ceylon, India and China).
   Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity
It is happening right under our nose, in Ceylon and our politicians also like to hide the true scientific facts. Unfortunately it takes years for the clinical effects to manifest. Farmers are the first to be affected and then later the consumers, (rice included).

This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.  It is part of a collaboration among the Center for Public Integrity, Center for Investigative Reporting and Michigan Radio.  It was featured on Reveal, a new program from the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX.
MOUNT VERNON, Maine—

Living in the lush, wooded countryside with fresh New England air, Wendy Brennan never imagined her family might be consuming poison every day. But when she signed up for a research study offering a free T-shirt and a water-quality test, she was stunned to discover that her private well contained arsenic. “My eldest daughter said...‘You’re feeding us rat poison.’ I said, ‘Not really,’ but I guess essentially...that is what you’re doing. You’re poisoning your kids,” Brennan lamented in her thick Maine accent. “I felt bad for not knowing it.” Brennan is not alone. Urine samples collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from volunteers reveal that most Americans regularly consume small amounts of arsenic.  It’s not just in water; it’s also in some of the foods we eat and beverages we drink, such as rice, fruit juice, beer and wine. Under orders from a Republican-controlled Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 established a new drinking-water standard to try to limit people’s exposure to arsenic. But a growing body of research since then has raised questions about whether the standard is adequate. The EPA has been prepared to say since 2008, based on its review of independent science, that arsenic is 17 times more potent as a carcinogen than the agency now reports. Women are especially vulnerable. Agency scientists calculated that if 100,000 women consumed the legal limit of arsenic every day, 730 of them would eventually get bladder or lung cancer from it. After years of research and delays, the EPA was on the verge of making its findings official by 2012. Once the science was complete, the agency could review the drinking water standard. But an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that one member of Congress effectively blocked the release of the EPA findings and any new regulations for years. It is a battle between politics and science. Mining companies and rice producers, which could be hurt by the EPA’s findings, lobbied against them. But some of the most aggressive lobbying came from two pesticide companies that sell a weed killer containing arsenic. The EPA had reached an agreement with those companies to ban most uses of their herbicide by the end of last year. But the agreement was conditioned on the EPA’s completing its scientific review. The delay by Congress caused the EPA to suspend its ban. The weed killer, called MSMA, remains on the market. Turning to a powerful lawmaker for help is one tactic in an arsenal used by industry to virtually paralyze EPA scientists who evaluate toxic chemicals. In 2009, President Obama signed an executive memorandum to try to stop political interference with science. That same year, the EPA unveiled an ambitious plan to evaluate far more chemicals each year than had been done in either the Bush or Clinton administrations. But in 2012 and 2013, the EPA has managed to complete only six scientific evaluations of toxic chemicals, creating a backlog of 47 ongoing assessments. It’s a track record no better than past administrations. The Center found that a key reason for this is the intervention by a single member of Congress. The story of arsenic shows how easily industry thwarted the Obama’s administration’s effort to prevent interference with science.
A ubiquitous poison Arsenic is virtually synonymous with poison. But it’s also everywhere, found naturally in the Earth’s crust. Even if the toxin were eliminated from drinking water, people would still consume it in food, a more vexing problem to address. Scientists are debating whether there is such a thing as a safe level of arsenic. New research has raised questions whether even low levels of arsenic can be harmful, especially to children and fetuses. The findings of the study Wendy Brennan enrolled in were published in April. Researchers from Columbia University gave IQ tests to about 270 grade-school children in Maine. They also checked to see if there was arsenic in their tap water at home. Maine is known as a hot spot for arsenic in groundwater. The researchers found that children who drank water with arsenic—even at levels below the current EPA drinking water standard—had an average IQ deficit of six points compared to children who drank water with virtually no arsenic. The findings are eerily similar to studies of lead, a toxin considered so dangerous to children that it was removed from paint and gasoline decades ago. Other studies have linked arsenic to a wide variety of other ailments, including cancer, heart disease, strokes and diabetes. “I jokingly say that arsenic makes lead look like a vitamin,” said Joseph Graziano, a Columbia professor who headed the Maine research. “Because the lead effects are limited to just a couple of organ systems—brain, blood, kidney. The arsenic effects just sweep across the body and impact everything that’s going on, every organ system.” For 15 years, Brennan and her family drank water with arsenic levels five times greater than the current drinking-water standard. She has no way of knowing what effect this has had on her two daughters. Carrington Brennan, now 14, says it bothers her to think that drinking water may have affected her intelligence. “It shocked and scared me, I guess,” she said. “I think it should be prevented in future cases.” Chemical reviews lag It’s the job of the EPA to protect the public from toxic chemicals. To do that, the agency must first review the scientific literature to determine which chemicals are harmful and at what doses. This duty falls on an obscure program with a drab bureaucratic name, the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). There are tens of thousands of chemicals on the market and by one estimate, 700 new chemicals are introduced every year. Yet since 1987, IRIS has completed evaluations on only 557 of them. The last time IRIS analyzed arsenic was in 1988, just a year before the Safe Drinking Water Act called for the EPA to set a new drinking-water standard for the toxin. The EPA missed that deadline, so in 1996, a Republican-controlled Congress gave the agency five more years to comply. The EPA turned to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences for help. Scientists there reviewed the EPA’s 1988 analysis. They said it was badly out of date and underestimated the risk of arsenic. After the EPA set a new drinking-water standard in 2001, the IRIS program moved to update its analysis of arsenic. EPA scientists spent five years reviewing hundred of studies before sending a draft report to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in October 2008. EPA scientists concluded that arsenic was 17 times more potent as a carcinogen than the agency currently reports. Put another way, the risk of someone eventually getting cancer from drinking the legal limit of arsenic every day is 60 times greater than any other toxin regulated by drinking-water laws. The White House at that point had become a nemesis of EPA scientists, requiring them to clear their science through OMB starting in 2004. Scientific assessments were often sent to OMB only to die, seemingly the victim of political influence. A stinging report by the Government Accountability Office in 2008 said that IRIS was at serious risk of becoming obsolete, unable to keep up with the workload or the science. The GAO noted that in 2007 the EPA sent 16 assessments to OMB, where they got held up. That year, the agency managed to complete only two assessments. Within five months of Obama taking office, the EPA wrested back control of the process. The agency also set up an ambitious timetable to complete toxic-chemical assessments within two years. By that point, the arsenic assessment had already been in the works for six. The arsenic draft had to go through an external peer-review before being considered valid. But IRIS officials were optimistic about completing it by the end of 2011. Meanwhile, in an entirely different office within the EPA, negotiations were under way that would ultimately prevent IRIS from finishing its work.
Groundwater fears Veterans Community Park is one of the busiest parks in Naples, Fla., with softball fields, basketball and tennis courts and a playground. In early 2004, Collier County began spraying the herbicide MSMA on the fields to control weeds. But soon, tests detected high levels of arsenic in the groundwater. It wasn’t the first time alarms had sounded about MSMA. Tests at nine golf courses using the weed killer had detected significant levels of arsenic in shallow groundwater and ponds, a concern because 90 percent of all drinking water in Florida comes from wells. The EPA had already banned all pesticides containing inorganic arsenic, considered to be the most toxic form of the metal. But evidence showed that the organic arsenic in MSMA converts to inorganic in soil. EPA scientists feared that MSMA could be contaminating drinking water. In 2006, the EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances announced plans to ban all uses of herbicides containing arsenic and began negotiating with the few companies still selling them. Within three years, they had reached an agreement. The pesticide companies would phase out all uses of MSMA, except on cotton fields, by the end of 2013. But the agreement included a condition. It required the EPA to complete a scientific review of arsenic before the ban could take effect. The pesticide office apparently assumed that the IRIS assessment, then six years in the making, would be done by then. In all likelihood, IRIS would have met the deadline. But two pesticide companies and their lobbyist turned to Congress. The two companies are Drexel Chemical Co. of Memphis, Tenn., and Luxembourg-Pamol, whose parent, Luxembourg Industries, is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Both are family-owned. Luxembourg-Pamol doesn’t release sales figures; Drexel Chemical says its sales exceed $100 million a year. Though anyone can buy MSMA, the label cautions that it should be sprayed only on cotton fields, sod farms, highway shoulders and golf courses. The market for MSMA is likely worth several million dollars for these companies. The EPA estimated in 2006 that about 3 million pounds of MSMA and another similar compound were sold each year in the United States. The weed killer retails for about $5 a pound. The companies joined forces to hire Charlie Grizzle, a lobbyist who worked as an EPA assistant administrator during the President George H. W. Bush era. When the EPA released a public draft of its arsenic assessment in February 2010, the pesticide companies countered with a unique argument. Michal Eldan, a vice president at Luxembourg-Pamol, said her company had the scientific literature scoured and found 300 studies published since 2007 that the EPA had not included in the draft. “If the report is not up to date, a risk assessment cannot be based on that,” Eldan said in an interview. “We mentioned that because this is the one inarguable detail. You can argue about toxicity. You can argue about risk assessment. You can’t argue about 300 publications that are missing from the list of references.” Grizzle added, “I think it’s safe to say that the missing 300 studies, if you will In August 2010, 15 Republicans in the House and Senate made that very argument in a letter to then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson: “We are informed that there are nearly 300 studies in the scientific literature on arsenic published since 2007 that were not included in the agency’s evaluation. We find that troubling and are concerned that this could allow critics to conclude that the agency is ‘cherry-picking’ data to support its conclusions." After reading the letter, Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union who has followed the arsenic review closely, said, “This is a really dishonest couple of sentences ... That’s because the [EPA] document was written in early 2008, and the only reason the public is seeing it [in 2010] is because OMB sat on it.” “It’s not cherry-picking the data. When the document was written, those studies hadn’t been published yet,” he said. Yet the missing publications ultimately became the rationale for Congress to derail the EPA’s assessment. In July 2011, language appeared in a House Appropriations Committee report ordering the EPA to take no action on its arsenic assessment and turn the job over to the National Academy of Sciences. The report instructed the academy to include “the 300 studies in the published scientific literature EPA failed to review for its 2010 draft assessment.” Committee reports explain how to implement a bill. Government agencies could ignore them, but they seldom do, for fear of angering congressional leaders who control funding. Burying language in a report — as opposed to the bill itself—was the same technique once used for earmarks. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit group that closely monitors the Appropriations Committee, said rank-and-file members of the House cannot strike or amend language in a report. In fact, he said, only a couple of lawmakers in leadership would likely know who put the language in the report. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees EPA funding, said she has no way of knowing who is responsible for trying to kill the arsenic assessment. “It’s happening more and more in this Congress that we see less and less of what goes on behind the scenes, that members aren’t informed until the last minute,” she said. “So things like this, major policy changes like this, can happen somewhat in the dark of the night with very little information to the public.” So, who did it? All the evidence from the Center’s investigation pointed to one congressman: Mike Simpson of Idaho. Simpson was one of the Republicans who signed the letter to the EPA administrator complaining about the missing 300 studies. He was the chairman of the subcommittee that controlled funding for the EPA, where the language first appeared. He was also a member of another committee where the language surfaced again in a different report. He even asked the EPA administrator about arsenic at a subcommittee hearing. Simpson, who worked as a dentist and state legislator before entering Congress, is a frequent critic of the EPA. But in the 2012 and 2014 election campaigns, he has been portrayed as too liberal by Tea Party candidates funded by the right-wing Club for Growth. In a brief interview outside his Capitol Hill office, Simpson accepted credit for instructing the EPA to stop work on its arsenic assessment. “I’m worried about drinking water and small communities trying to meet standards that they can’t meet,” he said. “So we want the Academy of Science to look at how they come up with their science.” Simpson said he didn’t know that his actions kept a weed killer containing arsenic on the market. He denied that the pesticide companies lobbied him for the delay. But lobbyist Grizzle offered a different account. “I was part of a group that met with the congressman and his staff a number of years ago on our concerns,” Grizzle said, adding that there were four or five other lobbyists in that meeting but he couldn’t remember who they were. Other organizations that disclosed lobbying the EPA and Congress on the agency’s arsenic evaluation were the U.S. Rice Federation; the Mulch and Soil Council; the Association of California Water Agencies; and the National Mining Association, including the mining companies Arch Coal and Rio Tinto. Grizzle began making donations to Simpson’s re-election campaign in January 2011, a few months before Simpson took action to delay the arsenic assessment. Since then, Grizzle has given a total of $7,500. That’s more than he’s given in that time to any other candidate. Asked if the contributions were made in exchange for the delay, Grizzle said, “I don’t see a connection. I’ve been a friend and supporter of Congressman Simpson for a long time.” When Simpson was asked if he was aware of the donations, he terminated the interview, saying, “I have no idea. But I’ve got a hearing.” Industry playbook The National Academy of Sciences was created during the Civil War to provide objective advice from the nation’s most highly regarded scientists. In 1999 and 2001, the academy twice reviewed the EPA’s analysis of arsenic and concluded it badly underestimated the risk. The EPA’s draft that has been delayed was built in part off the academy’s critique. Taking scientific assessments out of the hands of the EPA and giving them to the academy has become a tactic to delay regulations, said Charles Fox, a former EPA assistant administrator who oversaw the development of a new drinking water standard for arsenic. “The standard playbook that industry uses first begins with questioning the science, and they can question the science in any one of a number of different forms,” he said. “There is a scientific advisory board at EPA. There’s the National Academy of Sciences.” But endless delays to perfect the science can jeopardize public health, Fox said. “We always as regulators had to do our best to make decisions based on the best available science we had at the time. Science will always improve and you can always revisit that decision down the road, but fundamentally we have an obligation to protect public health in the environment, and that decision needs to be made on the best science that you have today.” In a letter last October telling buyers that the EPA had lifted its ban for at least three years, the MSMA manufacturers said in a joint statement that they “fully expect the NAS review to result in a less stringent risk value for human exposure to inorganic arsenic.” If so, the companies said, they are confident the threat of a ban will be lifted permanently and the EPA may even allow other uses of MSMA. The two manufacturers of the herbicide are still trying to influence the scientific assessment. The National Academy held a meeting in April 2013 to review the science on arsenic. It invited 14 scientists to give presentations. Two of those scientists are funded by Drexel and Luxembourg-Pamol, which lobbied Simpson to delay the EPA. The academy doesn’t require presenters to disclose their financial ties; some choose to do so and some don’t. Neither of the scientists funded by the pesticide companies disclosed their ties at the meeting. Dr. Samuel Cohen, a professor at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, told the panel that inorganic arsenic doesn't cause cancer or any other diseases in people below a certain threshold dose, which he suggests is substantially higher than the current drinking water standard. Cohen has been funded by the MSMA manufacturers for more than a decade, according to disclosures in published articles. Barbara Beck, who works for Gradient, a scientific consulting firm often hired by industry, also gave a presentation without disclosing her ties. Eldan, with Luxembourg-Pamol, acknowledged that both scientists are paid by her company. Beck prepared a 32-page report on the EPA’s arsenic assessment. Eldan said that Beck and Cohen disclose their ties in published articles in scientific journals. In some cases, Eldan, a scientist herself, is listed as a co-author. Cohen said in an email that he disclosed his funding in published articles that he provided to the academy. Records show that Cohen sent the academy three articles that listed funding only from the “Arsenic Science Task Force,” with no further explanation about the task force. Beck said, “Although I have done work for the Organic Arsenical Products Task Force [composed of the two pesticide companies], my presence and presentation at the April 2013 meeting were funded wholly by Gradient …. At both meetings, I am solely responsible for my comments.” Joseph Graziano, who chairs the National Academy of Sciences panel on arsenic, said he hadn’t realized that Beck and Cohen were being funded by the pesticide companies when they spoke at the workshop. “I was not aware of that,” he said, “and I don’t think the committee was aware of it.”
Congress rescues the formaldehyde industry This is not the first time Congress has pressured the EPA to hand over science on toxic chemicals to the National Academy. In 2009, Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, held up the nomination of a top EPA official as leverage to force the agency to have the academy review the risks of formaldehyde. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Institute of Health’s National Toxicology Program both say that formaldehyde can cause cancer. The EPA was preparing to say the same. Yet the agency ultimately relented to Vitter’s demand. After months of review, the academy criticized the IRIS draft on formaldehyde for being repetitive, poorly organized and failing to clearly present all the evidence of its findings. The panel recommended the EPA redo the draft to be more clear and concise. Recognizing that the EPA was having a problem in completing assessments, the academy said it wasn’t calling for a delay. Soon, however, the formaldehyde industry was turning to Congress to help it delay the assessment. Right next to Simpson’s language in the committee report about delaying the arsenic assessment was another set of instructions to the EPA. This time, IRIS was told to apply the academy’s recommendations on formaldehyde to all ongoing and future assessments. When asked if he requested the language, Grizzle acknowledged only that he was one of the lobbyists for the Formaldehyde Council, an arm of the industry. The EPA said in a report to Congress it won’t start all its assessments over from scratch, but it will try to incorporate the academy’s recommendations. As a result, the 47 pending reviews have been further delayed. IRIS Director Vincent Cogliano said the changes will lead to more rigorous assessments that should have an easier time getting through peer review. When asked how IRIS responds to political pressure, he said he had little control over that. “We’re doing our best to keep our assessments focused on the science,” he said. “What happens after that is not part of the IRIS process.”
‘It’s not their right’

  Eldan said people shouldn’t be worried about her company’s weed killer. “To be honest, we believe that this is a good product, that it does not pose a concern to health and the environment,” she said. Clearing weeds from the sides of highways can be a safety issue, she said, because tall plants can block vision. Even on golf courses, there are safety concerns, she said. “The weeds have a tendency to spread. If you don’t use herbicides, it’s not only one weed. They can cover the golf course,” Eldan said. “The players can stumble on them.” Meanwhile, in Maine, Wendy Brennan worries about all the years her family was drinking arsenic-tainted water. “I know a lot of people around the area that have had cancer, and so you always think, ‘Jesus, that's going to be my kids. It’s going to be me or my husband,’ ” Brennan said. Her congresswoman, Pingree, also worries about her constituents. “When you have a toxic chemical in the environment that could be affecting child development or people who could eventually be contracting cancer from their exposure to this, we shouldn’t be delaying,” Pingree said. She fears that after the National Academy of Sciences completes its review, the pesticide companies will find another delaying tactic. “That’s the sad part; there’s nothing to stop Congress from finding another roadblock to delay,” Pingree said. “Congress can say, ‘Well, here’s another 200 studies, you better review them.’ ” Brennan doesn’t understand why there’s a need to wait. “If they’ve already got some proof that it’s 17 times more potent, you’d think they’d want to get the information they had out and then continue to explore scientifically more,” she said. “We need to know what’s going on with our drinking water. If somebody wants to not let us know because they want to keep some pesticides making money for five more years…it's not their right. It’s not their body. It’s not their decision.”
 Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity

Coronavirus Can Invade Our Intestines As Well As Our Lungs, Study Finds

Reproduction

Coronavirus Can Invade Our Intestines As Well As Our Lungs, Study Finds

By Kashmira Gander

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can infect and replicate in human intestine cells, according to a study.
This may explain why some COVID-19 patients have gastrointestinal symptoms, Dutch researchers suggested in a paper published in the journal Science.
The coronavirus can invade and multiply in the human gut because the enzyme it uses to enter our cells is found in this part of the body, the team said.
The enzyme, called Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), is also present in the respiratory system.

Why Are Some People With the Coronavirus Asymptomatic?

To reach their conclusion, the team took SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus which causes COVID-19) and cells from the human intestine and watched how they interacted in a lab.
After 24 hours, the virus had invaded some of the cells. After 60 hours "the number of infected cells had dramatically increased," the authors wrote.
Next, they examined which genes were at work in the intestinal cells using a technique called RNA sequencing. This revealed genes that fight off viral infections were active in the gut cells.
The project saw the team culture gut cells so they would have different levels of ACE2, to see if this would change their chances of being infected. They found cells were vulnerable whether or not they had high or low levels of ACE2.
Study co-author Bart Haagmans, a virologist at Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, commented in a statement: "The observations made in this study provide definite proof that SARS-CoV-2 can multiply in cells of the gastrointestinal tract.

"However, we don't yet know whether SARS-CoV-2, present in the intestines of COVID-19 patients, plays a significant role in transmission. Our findings indicate that we should look into this possibility more closely."

Read more

The team aren't the first to explore whether the coronavirus not only affects the respiratory system, causing common symptoms such as a dry cough and breathing difficulties, but other parts of the body too.
Last month, a study published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology involving 206 people in China showed diarrhea may be the first or only symptom some COVID-19 patients experience.
An article published in the journal the BMJ involving 96 people with COVID-19 in China found the coronavirus appeared to linger longer in some patients' stools than their respiratory system.
Brennan Spiegel, professor of medicine and public health at Cedars-Sinai and co-author of The American Journal of Gastroenterology study, told Newsweek in April: "I think the main message is COVID-19 is not just cough.He said: "We're starting to learn from our colleagues in China and around the world now that there's a large group of people who may not ever report for care, or at home with digestive symptoms—diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, less so abdominal pain but that too, low appetite—who are struggling to determine if they have COVID-19 or not."
Since the COVID-19 pandemic is thought to have started in late 2019, more than 3.6 million people around the world have been diagnosed with the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University. 257,301 have died, and over 1.1 million are known to have survived. The U.S. is the country with the most cases, as the Statista graph below shows.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advice on Using Face Coverings to Slow Spread of COVID-19

• CDC recommends wearing a cloth face covering in public where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.
• A simple cloth face covering can help slow the spread of the virus by those infected and by those who do not exhibit symptoms.
• Cloth face coverings can be fashioned from household items. Guides are offered by the CDC.
• Cloth face coverings should be washed regularly. A washing machine will suffice.
• Practice safe removal of face coverings by not touching eyes, nose, and mouth, and wash hands immediately after removing the covering.
  

World Health Organization advice for avoiding spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

Hygiene advice

• Clean hands frequently with soap and water, or alcohol-based hand rub.
• Wash hands after coughing or sneezing; when caring for the sick; before, during and after food preparation; before eating; after using the toilet; when hands are visibly dirty; and after handling animals or waste.
• Maintain at least 1 meter (3 feet) distance from anyone who is coughing or sneezing.
• Avoid touching your hands, nose and mouth. Do not spit in public.
• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or bent elbow when coughing or sneezing. Discard the tissue immediately and clean your hands.
  

Medical advice

• Avoid close contact with others if you have any symptoms.
• Stay at home if you feel unwell, even with mild symptoms such as headache and runny nose, to avoid potential spread of the disease to medical facilities and other people.
• If you develop serious symptoms (fever, cough, difficulty breathing) seek medical care early and contact local health authorities in advance.
• Note any recent contact with others and travel details to provide to authorities who can trace and prevent spread of the disease.
• Stay up to date on COVID-19 developments issued by health authorities and follow their guidance.
  

Mask and glove usage

• Healthy individuals only need to wear a mask if taking care of a sick person.
• Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
• Masks are effective when used in combination with frequent hand cleaning.
• Do not touch the mask while wearing it. Clean hands if you touch the mask.
• Learn how to properly put on, remove and dispose of masks. Clean hands after disposing of the mask.
• Do not reuse single-use masks.
• Regularly washing bare hands is more effective against catching COVID-19 than wearing rubber gloves.
• The COVID-19 virus can still be picked up on rubber gloves and transmitted by touching.
  

True Dream

This is a true dream.
This dream is dedicated to all my batch mates a few of them are currently in heaven and laughing at us of the lockdown.
There is only on vaccine program in heaven. 
It is called loo vaccine. 
Coronavirus can spread by faeco-oral route.
The virus can spread to heaven and they are protected by this Loo vaccine (I am not privy to their tech-niches, unless I kick the bucket and enter there by default.
They come to earth for bee honey and Kithul Pani or palm honey. 
They only hear about the King of Kosolle.
Not King of Lolle means (our own Koda's creation) Lom of Kihille the nick name given to girl's with unshaven arm pits.
We were experts on deciding the sex of cadavers with their face covered with face masks (sometimes by a bucket of formalin, to freeze the brain) by looking at the pubic hair distribution.
 
Now my current dream.
I was recruited by the government of Sulawesi.
People of this country was dying of Japanese B Encephalitis (JEB) and I was recruited by a Japanese company. 
I wanted go on a snorkeling expedition in Zulewesi, as a dubious researcher (credentials not checked).
I had a hidden agenda to smuggle a one seater jet engine dissembled as an assortment of air compressors. 
I managed to smuggle few Air Born Robotics (banned then in Ceylon) dissembled as lawn movers.

 JEB=Japanese Enchepalitis-B

My program there was to develop JEB vaccine.
 
I was in a secret laboratory fully gowned in protective garb.
There was an attempt by CIA to high jack me fully gowned.
Mind you it was like a space suit, not like the current ones in full production.
I ran my surgical blade through his protective gear.
He succumbed to oxygen lack.
No ventilators in Zulewesi at that time.
I woke up in panic.
Yes it was a dream.
CIA cannot hijack me even in my dreams with President Trump engrossed in coronavirus briefings.

American Pie

American Pie
 

Comparing an average American’s eating habits with ours is a revelation by itself.
 

An American eats a cow / bull every ten years.
In every American there are at least 5 cows in him / her by the time s/he is fifty.

 

If he has not got mad cow disease or Alzheimer’s disease what s/he eats in the rest of his life is any American doctor’s guess.
 

He eats a pig every three years.
 

He eats at least 50 chickens and one turkey a year.

Some Americans of course eat much more than this.

My worry is every cow/bull s/he eats, at least an equivalent of 8Kg of fodder is needed to support its life to obtain 1Kg of meat.

 

If an American stops eating 1Kg of beef s/he is saving about 8Kg of grain for a poor soul in Africa or Bangladesh.

Out of the tons of grain produced more than half (this ratio has gone up with the increase of Chinese Middle Class population) is spent on animal feeds and some American cows are better fed than African kids.

Only to be sacrificed as human food.

The current Pope should give due consideration to these facts and he should give a hearing to this fiasco and if the grain saved by saving the poor cows / or bulls is multiplied by the factor of eight by 1000 (well the fed cow’s weight) there is an excess grain in this world to feed everybody.

Equally FAO should take this into cognizant.

Looking by some of Ceylonese who lavish on food I cannot say there is any difference to American mentality, here in Ceylonese (especially who visit here to take a break from the winter).

 

Coming back to a single meal, if an American or Western guy sacrifices a single meal a week, like our Buddhist monks who live on a single meal a day, we would be able to feed some hungry children in Africa and Asia without any problem or NGOs.

 

WHO also should take this fact to their cognizant.

I don’t believe in what our agriculture minister who says, that food prices have gone up because of biofuels.

The production of biofuels has being going on for over 25 years.

 

One should realize that the ancient man and his closest friend the dog survived on a single meal in spite of their aggressive hunting skills.

Eat less is my recipe!

 

Three rice meals a day is two much (unless one is heavy manual labour).

 

I lost my weight only after stopped eating rice.

 

I was like a pig when I was eating meat including pork!

Dhana and Single Meal

Dhana and Single Meal

June 9, 2011 by asokaplus

Single most important principle in Buddhist Practice is its Dhana, the giving away ones possessions, without expecting anything in return.

This is something of an antithesis to modern world, where, self, image and one’s possessions are dear and belonging.

How it is practiced by Buddhist monks is discussed here briefly to make a novice monk adopt to modern trends in a demanding world.

A Buddhist monk ought to be light in baggage and belongings. A monk could have only two cloths (Chivara), one for wearing and another for change. 

How it should be made is also under strict and elaborate instructions. 

The eating habits are also under strict code of practice. I would discuss that in detail here. When it comes to eating, if one ignores the morning meal, which is very light indeed, a monk has to survive on a single meal, and that has to be taken in the early evening not late as is modern day practice.

You may wonder why I took some interest in this.

This examination is scientific in nature and if you need satire read American Pie elsewhere.

There are many reasons, and I would jot down only a few.

If a monk in the west practices this according to the strict code, it is a severe test for them, adopting this regime in the winter months. 

Equally, I have seen some monks who try to adhere to the regime regimentally and religiously have ended up sick and malnourished. If one becomes a Buddhist monk in adult life who had enjoyed somewhat a liberal life, changing to a single meal is a severe restriction on their diurnal habits. 

Ones hormonal status, glycogen storage and status of the acid secretion in the stomach are habituated by ones daily routine (life style). 

Changing this having become a monk should be done on a staggered basis giving time for the body to adjust.

Additionally, many of them do not have an understating of what is a balance diet.

What I stated above is obvious, but over years, I have seen many Buddhist monks suffering from food related diseases, especially diabetes mellitus. 

This is something not welcome and unexpected for my own consumption. I have no intention of going into how one becomes a diabetic but for me somebody on a single meal getting diabetes mellitus was something of an enigma.

In this scenario, having thought a bit about it, I put the blame squarely on the layman.

Hope one is not amazed by this statement.

I would go into this briefly. The upper and the higher middle class families are the ones who get quota for the Dhana for the residential monks in the city. Their, idea of a meal is a lavish one. Many of them are also diabetic because of their over indulgence. The offer of Dhana is not done on a regular basis. So on the day all the sugary, starchy, heavy but nutritionally unbalanced is offered. These Dhana days also happen to fall on weekends and holidays. The monk has no choice. They consume a diet heavy in carbohydrates which stimulate their pancreas to the limits on weekends and practically having an austerely meal rest of the week. My theory of this up and down (erratic) stimulation of the insulin status, make them prone to diabetes in middle age. 

This may be aggravated by lack of exercise and having sugary drinks (tea) to counteract the late evening hypoglycemia.

It is the duty of the layman to look after their welfare on a regular basis instead of lavish feast once a month.  

Medical education is in its prime stage now especially on nutrition, the doctor should advise the upper middle class families what is a balance single diet for a monk who are practically at the mercy of the rich laymen who impart their inherent diseases to the clergy.

I would give some advice later regarding what to be offered and what ought not to be but for now let me digress a little.

I wanted to test myself whether I can survive on a single diet.

(For the record, I have not taken a single rice meal over 10 years and it is my health secret!)

I am more than convinced that it is possible and healthy. But it takes time and it cannot be practiced overnight.

Prehistoric Time -15,000 to 30, 000 ago Having proved it to myself, I delved into man’s prehistoric period and how man survived in adverse climatic conditions and food scarcities. 

Hunter gather never had three meals a day. 

At best he had only a single square meal never three meals. He mainly survived on big games in a community life style. He was omnivorous and supplemented his diet with fruits and nuts. They probably did not suffer from diabetes mellitus and his teeth were strong, the enamel was thin but the dentin was thick, hardly had caries. In times of food shortages and diseases there were signs of enamel deficiency and bone diseases. These changes are recorded in prehistoric fossils which date back to 15,000 to 30,000 years. Until such time he became nomadic man milk was in short supply. Only milk supply was maternal. The average woman was thin, and she only had children once in four years or so. (It is now believed that when a woman is thin -prehistoric women had to work hard, almost equaling man’s efforts-like modern day women athletes the ovulation does not occur. Additionally, prolong breast feeding without weaning suppresses ovulation).

The man probably was sturdier and taller but comparatively thinner since he had to work hard in hunting exercises. He probably lived a shorter life than a woman (45 years), probably 35 years or so died not of modern day diseases but by injuries sustained in hunting.

As far prehistoric man is concerned a single diet existence is not a fantasy but a fact.

Paleolithic Period- 5000 to 13 000 years Why man became an agricultural man is a mystery but available evidence suggests dramatic changes in climate at the end of the ice age and population expansion. With the emergence of the nomadic life and mans entry into agricultural endeavours, he entered into a sedentary life style. 

However, he never gave up game and hunting until such time he domesticated adequate livestock. I would like to figure out that he was never a pure vegetarian.  

The Asian wolf became associated with man around 13,000 years ago probably scavenging around man’s domain. The dogs and wolf can live on a single diet perhaps even longer and with the loss of mammoths and huge games, wolf also found living difficult but drifted with the man for game. His eating pattern, scavenging to begin with which our present day dogs inherit and illustrate by scavenging city dumps, is a reminder that even this period the man existed (present day practice of feeding a single meal to a pedigree dog which I don’t agree with) on a single main diet.

Even though the agricultural practices were extensive, failure of crops were common phenomena, the demise of Maya Dynasty was a true example of catastrophe in history. In spite of extensive agriculture, food was not plenty and the food preparation from harvest to meal was labour extensive and man continued to supplement meal on animal and animal sacrifices. In this period population expanded probably because women becoming comparatively fatter and fertile (it is interesting to note that when a woman is too fat, like present day, fertility drops) and their body composition was ideal for reproduction. But with success there was impending catastrophe too. Famines were common due to reduction of crops, failure of rains or floods. The man became shorter and less sturdy due to sedentary life.

We may be able to surmise that even in this period man ate a variable diet, characteristically a single meal which was supplemented by animal, fish, shells, fruits and nuts.

How and when man discovered use of salt and spices is an open to question probably towards the latter stage of Paleolithic time.

Contemporary History from 5000 years to 2500. During this period man was eating mixed diet containing milk (animal), sugar, salt, spices and animal and fish products. In spite of agriculture man never ceased to consume animal food, in fact it became a major constitute, judging by the tribal and religious practices from 5000 to 2000 years. This is probably the period where single supper or a single meal changed to multiple meals especially the upper classes but slaves and lower classes subsisted on an average single large meal.

The longevity and average health increased proportionately to double the prehistoric period.

Most of the sages and philosophers except hedonists lived an austere life while recommending the same to the masses.

2500 and the emergence of the Vegetarian Life Even though some Jainers advocated vegetarian life, it was with the emergence of the Buddhists way of life in India that preceded the current wave of vegetarian (purported to be healthy) food fads. Neither, Ten Commandments, the Jesus Christ’s Sayings nor Muslim Koran abhors sacrifices of animals.

The vegetarian life is comparatively new one probably only 2500 years old in the history of mankind and that is why, there are so many misconceptions. Unlike monkeys, baboons and gorillas who are mostly vegetarians, from which man originated in an evolutionary point of view, the man had always been a carnivorous mammal.

2500 years is a small time in evolutionary time scale, a healthy dialogue on vegetarian diet is mandatory in the present context.

Our intestine and teeth bear different relationships to tree dwelling mammals, some are morphological in nature (genetic) and some are based on the diet (environmental) we eat. That is the view I hold not an opinion substantiated.

As far as the growth and development of children are concerned my view is that single diet is not adequate.

That is my entry point to discuss another point of view.

Can a young novice monk who has not gone through puberty be sustained on single diet? This is a question I find it difficult to answer even thought I have stated my gut feeling above. This is another reason I defer on ordaining young underage monks (there are other reasons stated elsewhere) apart from psychological maturity to go on an austere life as prescribed by Vinaya.

Parents should have a say in these issues. They should not plunge a young one into priesthood early in their tender years.

What should an average Dhana (Single Meal) should contain? The physiological effect and the calorie intake of an average meal should last 18 hours.

That is the time when the glycogens storage starts to become depleted.

The diet should not have high sugary (desert) components that stimulate surge of insulin and late dumping syndrome due to insulin surge at the time of the meal. 

The vegetarian diet has no problem since the fiber makes the release of dietary sugar gradual. 

The best desert for the monks is not ice cream but fruits.  

Out of the fruits, the best is bananas which releases its sugars slowly without upsetting insulin surges and maintaining a stable blood sugar. Milk and curd are preferred, since they give a supply of fat for starving intervals.

Missing ingredient is nuts, not only they contain short fatty acids which supply nutrition for starving intervals and also healthy vitamins.

I would encourage the young monks to go liberal on fruits and nuts.

A supply of nuts (not aggalas and jaggery and sweets), fruits, papaw, banana and proper breakfast cereal containing millet (Kurrakkan) should be the breakfast for our monks.

Somebody should invest and develop a proper breakfast cereal for our kids (which can be used by young monks in their growing years) instead of foreign breakfast cereals.

For the monks in the West a Buddhist dietitian with knowledge in Vinaya practice should investigate how their mid day Dhana should be constituted.

My belief is many of them are having an inappropriate diet for winter conditions. I hope a good breakfast cereal will emerge from the west for the monks on a meagre diet.

My prescription for priesthood is entirely different. When I see young monks in the TV giving emotional speeches rather than mature sermons, I become sometimes terrified.

Even my twilight years, I sometimes reserve my judgment or giving advices on certain issues. Never over the telephone, only, when I can have an eye to eye contact with the person concerned where I, can have an immediate assessment of the person’s psychological makeup and the reactions.

One can do more damage by volunteering advice not appropriate.

My advice goes as this. Let the young one follows a simple observational life. In other words learn to observe in a simple scientific and logical fashion. Teach them science in simple terms as we tend to understand them from facts to fiction.

Children learn fiction better in the early years and they should be allowed to mature into scientific and factual way.

They have the philosophical views embedded in their brains. Encourage them as much as possible

This is why they always asks mommy why?

Encourage the philosophical views at an early age, even though we do not have ready made answers always.

Then only they should be allowed to think of a religion or religions in their life. If we are to stop, young from being taken into terrorist or religious cadres, that is the only way out left. That is the very thing we are not doing at present and ignoring. We are slowly encouraging and allowing young militants being made out of innocent minds because of our failure in commonsense education.

 Most of the religious and militant groups know this very well, the best currency to propagate their rigid views is the young mind.

A tale of two epidemics: Malaria (1930-1960) and COVID-19 (2016 – 20??)

Reproduction

by Rajan Philips

Giving a little background to the topic of my article today would be in order. I am neither an Epidemiologist nor a Historian. I am unrepresentable and incurably infected by politics, and my professional work straddles policy development informed by Urban Planning and Civil Engineering. In the course of reading and writing about the coronavirus outbreak and its economic implications, I have been struck by the need for and the ease with which many developed countries moved to repurpose their established assembly lines (vacuum cleaner manufacturers in England, automakers in Germany and the US, and so on) to produce ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE) to meet the demand for them among hospital ICUs and frontline health care workers, just-in-time for treating Covid-19 patients. The demand has now expanded beyond repurposing and national requirements, which are substantial themselves. The UN has set up a new supply task force to ensure a monthly global supply of "at least 100 million medical masks and gloves, up to 25 million N-95 respirators, gowns and face shields, up to 2.5 million diagnostic tests and large quantities of oxygen concentrators and other equipment for clinical care." The UN’s World Food Programme will airfreight the PPEs and testing kits to the world’s hot spots from about eight hubs.

Being somewhat familiar with Sri Lanka’s industrial sector both professionally and personally, given my fortuitous association with a number of my Peradeniya contemporaries (N.G. Wickramaratne, B.A. Mahipala, and the late Lakshman Tilakaratne, among others) some of whom played a pioneering role in the development of export products during the 1980s and 1990s, I wanted to elaborate in my Sunday Island column, the idea of using Sri Lanka’s manufacturing knowhow to take advantage of the growing global demand for health care products and open a new and somewhat altruistic avenue for earning desperately needed foreign exchange. 

Needless to say, a number of Sri Lankan firms are already into action, making these products to serve domestic requirements and for exporting overseas. Men and Women of productive action do not wait for government policy or political commentaries.

And thankfully so.

Yet, there is much to write about manufacturing for export in the context of the current epidemic and economic crises. Being more reflective than innovative, I have often thought about two insightful observations by Tanky (N.G.) Wickramaratne, former Hayley’s Chairman, during our occasional conversations. One is that those in the industry do not generally receive product or market specific ideas from economic policy discussions. A point that resonates with Prof. Kumar David’s call for a ‘product mix’ for Sri Lanka’s export industry, that he made with pedagogical persistence throughout the life of the yahapalana government. 
Nothing worthwhile came out of that regime for the country’s economy, other than Ranil Wickremasinghe’s tedious mantra of a million jobs. 

Is the new Administration capable of using the current opportunity to come up with something less empty, more strategic and practically innovative ?

That brings me to Tanky’s second observation that former President Premadasa’s 200 garment factory initiative was a ‘game changer’ (I am paraphrasing) in the export business. Is there anything from the Premadasa playbook that would be of relevance now? That became my question. Looking for answers, I started with Lakshman Watawala’s (the late President’s handpicked man to lead the GCEC/BOI and to launch the 200 Garment Factory Programme) accounts of the garment factory initiative. Then I began going through standard writings on Sri Lanka’s trade, industrial exports and balance of payments, along with new additions like Saman Kelegama’s comprehensive symposium – Ready Made Garment Industry, and Caitrin Lynch’s penetrating ethnography – Juki Girls, until I stumbled on a table of figures in Donald Snodgrass’s 1966 classic: Ceylon: An Export Economy In Transition.

Table 4-3 in Snodgrass’s book: Malaria Mortality and Morbidity, 1930-1960, which I have not previously remembered as a source for anything, suddenly became the source for everything in the current coronavirus context. The rest is outlined below as a short tale (after this rather lengthy background) of two epidemics: Malaria and Covid-19, under three topical headings: epidemiology, economic impacts and political response. The original purpose of revisiting President Premadasa’s garment factory initiative will have to wait for another Sunday. Except to say that I have generally been critical of Mr. Premadasa’s urban and housing development initiatives and his creation of the Urban Development Authority with its national mandate at the expense of Local Government. The garment factory initiative is something else, and is worth revisiting in today’s situation.

Epidemiology

Sri Lanka, then colonial Ceylon, was ravaged by malaria for over two decades starting in 1930. The disease was on a decline after about 1952, but persisted until it was officially eradicated in the 1960s. We have all heard about the malaria epidemic of the 1930s, and endemic malaria has been a fact of Sri Lankan life from pre-colonial times. But in today’s Covid-19 world, it is truly startling to recall the extent of the mortality and morbidity of the malaria epidemic almost a century ago. Snodgrass’s account of the malaria epidemic is part of his discussion of the "revolutionary changes in the island’s pattern of population growth" during the 1930s and 1940s, which together with World War II and independence brought the "classical era of the export economy to an end and ushered in a period of transition to an uncertain future."

Snodgrass (Table 4-3) provides morbidity and mortality data for three decades, from 1930 to 1960. The first two decades (1930-1950) were the worst, when nearly 150,000 people died over the twenty-year period. The number of reported cases were generally over two million every year during the two decades, when the country’s population was only 5.6 million. In 1935 alone, the peak year of the epidemic, a total of 5.4 million malaria cases were treated according to case records in hospitals and dispensaries. Obviously, the recorded cases would have included multiple visits by the same patients, but it is a staggering number relative to the national population. According to a surprisingly brief account of the epidemic in the University of Ceylon, History of Ceylon (Volume 3), Kurunegala and Kegalle were the worst affected Districts, and in one month (1935 January), Kurunegala alone suffered 27,735 deaths.

The malaria statistics from the 1930s should be a sobering reminder to the decision makers of today, political as well as professional, and to their military executors. They are a reminder that if it could have been so bad with malaria, which was not a global pandemic when it ravaged Sri Lanka, how worse things could turn with Covid-19 if the coronavirus were to get out of control now. 
No body wants to see tens of thousands of deaths in a single month anywhere in Sri Lanka now, as people in Kurunegala helplessly did during the fateful January of 1935. 
The question is how confident the people can be that the worst is behind them and that their government has the coronavirus under control. 

The fact of the matter is that no one has the coronavirus under control.

Malaria, a disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes, the deadlier female Anopheles, is now a known quantity and one that is preventable and curable. Sri Lanka is among the countries that are certified by the WHO for eradicating the disease. 
But malaria is still endemic in many parts of the world, mostly in Africa, (including India which export it to Ceylon) and according to the WHO, there were 228 million malaria cases worldwide in 2018, with 405,000 deaths. The current prevalence of malaria is entirely due to socioeconomic factors.
(Pulmonary Tuberculosis also kills large number in Africa and India).
When malaria ravaged Sri Lanka the main causes were also socioeconomic, but there were other factors also. The therapeutic treatment was not as developed as it is now and the use of DDT as insecticide was just being developed. Both made the difference in Sri Lanka, first to mitigate malaria and then to eradicate the disease.

According to the WHO’s description, Malaria is an acute febrile illness whose initial symptoms are fever, headache, and chills, and if not treated early it could get severe and oftentimes fatal. Unlike Covid-19 which primarily targets the elderly, children, especially aged under five are the most vulnerable against malaria. Quinine was the main treatment against malaria during the epidemic. Prepared from the bark of a Peruvian tree, cinchona, and intercontinentally bandied around by Jesuits, quinine has been in use to treat malaria from the 17th century. 
In colonial India, gin was added to minimize quinine’s bitterness and the gin and tonic English cocktail was apparently born.

For the tens of thousands of Sri Lankan victims of malaria there was neither gin nor tonic. Redemption came only with DDT, which was used as a spray to kill mosquitoes. Killing the mosquitoes (vector control) has been the most successful method to reduce malaria transmission. First synthesized as an organic chemical compound in Austria in 1874, the use of DDT (Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane) as an insecticide was not discovered until 1939 in Switzerland. DDT was available for the first time in the US in October 1945, and by November a spraying program was inaugurated in the Anuradhapura District. The DDT’s effect was dramatic and within two years the program was extended to cover the whole island. 1.8 million houses were sprayed in 1947, and the number increased to 3.4 million the following year. By 1953/54, deaths had dropped to under 1000, for the first time in almost twenty five years, and the number cases fell below 100,000.

The Sri Lankan malarial epidemic, or ‘the Ceylon epidemic’ as it used to be called, has been extensively studied, and in the 1950s the British epidemiologist George MacDonald used the Ceylon case study in developing the first application of ‘basic production number’ (or rate) for epidemics, the celebrated R0 (R naught or R zero). R0 represents the number of additional infections that one infected person can generate in a population. MacDonald has used estimates of 7.9 and 10 as R0 the malaria epidemic. Based on these numbers the herd immunity [(R0-1)/R0] for malaria without DDT would have been around 90%.

R0 for Covid-19 is considered to be between 2.5 and 3.5 ( depending on countries and locations), and that would suggest a herd immunity threshold of 60 to 70%,i.e., 60 to 70% of the population will have to be infected before virus transmission can be stopped. Until a vaccine arrives on the scene, social isolation and lockdown measures are the only tools available to reduce the value of R0. 

Virus transmission ends when R0 is reduced to being less than one, but that is not the end of the virus.

There is optimism that a vaccine breakthrough might come as early as January 2021. There is ‘ethical’ potential for a new therapy in Remdesivir, a "broad-spectrum antiviral medication" with established safety profile which has been previously developed as treatment for SARS, MERS and Ebola. These efforts may or may not come to fruition, and in the desired short time line, according to experts. The same experts also acknowledge when nothing else is working against the coronavirus it is natural to be enthusiastic about every new development that is going on.

Whither Covid-19

Outside South Asia, the general assessment is that the first wave of the virus is now over, the transmission has either stopped or is significantly slowing, and the affected countries can begin to ease up, while being fully prepared for the next wave. 
For South Asian countries, including Sri Lanka, there is no certainty as to whether or not the first wave is past them, and there is no clarity about what is ahead in the next few weeks and months. 
There were 600 cases in India, when the Modi government began the lockdown, on March 25. Now, just over a month after, the cases have multiplied fifty times and the total is past 33,000 and the number of deaths is upward of 1000. 
The stories in Pakistan and Bangladesh are not any different.

Sri Lanka’s Covid-19 numbers - less than 700 cases and seven deaths - are mercifully lower than what would have been the daily tally during the malaria epidemic. The low numbers should be a cause for cautious optimism, and the country should be in a position like New Zealand. The island country of five million people has about 1000 cases and 19 deaths, and it is confidently returning to normalcy but fully prepared for the second wave of the coronavirus. New Zealand’s much larger neighbour, Australia, an island continent, is almost equally well placed.

In Sri Lanka, there is no certainty or assuredness about what lies ahead. 
The country is under a prolonged curfew to enforce social isolation. 
As many people are in custody for breaking the curfew as have been tested for Covid-19, or sent to quarantine without being tested. Every time there is an announcement of relaxation, there is a spike in the number of cases and the curfew is extended. And the most recent spikes in cases are among the custodians of Covid-19 quarantines – the armed forces.  
There is growing skepticism about even the Covid-19 statistics that are put out by the officials. 
In yesterday’s Island, Dr. Vinoth Ramachandra called it strange that after six weeks of lockdown, "the ‘official’ deaths have remained static for the past two weeks and ‘official’ infections are miniscule in comparison with other countries." 

He went on to ask the officials "is there another purpose that the lockdown serves?"

(my assessment is doctoring data for political reasoning and advantage)!
 
The Alliance of Independent Professionals have been raising similar questions in their periodical ‘statement of facts’ on the Covid-19 crisis. Is testing being deliberately kept under capacity to keep the case numbers low? 
Are clinical case definitions being ignored or tampered with where Covid-19 testing is not available? 
Are patient deaths being properly recorded with causes prior to cremations? 
It is unethical and illegal to tamper with official data or their collection. Where data involve helpless patients, it is also heartless and immoral to tamper with them or destroy them. 
And monkeying with data involving Coronavirus will boomerang spectacularly, because without reliable information there cannot be a plan to break the chain of transmission of the virus.