India Coronavirus Dispatch: UP, Bihar worst in Covid reporting, finds study

Daily positivity rate at 11.61%, private hospitals struggle to access remdesivir, and how much should you worry about air conditioning-news on how India is dealing with the pandemic

Interview

Itolizumab a game-changer in trying to reduce mortality, not for Covid: Biocon said it was launching itolizumab, for emergency use to treat cytokine release syndrome in moderate to severe cases of acute respiratory distress syndrome due to Covid-19. Itolizumab has been used to treat psoriasis. The drug regulates the immune response in order to prevent a cytokine storm -- when excessive or uncontrolled levels of cytokines are released, activating more immune cells. This results in hyperinflammation, and causes sepsis or organ failure, which can all be fatal. Read this interview with Hemant Thacker, the first Mumbai doctor to carry out clinical trials with itolizumab for Covid-19 patients in early May 2020.

Managing Covid-19

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar worst in Covid reporting, Karnataka best, Stanford study finds: There is a disparity in Covid-19 reporting by states and union territories in India, found a new study conducted by researchers from Stanford University. While the best Covid-19 reporting has been by Karnataka, the worst has been by Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, according to a Covid-19 data reporting index created by the researchers. Read more here. 

Private hospitals finding it tough to access remdesivir, tocilizumab: A number of private hospitals, especially those outside Chennai, are finding it difficult to access remdesivir and tocilizumab, used in the treatment of Covid-19. A section of doctors said only limited stocks of the drugs were available in the market, and there had been instances of dealers quoting high prices. In the past few days, there have been instances of relatives of patients and doctors at private hospitals seeking help to get the drugs in different parts of the State. Read more here. 

How wearing masks cut coronavirus transmission to 139 clients in a salon: The case for wearing masks to cut the risk of coronavirus transmission just got stronger. Vigilant mask-wearing by two hair stylists working at a salon in Springfield, Missouri, in the US in mid-May from the day they developed symptoms helped prevent 139 clients they served from getting infected. Read more here. 

At 420,000, India’s highest Covid tests in a day is good news, but positivity rate a concern: Friday saw India conduct 420,000 tests for Covid-19, the highest yet. It also saw the highest number of new cases being detected in a day — 48,894. According to statistics released by the health ministry Saturday, India’s daily positivity rate is now at 11.61 per cent. The positivity rate is the number of samples that test positive for the novel coronavirus among the total tests conducted. Read more here. 

In Mumbai’s small manufacturing neighbourhoods, broken supply chains, rent burdens hamper recovery: While there is little evidence that neighbourhoods like these were more susceptible to the virus than the more affluent ones, the concentration of people has been blamed for the high spread of the coronavirus in the city. But when it comes to economic survival, density is one of the main factors that ordinarily allows Khairani Road to operate: neighbourhoods like this often house an entire supply chain for some products. Read more here. 

Understanding Covid-19

How much should you worry about air conditioning and Covid-19? Air conditioners either spread Covid or not? Three experts answer that question, and it seems that the role of air conditioning in spreading Covid-19 really depends on two things: the environment you’re in, and what kind of air conditioning that building uses. Read more here. 

A new study hints at cancer detection through a blood test: In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers say it might be possible to detect some types of cancers through blood tests. The PanSeer test is most likely to identify cancer in those individuals that already have cancerous growths but are asymptomatic to other diagnostic tests and screening methods. It cannot predict a patient who will develop cancer at a later stage if that individual does not already have a cancerous growth. Read more here. 

Why is obesity a risk factor for Covid-19? There is emerging observational evidence that obesity might be linked to the risk of getting Covid-19 in India. Recently, a study done at Apollo hospitals in Delhi found that around 70 per cent of around 1,000 Covid-19 patients were overweight or obese. However, the study results have not been published or peer-reviewed as yet. Read more here. 

Pandemic. Quarantine. Vaccine. What are the origins of the normalised vocabulary under Covid-19? For decades, the word 'pandemic' occupied a little-visited suburb of the English language. Obscure researchers, doctors, and doomsday theorists scribbled about it in journals bought by few and read by even fewer. Then, in a matter of weeks this year, 'pandemic' made its way to the smartest and costliest digs in town. So far in 2020, the term has been included in every other news report, bandied about in op-eds in all sorts of publications, punned about on social media, and tossed around like a football by ten-year-olds. Read more here.