India Coronavirus Dispatch: How Covid has changed the way Indians buy gold

The young are driving the second wave in a Karnataka district, what triggers black fungus in Covid patients, and more-news relevant to India's against the pandemic

Over 173,790 fresh cases reported

India reported 173,790 fresh coronavirus infections on Saturday, taking the cumulative caseload to 27.7 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 3,617 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 322,512. The active caseload is at 2.2 million, while the total recoveries have surged to 25.2 million. As many as 209 million shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 3 million were given on Friday. Read more

How Covid has changed the way Indians buy gold

Covid is changing the way Indians buy gold, accelerating a shift to modern, retail stores, a report in ThePrint said. While buyers have been slowly shifting away from small family-run jewellery shops, the pandemic has sped up the process, according to Ramesh Kalyanaraman, executive director at Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd. “We have seen in the last quarter that the shift has become very, very steep,” he said in an interview. “We saw a lot of first-time customers coming into the stores, about 50% more than a year before. In this Covid scenario, people don’t want to go to crowded streets and small shops and instead they prefer standalone stores like Kalyan.” Read more

The young are driving the second Covid wave in Karnataka's Mandya

The young are driving the Covid-19 surge in Mandya district of Karnataka in contrast to the rest of the country, a report in ThePrint said. Those in the 21-40 age group account for nearly half of the Covid cases in the district, according to data with the Mandya administration. In April, the Centre said older people were still more vulnerable than the youth in the current wave. ICMR Director-General Balram Bhargava said the mean age of Covid patients in the second wave was 48.9 years, as opposed to the 50.4 years in the first wave, while trying to dispel the idea that the young were getting more infected in the second wave. Read more

What triggers Mucormycosis in Covid patients?

Mucormycosis, or ‘Black Fungus’, is a fungal infection that mostly affects those who are on medication for other health conditions that curtails their ability to fight environmental pathogens, a report in The Indian Express said. “Mucormycosis can be triggered in humans by the use of steroids, a life-saving treatment which is for moderate-to-serious COVID cases. While steroids reduce inflammation in the lungs, it also reduces the overall immune response and significantly increases the sugar levels in both diabetics and non-diabetic Covid-19 patients. This is especially challenging for people with hyperglycemia who are unable to manage sugar levels during Covid,” Dr Minal Vohra, Consultant Endocrinologist, BeatO told the paper. Read here

What is long Covid?

According to doctors, Covid-like symptoms after recovery can last from 4-12 weeks generally, or beyond in some cases, a report in The Indian Express said. Sometimes a patient feels like they have gotten re-infected because of these symptoms. Such a condition is also called post covid syndrome or long covid. Read more