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Covid19- New Mutant- Health ministry ordered that all international passengers who arrived in India during last 14 days will be subjected to genome sequencing

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health in its daily briefing told that all international passengers who have come to India during the last 14 days in between December 19-22, if tested Covid-19 positive will be subjected to genome sequencing, in view of the new Covid19 strain from the United Kingdom.

Six passengers who had come to India from the UK on Tuesday have tested positive for the mutant strain of the coronavirus. The Union ministry of health said that out of the 6 patients, 3 patients were in Bengaluru, 2 in Hyderabad, and 1 was in Pune. All of the patients are kept in isolation in private single room under state government facilities. All of their close contacts have also been put under quarantine. The Ministry of Health under GOI in a statement told media that the sequencing of Genome on other specimens is going on. The variant (mutant) has so far been found in Denmark, Netherlands, Lebanon, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Singapore.

Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri told that he foresees a slight extension of temporary suspension of passenger flight between India and the UK, where the new mutant of coronavirus has been detected. The civil aviation ministry suspended all flights between UK and India from December 23 to 31 over the risk of the new mutated form of the virus.

India reported 16,432 new Covid-19 cases in the 24 hours ending 8 am on Tuesday (morning). This is the lowest increase in daily cases in six months. Of the total, only 2.68 lakh are active cases. Over 98 lakh have recovered from the disease. On Monday 252 additional deaths were reported, and the death till now stands at over 1.48 lakh. On the vaccine front, regulatory approval for Covishield, the Indian variant of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, is expected in a few days.

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Schools unlikely to open in Delhi till there is a vaccine available for Covid19, says Deputy CM Sisodia

Deputy CM of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, stated that (due to Covid19), the schools will remain closed till there is a vaccine available.  On March 16, the schools and universities were closed as a measure to contain the spread of the virus.

Sisodia further stressed that until there is a vaccine available, the schools are unlikely to open keeping in mind the health and safety factors for the students. Under the Unlock 5 guidelines, the states can take measures of opening the schools as and when they see fit. Some states have announced closures of schools due to the resurgence of Covid19 cases.

Schools were earlier allowed to call the students from class 9 to 12 on a voluntary basis from September 21 onwards and at that time Delhi had decided against it.

The city has recorded 4454 fresh cases of Covid19 infection and a positivity rate of 11.94%, while the death toll was pushed to 8512 with 121 more deaths.

Keeping in consideration the resurgence of Covid19 cases in the country and especially in the Delhi region, the Delhi government has decided against opening the schools till there is a vaccine available.

The vaccine candidate, AZD1222 developed jointly by the Astra Zeneca and the University of Oxford has reported a robust efficacy of up to 90%. The announcement paves the way for the British company and its Indian contract manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India (SII), to approach drug regulators in their respective countries for an emergency licensure. SII plans to launch the vaccine under the ‘Covishield’ brand in India and other low- and middle-income countries.

Opening of the schools and classes will depend on when the vaccine becomes available.

The author is a member of Amity centre of Happiness

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Covid19: Gujarat and MP impose night curfew as the caseload in the country crosses the 90 lakh mark

In order to check the rise of Covid-19 in the state, the Gujarat government on Friday announced that night curfew from 9 PM to 7 AM, will be imposed in Rajkot, Vadodara, and Surat everyday. This decision comes a day after the government had announced a “complete curfew” in Ahmedabad city from Friday night till Monday morning with only allowing the opening of milk and medicines shops.

Madhya Pradesh government followed suit, and announced that it will impose night curfew from 10 PM to 6 AM in five cities including Bhopal, Indore, Ratlam, Vidisham and Gwalior to curb the rise of Covid-19 cases.

In a parallel development, today, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij was administered a trial dose of potential coronavirus vaccine Covaxin in Ambala. The human trial of Covaxin had begun at Rohtak’s Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in July.

India’s COVID-19 caseload, in the meantime, has surpassed the 90-lakh mark on Friday with 45,882 new cases, while the recoveries surged to 84.28 lakh pushing the national recovery rate to 93.6 percent, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The data updated at 8 am showed that the total coronavirus cases mounted to 90,04,365 and the death toll climbed to 1,32,162 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 584 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country. The COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.46 percent. As indicated in the data, there are 4,43,794 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 4.92 percent of the total caseload.

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Amid a resurge of Covid19, plea filed against ban on Chhath Puja, Delhi HC turns down

The four day festival of Chhath Puja, known as Nahai Khay ritual, has begun on Wednesday and will culminate on November 21, early morning with prayers to the rising Sun.

The Delhi High Court has refused to entertain a plea against the Delhi government’s decision of banning Chhath Puja celebrations at public places like ponds and riverbanks in the city due to rising cases of infection resulting from a resurge in Covid-19 pandemic in the city.

While dismissing the plea, a bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad, remarked that the petitioner is not aware of the Covid-19 situation in Delhi and any such permission if granted would necessarily result in such function turning into a site of Super spreaders.

“The right to health must be respected first. The person has to live to be able to practice any religion,” the bench underscored while hearing a plea by Durga Jan Seva Trust, challenging the November 10 order of chairman of Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) to not allow any gathering in public places for Chhath Puja on November 20.

The petition by the Durga Jan Seva Trust had also sought permission to hold a gathering of 1,000 people for Chhath Puja. This surprised the bench who pulled up the Trust stating that when marriage with more than 50 people are not being allowed, how can a gathering of 1000 people be allowed during the time of a globally ravaging pandemic which has hit the city hard.

Meanwhile, in West Bengal, CM Mamata Banerjee has urged the people to celebrate Chhath puja from home keeping the water-bodies in Kolkata out of bounds.

Nitish Kumar, CM of Bihar, having recently secured a victory in the Bihar polls, with the help of BJP, asked the people in the state to remain vigilant of the Coronavirus situation during the Chhath Puja.

The author is a student member of Amity centre of happiness

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Resurgence and continuance of COVID- 19 is causing a fall in oil demand especially in US

In a worrisome trend in the problematic economic recovery in the United States, the prices of oil futures fell this Thursday. This comes at the backdrop of the continuance of the Covid19 in USA and its resurrection in the Europe. It is a cause of concern to the Oil sector as the USA, experiencing economic turmoil, is the world’s biggest oil consumer.

Those anxieties provoked a rally in the dollar as investors turned to safer assets, adding pressure to the prices of oil. Oil made by a stronger dollar, priced in US dollars, is becoming less attractive to global buyers.

As per the reports, one of the benchmark crude oil standards, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures dropped by 36 cents, or 0.9%, to $39.57 a barrel at 0217 GMT, while Brent crude futures fell 28 cents, or 0.7%, to $41.49 a barrel.

Last week, the government data showed that US crude and fuel stockpiles have dropped. Both benchmarks ascended slightly on Wednesday. Falling by 4 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell more than expected, and distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and jet fuel, posted a surprise drawdown of 3.4 million barrels.

However, in the US, fuel demand remains very much meagre as the coronavirus pandemic has limited travel. The average demand for gasoline in the four-week was 8.5 million barrels per day (BPD) last week, down 9% from a year earlier, as shown in the government data.

US business activity slowed in September, with oil prices turned down, as shown in data. US Federal Reserve officials addressed concerns about a stalling recovery. In the Europe, Britain and Germany have imposed restrictions to stem new coronavirus infections. All these factors are affecting the fuel demand on an overall global scale which in turn is impacting the prices of the futures of the crudes like Brent and WTI.

Commonwealth Bank commodities analyst Vivek Dhar stated that as the demand concerns and comments from the US Federal reserve arrived in the market, oil prices fell. He further stated that this condition can be problematic for the Oil sector in the long run. Eurocontrol data states the ANZ research mentioning that the cutting travel demand in Europe due to the rise in coronavirus cases, with air traffic now 60% below 2019 levels following a sharp drop over the past two weeks has impacted the oil prices.

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Exposure to Dengue may provide immunity against Covid19

An immunological study and analysis of geographical spread have pointed out that there is a cross reactivity (serological) in between the Dengue virus and the Coronavirus. The study (which has not yet been published) by Professor Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University shared exclusively with the Reuters, performed a comparative analysis between the geographical spread of the Coronavirus disease with that of the Dengue virus disease for the years 2019 and 2020. It found out that the places which had virulent outbreaks of the Dengue had lower infection rates for the Coronavirus disease.

At a hypothesis level it indicates that with immunological response to the Dengue and a proper immunization with vaccine, a type of immunological shield can be provided against the COVID19. Earlier it has been found out that the people who had been infected with dengue, having the corresponding antibodies in their bodies have shown false positive result for COVID even with no prior cases of Covid infection. This becomes interesting as the two viruses are from totally different families. The Dengue belongs to the Flavivirus family and the Coronavirus belongs to the Coronaviridae family. The false positive detection for Covid in dengue infected people shows that there is a hitherto unknown type of immunological interaction of the two virus types. It might be that infection with the dengue leads the body to produce such antibodies (immunoglobulins) which may counter Covid virus.

Mortality, lower incidence, and growth rate of the Covid19 have a correlation in the population of Brazil, where there is a higher detected level of antibodies to Dengue. In the states in Brazil like Rio Grande do Sul and others where there is predominance of dengue cases, there Covid19 has taken a longer time to spread through community transmission, with respect to those states having lower number of Dengue cases.

It would be crucial to remember that last year, the south Indian states like Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu had seen more than half of the Dengue cases registered in the country. The states despite having taken initiatives in IEC (Information, Education and Communication) through the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) had see higher number of cases. Could the study point out that the number of COVID19 cases could have been much higher if the states had not seen higher prevalence of Dengue?

A 2015 study published in Experimental Biology and Medicine journal had pointed out that the infection with Dengue produces an Immunoglobulin- IgM. The study found out that the IgM antibodies produced in the body in the response to the Dengue infection is broad spectrum and cross reactive which recognizes intact virions. Another study published in June 2020 in Emerging Microbes and Infections journal had figured out that Covid infection at first produces IgM responses in the body after which there is a class-switch in the antibody response to IgG which is of high affinity type. If these studies are taken with the hints of cross reactivity found out by Prof. Miguel Nicolelis, they can provide a way for clearer understanding of the Covid infection and possible ways to counter it.

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India surpasses Brazil and accounts for the highest number of recoveries in Covid-19 cases globally

Data from John Hopkins University that has been collecting Covid-19 data globally, on Monday, in an announcement, showed that India now has the highest number of Covid-19 recoveries globally, as it surpassed Brazil. Even though India is at present, the country with the second-highest number of Coronavirus cases, it has managed to boost up the recovery process too.

The number of recovered patients is 3,780,107 in India, while it is 3,723,206 in Brazil. While the United States of America shows 2,451,406 recoveries, as per the data. USA, India, and Brazil are the three countries worst-hit by the virus.

On a global level, the total number of active cases of Covid-19 is 29,006,003, out of which 19 million people have recovered from the disease. India has a total of 4,846,427 active cases with 80,776 fatalities and 3,859,399 recoveries. The recovery rate of India stands at 77.99%.

The Union Health Ministry had made a statement on Monday that around 77,512 patients have been discharged in the last 24 hours. The total recovered cases are at 37,80,107. The gap between recovered cases and active cases is consistently increasing. This has touched nearly 28 lakhs today (27, 93,509) as stated by the Ministry.

The strict lockdown phase in India was from March 25-May 31, which marked the 4 stages of lockdown. The restrictions were lifted from June 1.

At present, the country is under its 4th stage of unlocking that began from September 1st and will continue till September 30. For this phase, various relaxations have been levied such as partial re-opening of educational institutions just for guidance and office work, and re-opening of the Metro services.

The Health Ministry also said on Monday, that over 60% of the Covid-19 cases are confined to 5 major states, namely – Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. The Ministry said that India’s journey of a fast-growing recovery rate has crossed a milestone on Monday. On a continuous upward trajectory, the recovery rate has touched 78 percent, reflecting the increasing number of high recoveries per day as stated by the Ministry.

In an important announcement in the Parliament on Monday, Harsh Vardhan, the central health minister stated that there is a portfolio available having various therapeutic options accessible for the Covid-19 patients including 13 clinical trials of the repurposed drugs using a blend of traditional therapeutic knowledge with modern medicine.