India Coronavirus Dispatch: Decoding why a vaccine offers new Covid hope

Covid-19 claims lives of 104 doctors, Maharashtra reports another surge of over 8,000 fresh cases, and why only 10% Indians believe they face risk-news on how India is dealing with the pandemic

Interview

Recovered Covid-19 patients returning with long-term lung, heart, mental health issues: The impact of Covid-19 lies beyond influenza-like conditions, even for the majority who are not much affected. This disease affects organs beyond the lungs and respiratory tract including the heart, kidney, brain, and the gastrointestinal tract. What more do we know and how can we be alert about these conditions, since some of that impact can be long-term? Read this interview with S Chatterjee, senior consultant, internal medicine, Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, and Jeenam Shah, consultant chest physician and interventional pulmonologist at Saifee, Wockhardt and Bhatia Hospitals in Mumbai. 
 

Managing Covid-19

Only 10 per cent Indians believe they face Covid-19 risk – signalling that public messaging is key: Even as reported behaviour in response to the pandemic is encouraging, people’s perceptions of the risk of getting infected from Covid-19 is disconcerting. The graph below shows that a very small proportion of people – about 10 per cent in June – believed that they or their family are at risk of contracting the disease. Even more worryingly, this proportion has been falling. Read more here

Maharashtra reports yet another surge of over 8,000 fresh cases: Maharashtra reported yet another spike of more than 8,000 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, adding 8,240 cases to take its total case tally to 3,18,695. Of these, 1,31,334 are active cases. With 176 new deaths, the State’s total death toll has risen to 12,030. Read more here. 
 

Covid-19 claims the lives of 104 doctors across the country: A total of 104 doctors have died due to Covid-19-related complications till July 13 across the country, a paper by Dr Rajeev Jayadevan, president of the Indian Medical Association, Cochin, stated. Another four deaths of doctors — three of them in road accidents — were also linked to Covid-19, taking the total number to 108. Read more here. 
 

Wash hands but also buy a Corona cover: Your hospitalisation policy covers Covid-19 treatment but may fall short because non-medical expenses are not covered and the Covid-19 treatment protocol is heavy on just such expenses such as isolation, personal protective equipment, sanitisation costs and so on. Read more here. 
 

Opinion

More than a crisis, a chance to rebuild health care: India’s health-care spending has been far below optimal. But if innovations to help manage the current crisis are suitably capitalised on, they can enable India to move far ahead in health-care delivery and related outcomes. Covid-19 is both a crisis and an opportunity for health-care reform as well as understanding the interplay of health outcomes with social and economic support interventions, and limitations of law enforcement in managing epidemics. Read more here. 
 

Understanding Covid-19

T cells produced, mild side effects — decoding why Oxford’s vaccine offers new Covid hope: The safety results from Phase 1 trials for the vaccine being developed by Oxford University, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, showed promising results Monday, indicating that both antibodies and T cells were produced by the immune system. Antibodies work to neutralise the virus, while T cells help destroy infected cells. Read more here. 
 

Two shots of Covid vaccine may be better than one, but that makes it all very complicated: Producing vaccines and deploying them to the world’s population in the midst of a pandemic would be a massive challenge even if researchers are able to deliver one-dose inoculations. A need for two would make manufacturing and logistics even more complex. Those challenges would get even tougher if — as some experts think is possible — a vaccine’s efficacy wanes over time and repeat doses are needed, potentially every year. Read more here. 

What is ‘inflammageing’? Does it have a role in severe Covid? As one ages, inflammation throughout the body reaches higher levels. Known as ‘inflammageing’, this can inhibit immunity. Because the most severe Covid-19 cases have occurred mostly in older people, researchers are investigating whether inflammageing has a role. Is it the trigger that causes extreme inflammatory responses, which are common in the lungs of severe Covid-19 patients? Read more here. 
 

Govt advises against use of valved N-95 masks, says they don’t prevent virus from spreading: The Centre has written to states and union territories warning against the use of N-95 masks with valved respirators, saying these do not prevent the virus from spreading and are “detrimental” to the measures adopted for its containment. The DGHS in the Ministry of Health, in a letter to the Principal Secretaries of health and medical education of states, said it has been observed that there is “inappropriate use” of N-95 masks, particularly those with valved respirators, by the public other than designated health workers. Read more here.