surge in cases – PincodeIndiaPost

Coronavirus updates | March 14, 2021

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C’garh govt plans to allow use of Covaxin in state: Minister

The Chhattisgarh government is considering allowing the use of Covaxin, a vaccine against COVID-19, in the state after the Centre dropped its ‘clinical trial mode’ tag, state Health Minister T.S. Singh Deo said on Sunday.

In January, Mr. Singh Deo had requested Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan to halt the supply of Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech, to the state until its phase-3 trials are completed and results are made available.

The Serum Institute of India (SII)-made vaccine Covishield is being used in the state as part of the vaccination drive.

Talking to PTI, Singh Deo said, “We are considering allowing Covaxin for those who wish to opt for it after the Government of India dropped the vaccine from clinical trial mode, even though the complete data of its third phase of trials is yet to be published.” The data (of phase-2 trials) of Covaxin published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal has indicated that its safety is not in question so now the only question pending is about its efficacy, he said.

Telangana

Telangana staying alert as cases surge in neighbouring States

Telangana Health teams in districts bordering neighbouring States are taking COVID-19 sample collection kits to people’s doorstep. Other measures such as fever survey and home isolation are being enforced to contain the resurgence of the virus.

District Medical and Health Officers (DMHO) in Kamareddy, Adilabad, and other districts said they have set up check posts, and are sending medical teams to villages as well as testing contacts of coronavirus-positive patients.

Health Minister Eatala Rajender directed officials on Friday to stay alert as COVID cases are seeing a spurt in neighbouring States.

Health officials use ICU admission of COVID-19 patients as a yardstick to measure the resurgence. ICU admissions in government and private hospitals has been hovering between 340 and 360 a day from March 1 to 12.

New Delhi

JNU to reopen reading rooms, eating joints

As part of phased reopening, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Saturday said that reading rooms at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Central Library and in various centres and schools, and two of the eating joints on the campus will be permitted to reopen.

A notification dated March 12 issued by the university administration read, “The reopening of ground floor reading rooms inside the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Central Library is allowed in a phased manner. Librarian may devise standard operating preventive (SOP) measures such as mandatory wearing of the face mask and maintaining social distancing norms on library premises.”

“NSS student volunteers may be engaged to create awareness in the campus, including library premises for maintaining social distancing and wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the university campus,” the notice added.

Odisha

Odisha may promote students to next class

With the number of COVID-19 cases showing an upward trend in some parts of the country, the Odisha government is contemplating promoting all students from Classes 1 to 8 to the next higher classes this year.

If promoted, it will be the second consecutive class promotions for students without physically appearing for their examinations.

Last year, the State government had shut down schools due to the pandemic while the students were in the middle of the examinations.

School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Das expressed apprehension that there is remote chance of conducting physical classes for Classes 1 to 8 this year in view of the resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the country.

New Delhi

Delhi CM gives ₹1-crore compensation to family of deceased ‘corona warrior’

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday provided financial assistance of ₹1 crore to the family of COVID warrior Rakesh Jain, a lab technician at Hindu Rao Hospital.

Jain, who would have retired in 2022, contracted COVID-19 on June 17 last year and succumbed to it the next day. Mr. Kejriwal commended Jain for continuing to serve the people till his last breath.

“Mr. Jain got infected while on duty. He was shifted to Metro Hospital, but died later. He was a martyr who served the people of Delhi till his last breath,” Mr. Kejriwal said.

Mr. Jain was a resident of Delhi and had joined service in 1988. He is survived by his mother Madan Shri Jain, wife Sangeeta Jain and two children.

U.K.

India’s role as world’s pharmacy phenomenal, says U.K. Minister

The role that India has played during the course of the coronavirus pandemic as the pharmacy of the world has been phenomenal, U.K. Minister Lord Tariq Ahmad said as he prepared for a five-day, five-city tour of India starting on Monday.

Lord Ahmad, the Minister for South Asia in the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), highlighted the close collaboration between the two countries on ensuring supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, which benefits countries across the globe through the United Nations-led COVAX facility.

“Our relationship with India is not just one of bilateral importance, it’s also about how these two countries are working together and there’s no better illustration than the current COVID-19 pandemic which grips us. The strong collaboration we have seen between the U.K. and India in responding across the world, including through the COVAX facility which is helping the more vulnerable countries in the world,” he said.

Karnataka

‘Duo with new strain of virus doing well’

Two persons from Ballari who tested positive for the South African strain of COVID-19 on Thursday are doing well.

Speaking to The Hindu on Saturday, Deputy Commissioner of Ballari Pavan Kumar Malapati said that both the patients were healthy and doing well.

“This is just another strain of COVID-19. All the protocols meant for handling the pandemic are strictly followed. Both the patients are healthy and doing well. As soon as they got the confirmation of being infected with the new strain, they got isolated. We are going to send their throat swab samples for repeated test to get the negativity of the disease confirmed,” he said.

Karnataka

Surge in new cases not uniform

Even though the number of new COVID-19 infections in Karnataka last week showed an increase of 1,000 cases compared to the previous week, the surge does not appear to be uniform across the State.

While Bengaluru Urban accounted for 639 cases out of the increase of 1,000 cases in the State during the week ending March 11, according to the Department of Health and Family Welfare, 10 districts reported a decline in number of cases during the week compared to the previous week while the numbers remained constant in five others.

However, 15 out of the 30 districts in the State have shown an increase in the week-on-week COVID-19 tally amid signs of an unmistakable surge in infections across the State.

The cases have shown an upward trend in Tumakuru, Mysuru, Kalaburagi, Udupi, Kolar, Ballari, Dharwad, Bidar, Uttara Kannada, Bengaluru Rural, Bagalkot, Dakshina Kannada, Gadag, and Chikkmagaluru, apart from Bengaluru Urban.

Punjab

Punjab shuts all anganwadi centres due to rising cases

Punjab Minister Aruna Chaudhary on Saturday instructed that all anganwadi centres be closed till further orders in view of the spike in COVID-19 cases in the State.

The social security, women and child development minister said ration and other material will be distributed door to door through anganwadi workers and helpers, so that nutritional support to beneficiaries is not affected.

Thirty-four more fatalities due to COVID-19 were reported in Punjab on Friday, taking the death toll to 6,030, while the infection count climbed to 1,94,753 with 1,414 new coronavirus cases in the state.

New Delhi

Ambient air pollutants contribute to spread, virulence of SARS-CoV-2 infections, says Harsh Vardhan

There is emerging evidence to suggest that exposure to ambient air pollutants, especially PM2.5 and NO2, contribute to the spread and virulence SARS-CoV-2 infections, said Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday, while inaugurated the new green campus of Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) National Institute for Research in Environmental Health (NIREH), at Bhopal.

“Furthermore, ambient air pollution is a known risk factor for multiple adverse health outcomes, including chronic cardio-respiratory morbidities, and the presence of said morbidities renders the affected population more vulnerable to COVID-19,” said the Health Minister.

To worsen matters, he added, closed indoor spaces provide ideal environments for viral transmission due to the lack of ventilation preventing the dilution of viral particles, and the absence of ultraviolet rays which can potentially inactivate the virus.

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Coronavirus | Kerala’s delayed approach towards herd immunity

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Unlike the rest of India, Kerala has maintained the same level of daily testing despite a reduction in number of cases

From mid-February, a spike in daily new cases was reported from a few States including Maharashtra. For days on end, the Health Ministry kept repeating the message that Kerala too was “witnessing an upsurge of daily new cases”. Even as recently as March 6, the Health Ministry wrongly implicated Kerala for the surge in cases when it said “Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka continue to report a surge in the COVID-19 daily new cases.”

Kerala continues to contribute a high number of cases on a daily basis. However, there has not been any surge or spike in daily cases, as seen in other States. In reality, Kerala has been witnessing a steady decline in daily cases since end-January.

“From a second peak of 6,078 seven-day moving average of daily cases as on January 23, we have been seeing a steady decline in cases in Kerala. There has been a 50% decline in the seven-day moving average of daily cases from the fourth week of January to March 4,” says Dr. Rijo John, Health Economist and Consultant based in Kochi, Kerala. “The seven-day moving average of daily cases in Kerala as on March 4 was 2,996. The absolute number of daily cases on March 4 was 2,616.”

While other States have reduced the number of daily tests in recent months, Kerala has been continuing with the same number of daily tests. “The seven-day average daily tests conducted was over 60,000 when the test positivity rate was 15% during the peak in the first half of October last year. Now, even when the test positivity rate is under 5% seven-day average, the average testing has increased to 70,000 since the first week of February,” says Dr. John.

“Keeping daily testing at high levels even when daily cases are declining inspires more confidence that the decline in daily cases is real and is not due to reduced testing,” Dr. John adds. Maharashtra and Gujarat have not increased testing despite reporting more cases on a daily basis.

While the rest of the country witnessed a peak in mid-September when the daily fresh cases touched nearly 98,000 on September 16, Kerala witnessed a peak a month later in mid-October. Unlike other States that witnessed a steady decline in daily cases, there were a reduced number of daily cases in Kerala since mid-October, but the numbers continued to stay high and did not steadily decline to low levels.

First wave

“The first wave is yet to decline in Kerala. The daily cases have plateaued in the State for a long time and are now seeing a decline,” says Dr. Raman Gangakhedkar, former chief epidemiologist of ICMR who was a part of the national COVID-19 task force till he retired in June last year. “There has not been any resurgence of cases lately [in Kerala].”

According to Dr. Giridhara Babu, epidemiologist at the Public Health Foundation of India, Bengaluru, the decline in cases since late January could be due to high infection rate that is close to herd immunity needed for the decline to begin.

As on March 5, over 0.8 million people have been vaccinated in the State. “It is too early to say that vaccination could have contributed much to the decline. The number of people vaccinated is not large enough to have significantly contributed to the decline,” says Dr. Babu.

“If the seven-day average test positivity rate stays below 5% for a few weeks it indicates that the pandemic is under control,” says Dr. Gautam Menon, Professor of Physics and Biology at Ashoka University and co-author of COVID-19 modelling studies. Dr. Menon attributes the decline in daily cases to the long duration of background seroprevalence across the State, and so new infections are only expected to decline.

“The long plateauing of cases has ensured a good fraction of people have experienced an infection. In the circumstances, one can expect a decline in daily numbers across the State. But the only way to check this is through serosurvey,” Dr. Menon adds. “My guess is that about 40% of the population would have been infected. This is just my guess.” Based on anecdotal evidence, Dr. Menon says aggressive tracing and quarantining would have contributed to the decline in cases. “Unlike Kerala, other States have not been able to pick up a steady increase in cases in the rural areas,” he says.

Herd immunity?

Refuting the possibility of widespread infection in the population taking it close to herd immunity contributing to the decline in cases, Kerala Health Secretary Dr. Rajan N. Khobragade says that as per the third countrywide serosurvey conducted by the ICMR between December 17, 2020 and January 8, 2021, the seropositivity in the State was only about 11.5%. “So nearly 82% of the population in the State have not got infected,” Dr. Khobragade says.

Dr. Khobragade’s assertion of low seroprevalence in the State is supported by Dr. Anurag Agrawal, Director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), a CSIR lab in Delhi. “The second serosurvey carried out across CSIR labs found Kerala had the lowest seropositivity,” says Dr. Agrawal.

“The State has managed to stretch the curve such that the new infections are spread out over a longer period of time. The State also continues to undertake more testing and reporting,” Dr. Agrawal says.

“For the first six months, the outbreak was minimal in the State. We have been undertaking active case finding in the State. Anyone with influenza-like illness is tested for coronavirus infection,” Dr. Khobragade says.

Dr. Khobragade also cites 30-40% bed occupancy for patients with COVID-19 as proof that the State did not experience large-scale spread of the virus in the population. “Our healthcare system was never overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. There has been not one instance when COVID-19 patients have been denied admission in a hospital due to bed shortage,” he says.

Talking about the pioneering efforts undertaken by the State, Dr. Khobragade cites the post-COVID-19 care and management provided to people experiencing problems after recovering from COVID-19 disease. “Kerala is the only State to provide post-COVID care and management to people. As a result, we have collected sufficient post-COVID-19 data,” Dr. Khobragade asserts. There are 1,284 post-COVID-19 clinics at primary health centres, taluk and general hospitals and medical colleges.

Genome sequencing

Kerala in collaboration with IGIB was the first to begin sequencing the genome of samples collected from all the 14 districts to identify any variants/escape mutants. “We began discussion with the State government in September, and the programme became operational in December,” says Dr. Agrawal. “They collect 25 samples from each district per week from people with high viral load, extract the RNA and ship the samples at low temperature. This really helps the operations as we can begin sequencing immediately on getting the samples. Their support is outstanding.”

Over 1,000 samples sent from Kerala have been sequenced so far. “This is the largest number sequenced from any State,” adds Dr. Agrawal. “We did not find anything of concern, in terms of variants/mutations in the genomes we sequenced from Kerala.”

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