India Coronavirus Dispatch: Three reasons for the recent surge in cases

Little done to identify people with comorbidities, mutations explained, how vaccine certificates will be issued-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

IN NUMBERS: Over 15,500 fresh cases reported

India reported 15,510 fresh coronavirus infections on Monday, taking the overall caseload to 11,112,241, according to a report in the Scroll. New infections were 7.4 per cent lower than Sunday’s count. The country saw 106 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the toll to 157,157, according to central health ministry data. The active caseload is at 168,627, while total recoveries have surged to 10,786,457. As many as 14.3 million healthcare and frontline workers have been inoculated since the nationwide vaccination programme took off on January 16. Read more here

Three reasons for the recent surge in cases

Negligence, an uptick in the rate of positivity and the new variants of the coronavirus are three big reasons for the recent surge in cases, a report in Hindustan Times said. Experts say negligence on the part of the general public amid a declining caseload resulted in a spike in Covid cases in several parts of the country such as Maharashtra. Also, while the number of samples tested has fallen, the positivity rate has constantly remained over five per cent. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the positivity rate has to stay below 5 per cent for two weeks to effectively control the pandemic. Lastly, the arrival of more infectious Covid variants such as the one found in the UK has added to the recent surge. Read more here

Little has been done towards identifying people with comorbidities: Expert

A big challenge of the second phase of the vaccination is to administer shots to those with preexisting conditions, but data on the comorbidities that people suffer from is not readily available in most states, a report in The New Indian Express said. Dr Giridhara Babu, epidemiologist and member of Karnataka's Covid Technical Advisory Committee said  “a lot of time has been spent on deciding which comorbidities must be factored in, but little has been done to identify people with these comorbidities”.  Babu added that most Indians do not know if they even have comorbidities so identifying them is hard. Read more here

What is a mutation?

A variant of a virus is made up of different so-called mutations, which are specific alterations in the genetics of a virus, a report in ThePrint said. Coronaviruses are RNA-based (ribonucleic acid) viruses that multiply continuously. As they multiply, the RNA sequences that get transferred contain minor copying errors which are known as a mutation. Mutations are written down as nucleotide changes—when the mutated genetic code produces an amino acid, which is different from the one produced by the previous version of the virus, and the position where the change happens, the report said. Read more here

How will the vaccine certificates be issued?

All vaccine recipients will be captured on the government's Co-Win digital platform and will be issued digital QR code-based certificates, a report in The Hindu said. A provisional certificate will be issued on receiving the first dose and a final certificate will be issued on receiving the second and final dose. The certificates can be downloaded from the link in the text message the beneficiary will receive after vaccination. The certificates can also be printed out at the vaccination centre, the report said citing a health ministry statement. Read more here