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India Coronavirus Dispatch: Lax Covid measures at Kumbh Mela
Govt's mistakes in handling pandemic, how Sputnik V vaccine works, UK strain more infectious but not deadlier-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19
India reported 161,736 fresh coronavirus infections on Tuesday, taking the cumulative caseload to 13.6 million, according to a report in the Scroll. The country saw 879 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 171,058, according to central health ministry data. The active caseload is at 1.26 million infections. As many as 108.5 million shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 4 million were given on Monday. Read more here
Kumbh: No thermal screening, few masks, 102 test positive
The Uttarakhand government is struggling to ensure basic Covid-19 preventive measures such as effective thermal screening and wearing of masks at the Kumbh Mela, a report in The Indian Express said. Over 2.8 million devotees turned up for the second shahi snan (royal bath) in the Ganga by Monday evening. As many as 18,169 people were tested between 11.30 pm Sunday and 5 pm Monday — 102 were found positive for the coronavirus. There were no arrangements for thermal screening anywhere, and no action was being taken against those not wearing masks, the report said. Read more here
OPINION: Govt's mistakes in handling Covid
The government's arrogance, hyper-nationalism, populism and a good dose of bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a Covid crisis, writes Mihir Sharma in an opinion column for Bloomberg. The combination of all these factors have left the country vulnerable to a second Covid-19 wave, multiple new mutations and the threat of repeated, and lockdowns that threaten to destroy livelihoods. Furthermore, Indians aren’t the only ones who will pay the price. Developing nations that had been counting on India—the largest vaccine maker in the world by volume—will now have to wait longer for their vaccines, even as the new variants continue to spread. Challenges such as regulatory uncertainty, bullying, lack of foresight and urgency, and contempt for legitimate profit-making is familiar to every entrepreneur in India. Such attitudes are at the root of the country’s investment crisis. Now the rest of the world will have to suffer the consequences, Sharma writes. Read more here
UK variant more infectious, but not more deadly: Lancet studies
According to two studies published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet, individuals that contract the UK variant labelled B.1.1.7. do not experience worse symptoms or heightened risk of developing long Covid compared to those infected with other strains, a report in ThePrint said.
B.1.1.7., however, was found to be more transmissible than other strains, and also resulted in higher viral load. Read more here
EXPLAINED: How does the Sputnik V vaccine work?
The Sputnik V vaccine, developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, has been cleared for emergency use in India by the country’s drug regulator. This report in The Indian Express explains how the vaccine works. The vaccine uses two different viruses that cause the common cold (adenovirus). The viruses are weakened so they cannot make copies of themselves in humans and cannot cause disease. They are also altered so that the vaccine delivers a code for making the coronavirus spike protein. Therefore an immune response is triggered when the real virus tries to infect the body, the report said. Read more here
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