Truth & tests

By the optimistic reading, India or Indians possess something special that prevents Covid-19 from truly taking hold

India should be holding its breath. So far, the pandemic has claimed — according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare — just over 15,000 lives. This puts it at eighth slot in terms of the number of fatalities. In terms of deaths per million people, this comes to about 11 — far lower indeed from the figures for European countries such as Britain, Spain and Italy, which had about 600 deaths per million.

There are two ways to read these figures. You might call them the optimistic and pessimistic view; but they are, perhaps more accurately, the naïve