India's Catastrophic (OR NOT?) Covid Death Toll

India is reported to be experiencing a gigantic Covid second wave. Yesterday alone, the virus is said to have killed two thousand eight hundred and twelve Indians. In response to the catastrophe, the international community is organizing relief efforts. As the Spectator reports: 

The UK and the US are leading the delivery of aid to India, as the country battles a fierce second wave. The UK has sent 600 medical devices, including ventilators and oxygen.

But while every death is a tragedy, it should be remembered that, of India's 1.37 billion inhabitants, more than 27,000 usually die each day. So, at the height of the Indian epidemic, Covid is responsible for about 10% of all deaths, or about 2.06 per million of population per day. 

How does that compare with a first world country where the covid epidemic is past its peak and mass vaccination is said to be well on the way to creating herd immunity? 

Well consider Canada: with a current, seven-day, mean daily death toll of 49, Covid is killing 1.33 people per million of population per day, or about two-thirds of India's current rate. 

So, yes, in India, Covid is bringing forward some deaths, mainly among the old and frail. However, the impact of Covid in India, where yearly healthcare expenditures average around US$22 per person, is scarcely more catastrophic at its current peak than in post-peak-Covid Canada, a wealthy Western nation with yearly healthcare expenditures of around six thousand US dollars per person.

Postscript:

After posting the above I tuned into the BBC's World Service from London to hear a most extraordinary report from New Delhi, India, in which a journalist reported smoking funeral pyres to be seen in every direction, of rows of dead bodies awaiting cremation, and in general scenes reminiscent of Hell. 

How to explain the discrepancy between the numbers and the radio report?

Well apparently the national numbers that I cited above are correct, according to the BBC (see figure below), but as the red line below indicates, the number of cases in the capital city of New Delhi is reported currently to be about four times the national average, and a rate that probably matches New York City during the worst days, in early 2020. 

Meantime: 

Here in British Columbia some of the natives are becoming restless over lockdowns, a lack of information and a botched vaccination campaign

Related: 

The Irish Savant: The India Covid crisis. More fake news

Boeing's Deadly Penny-Pinching Stupidity

Boeing corporation has [had, now zero] only one aeronautical engineer on its board of directors, Dennis Muilenburg, who serves as President, Chairman, and Chief Operating Officer. With the exception of a couple of book-keepers, other board members appear to be of little more than decorative value, vanity board members, including such engineering notables as Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, and just appointed Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the UN.

Apparently Boeing's management, i.e., Mr. Muilenberg, doesn't give a damn about aircraft safety, only about saving a buck, a supposition confirmed by Bloomberg News, which reports that the defective software that brought down two of Boeing's newly introduced 737MAX airliners was written by immigrant subcontractors earning as little as $9 an hour. This at a time when the company was laying off experienced engineers.

Increasingly, according to Bloomberg, 

... the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India. In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd.occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max. The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”... Based on resumes posted on social media, HCL engineers helped develop and test the Max’s flight-display software, while employees from another Indian company, Cyient Ltd., handled software for flight-test equipment.

And there were other benefits to using incompetent Indian contractors.

Boeing’s cultivation of Indian companies appeared to pay other dividends. In recent years, it has won several orders for Indian military and commercial aircraft, such as a $22 billion one in January 2017 to supply SpiceJet Ltd. That order included 100 737-Max 8 jets and represented Boeing’s largest order ever from an Indian airline, a coup in a country dominated by Airbus.

Seemingly, the American drive to corporate monopolism isn't working well. Without competition, terminal stupidity is setting in. What to do? Break up the corrupt and increasingly useless behemoths and recreate the productive competitive free market economy that American capitalists have always said they believed in.

Related:
USA Today: Boeing's 'single point failure': Why was there no backup system on 737 Max jet?