Wuhan Coronavirus Resource Thread

[pgbhat]

Dear all..

This is just cruel, evil and selfish. People have do not have any sense of dignity and compassion.

[Bart S]

There was a spurt in TN yesterday from the 30s to 105. The Health Secretary didn't conduct the usual press meet. It was a terse announcement instead. Don't know how much of it was 'from one source'.

The stopcoronatn.in (official state govt) site has detailed info. Check the daily bulletin. Most of those reported were labelled as contacts. I take this to mean that they were people who were under surveillance already.

However the 50 people in Chennai district yesterday had 10 'primary' and 40 of their contacts. So, with flights and all transport being down for the past 3 weeks+ where did these 'primary' people come from? My guess is that they were single-source folks who were in hiding and who were now caught.

[DrRatnadip]

Dear all..

This is just cruel, evil and selfish. People have do not have any sense of dignity and compassion.

Third such incident in last few days.. Same thing happened with late Dr. Sailo and Dr. Reddy.. India is only country where such things are happening as far as I know.. Saving any ICU pt takes tremendous efforts from treating team.. We expose ourself everytime pt needs suctioning of airways, intubation, placement of IV lines , collecting samples etc..

What will happen if all Doctors and Nurses start thinking of saving own life and patient care is neglected.. I know govt can force people to join duty in hospitals.. But proper care inside hospitals and especially ICU can be given only by motivated staff .. I fear if healthcare workers keep getting such inhumane treatment after death, it will become very very difficult to fight this COVID war..

[milindc]

This is just cruel, evil and selfish. People have do not have any sense of dignity and compassion.

Third such incident in last few days.. Same thing happened with late Dr. Sailo and Dr. Reddy.. India is only country where such things are happening as far as I know.. Saving any ICU pt takes tremendous efforts from treating team.. We expose ourself everytime pt needs suctioning of airways, intubation, placement of IV lines , collecting samples etc..

What will happen if all Doctors and Nurses start thinking of saving own life and patient care is neglected.. I know govt can force people to join duty in hospitals.. But proper care inside hospitals and especially ICU can be given only by motivated staff .. I fear if healthcare workers keep getting such inhumane treatment after death, it will become very very difficult to fight this COVID war..

These idiots don't deserve any sympathy. India is soft state, anyone can throw stones, stop ambulances, funerals etc by bringing on a mob. Govt needs to show resolve and shoot some of this scum of society.

[alexis]

A recent study by Chinese on HCQ. Seems to be well conducted. It points that HCQ alleviates the symptoms but does not improve the recovery rate. So it has some benefits.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.10.20060558v1

I know members here dont like it but Print has some good articles on coronavirus.

Sweden and Vietnam had two opposing strategies and both seem to be doing better than others. So each country needs to tailor its strategy according to its situation. India needs to ramp up testing aggressively as more and more reports point to wide asymptomatic transmission; else lockdown will need to be extended further destroying our economy. All countries who have flattened the curve have done widespread testing compared to India. I am aware we have less positve cases/test compared to others but wider testing will improve the confidence of administrators, doctors and people about extending/withdrawing the lockdown.

[Bart S]

Shilpa Nair
@NairShilpa1308
·
2h
Two women who had gone to Varanasi for pilgrimage have tested positive for #Covid19 in Tamil Nadu.

A group of 127 pilgrims from TN who were on a religious tour to Varanasi were brought back to the state and kept under isolation.

Seems like there might be a bit of undetected COVID lurking in UP/Bihar as well, probably due to the mass migration just before the lockdown.

[darshan]

Any idea what is happening in GJ? 367 yesterday, 277 the day before, and 100+ for several days before that.

Why the massive rise in cases over the last few days? Are they being hit by the single-source spread and only discovering the scale now? Or fallout from neighboring states like MP and Mah?

From What I am told, (Its a hearsay, so take it with a grain Of salt) The curfew is not being followed by the public, resulting in easy contamination. The GOV is not strict enough in enforcing the curfew. Plus, general belief among population is / was, that once temp goes above 40 C, Corona cases will go down. That is not the case. No data of source is available for GJ.

GJ CM and administration continues to be a disappointment. Certain things above from Mukhi are true but in general dharmic people are following rules. The question becomes of non dharmic people who are satellites that go back to motherships to commingle. Over last 20 years, many business activities have been picked up by non dharmic people. From liquor runs, food deliveries, to vegetable hawkers run across the rings. GJ police has no issues beating up dharmic vegetable hawkers but won't touch non dharmic.

The rot starts from the top and unfortunately GJ CM isn't even 10% of UP CM. When GJ CM isn't serious, you can't expect local nagar palika employee to be serious about this virus either.

Other aspect is that of the game of numbers where newspapers and channels aren't forced by the govt to explain that this stupid numbers don't mean much. Within the country, two states don't count numbers the same way. India's numbers showing lower than US numbers without proper explanation gives public false hopes and leads them to take things lightly by misleading them to think that India's spared. Instead of the numbers newspapers and channels should only be showing ground realities on the roads and in hospitals.

[DrRatnadip]

Our fight against RNA viruses have not been very successful till date - simply put the vaccines have not been very effective (e.g., SARS, MERS etc). While the Covid-19 pandemic spread will slow down in a few weeks and may stop in it's track for the time being, it will not go away. Seasonality also cannot be ruled out. Probably with combination therapy using different drugs we will be able to stop fatalities but the disease will remain endemic in the society for the foreseeable future.

So we need to brace and fasten our belts moving forward!

- Unlike DNA , there is no proof reading mechanism for RNA.. This increases chances of mutations in RNA viruses..
- Lockdown has effectively prevented our hospitals being overwhelmed but I believe virus is still spreading .. community transmission is happening but we are able to control it's speed to more manageable level..
- There is no doubt that COVID will be reality of life in foreseeable future.. Just like swine flu COVID will be endemic.. Most of healthcare workers are expected to encounter COVID ..
- New safe vaccine wont be available soon .. I just hope trials of BCG are successful in preventing severe disease in elderly..
- HCQ is useful in preventing multiplication of virus.. It wont help much if virus has already multiplied in sufficient quantity.. We
need to to develop cheap rapid test kits like pregnancy test kits.. This will ensure most of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals receive HCQ as early as possible..
- I dont know how helpful is media showing covid numbers as cricket scorecard.. I think it is creating unnecessary panic and it is partly responsible for discrimination against healthcare workers..
- IMA is going to protest against attacks on healthcare workers on 23rd april .. GOI should give severe punishment to responsible peole so that an example can be set in front of nation..

[Primus]

I just learned something: the RTPCR test will come out positive even for dead RNA. So, if someone has been exposed but has fought off the infection without showing symptoms then it is likely to be flagged as a positive result ?

This is very well known. For Eg. In India 90% people will test positive to PCR test of TB.

Similarly, for Chinese virus experts feel that actual spread is 10x-20x more than reported but all of them are asymptomatic. This is v.v. good news. Means that death rate is not 3% but 0.3% to 0.15%. If Indian population young demographics & HCQ use is considered then it might be only 0.03% to .015% or even lower for India.

Not true. The PCR test looks for active viral/bacterial particles (as the case may be). In TB, even in patients positive by sputum AFB, the PCR may not be positive in all. The majority population of India will therefore not be positive for TB by PCR (done usually on the serum).

Most viral infections (hepatitis for example - both B and C), the PCR becomes undetectable once the virus is treated successfully, of course the antibodies may remain positive for life.

With COVID, anecdotally as well as in some studies, the RT-PCR may well be falsely negative in a significant minority of patients even when symptomatic. I don't know of any data where it is falsely positive - if the test is done properly.

[arvin]

For the last 1 week, kerala has been reporting positive cases origin as UAE\overseas in this tracker, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coro ... _in_Kerala.

Since flights have been stopped at march 22, how come foreign cases are popping up now. Or is it a secular moniker for TB league.

[Bart S]

For the last 1 week, kerala has been reporting positive cases origin as UAE\overseas in this tracker, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coro ... _in_Kerala.

Since flights have been stopped at march 22, how come foreign cases are popping up now. Or is it a secular moniker for TB league.

Same thing in TN, as I mentioned a few posts above. Today too, a bunch of 'primary' cases reported. 4 weeks into the lockdown with all flights, trains, buses shut down and borders sealed, where are these coming from? My guess is more single source folks being smoked out of hiding.

[anmol]

Up to 4% of Silicon Valley is already infected with coronavirus

A study from a noted pandemic skeptic suggests the virus is more widespread but less deadly than people think.

by Antonio Regalado
April 17, 2020

Results from surveys tracking the true spread of the coronavirus are all over the map—but one done in the heart of the technology sector says the germ is more widespread, and less deadly, than widely believed.

The new survey looked for antibodies to covid-19 in the blood of 3,300 residents of Santa Clara County, which is home to Palo Alto, top venture capital firms, and the headquarters of tech giants Intel and Nvidia.

According to the study’s authors, which include data skeptic John Ioannidis of Stanford University, actual infections in the region vastly outnumber confirmed ones by a factor of more than 50, leading them to conclude that the pathogen is killing less than 0.2% of those infected in the area. [..]

Coronavirus: Only 5% of total COVID-19 cases become critical, says government

Updated: 20 Apr 2020, 05:45 PM IST
Written By Anulekha Ray

Only five per cent of the total coronavirus patients turn into critical ones, said health ministry on Monday. Around 80 per cent of all coronavirus patients are asymptomatic or show mild symptoms, according to health ministry.

"On the basis of worldwide analysis, out of 100 coronavirus patients, 80 per cent are asymptomatic or show mild symptoms. Around 15 per cent patients turn into severe cases and five percent cases turn into critical cases," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, health and family welfare, at the daily press briefing.

The rate of doubling of COVID-19 cases in the country has now improved to 7.5 days, Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the ministry of health and family welfare said at the daily briefing.

“India’s COVID-19 doubling rate has improved to 7.5 days from 3.4 days before the lockdown," Agarwal said. Various states in the country have a a doubling rate of less than 20 days.

Eight states and a Union Territory – Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar have shown a doubling rate in less than 20 days. In Odisha, the rate of doubling is 39.8 days and Kerala is best at 72.2 days.

"The number of districts where no case has been reported in the last 14 days has increased to 59 in 23 states and UTs. Goa is now COVID-19 free," he said.

Raman Gangakhedkar, head of infectious disease and epidemiology at the ICMR, also said, "80 out of 100 people do not show symptoms but there are chances that they will test positive".

India wants to work with G20 nations to develop the vaccine to combat COVID-19, said Agarwal.

[JayS]

Sweden on a sort of plateau with it's unorthodox response to Covid19 with no lockdown .... herd immunity hypothesis certainly holds good for the Swedes!


https://www.straitstimes.com/world/euro ... -effective

How does Sweden's case implies herd immunity..? Is there any epidemiological data to suggest that..? There are tons of other factors, otherwise, which reduce transmission rate in a Country like Sweden even without any state intervention. There testing protocol is very restrictive, which shows up in the fatality rate, they have less cases than India now but 3x the deaths. AFAIK, they don't test people unless they have severe enough infections to land up in hospitals. There is a good chance they are highly underestimating their infection extent. While it may work for very sparsely populated Country like Sweden, it will spell disaster in many other Countries.

I don't think there is any evidence whatsoever as of now that herd immunity will work. Heck, no one can say for sure how long a cured patient will retain immunity.

[vijayk]

Now the narrative started ... It is not just India but whole South Asia ... it is weather ... it is BCG ... it is HCQ ... it is malaria ... it is blah blah ...

[sudarshan]

How does Sweden's case implies herd immunity..? Is there any epidemiological data to suggest that..? There are tons of other factors, otherwise, which reduce transmission rate in a Country like Sweden even without any state intervention. There testing protocol is very restrictive, which shows up in the fatality rate, they have less cases than India now but 3x the deaths. AFAIK, they don't test people unless they have severe enough infections to land up in hospitals. There is a good chance they are highly underestimating their infection extent. While it may work for very sparsely populated Country like Sweden, it will spell disaster in many other Countries.

I don't think there is any evidence whatsoever as of now that herd immunity will work. Heck, no one can say for sure how long a cured patient will retain immunity.

What do you define as "herd immunity"? My understanding is that it is defined as a large enough pool of infected but recovered people, that the disease finds it difficult to find uninfected people to spread to. So if they are highly underestimating infection, that would be a good thing?

The goal is to avoid fatalities, and also unnecessary and prolonged suffering, whether in hospitals or at home. The goal isn't necessarily to prevent infections, in fact, infections are inevitable, the only conceivable way to prevent infections is to stay locked down forever (even that probably will not work, like I said before, it's just a modern-day mega-scale "Parikshit syndrome"). No govt. goes all out to prevent common cold infections, because the death rate is minimal (still not zero of course). There's no herd immunity for the common cold either, because people keep getting reinfected, "cured" patients don't retain immunity for more than a few months.

If the fatalities in Sweden are at a plateau, that is the desirable end state (of course, also have to look at how many people are being subjected to suffering, regardless of recovery). And fatalities do seem to be slowing down. Infection numbers by themselves are meaningless.

Sweden being sparsely populated - have you looked at the population densities of their cities? Average population density of a country isn't so meaningful, you have to look at clusters like cities or towns. That's what determines disease spread. Sweden as a whole being 22 people/ km^2 isn't so meaningful, Ladakh is way less than that, even Arunachal Pradesh seems less than that.

[anmol]

Contamination at CDC lab delayed rollout of coronavirus tests
By
David Willman
April 18, 2020 at 8:30 p.m. GMT+5:30

The failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quickly produce a test kit for detecting the novel coronavirus was triggered by a glaring scientific breakdown at the CDC’s central laboratory complex in Atlanta, according to scientists with knowledge of the matter and a determination by federal regulators.

The CDC facilities that assembled the kits violated sound manufacturing practices, resulting in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process, the scientists said.

The cross contamination most likely occurred because chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits within a lab space that was also handling synthetic coronavirus material. The scientists also said the proximity deviated from accepted procedures and jeopardized testing for the virus.[..]

Shortcomings with the tests were first noticed in late January, after the CDC sent an initial batch to 26 public health labs across the country. According to those with knowledge of what unfolded, false-positive reactions emerged at 24 of the 26 labs that first tried out the kits in advance of analyzing samples gathered from patients.

“Only two of them got it right,’’ said a senior federal scientist who reviewed the development of the kits and internal test documentation, and who concluded that the false positives were caused by contamination that occurred at the CDC.

The false positives arose during testing of “negative control’’ samples that contained highly purified water and no genetic material. That aspect of testing was essential to confirm that the test results were reliable and not because of contamination.

“The bottom line is, if you have a negative sample, and it’s coming up positive, the only way for that to happen is cross contamination. . . . There is no other explanation for it,’’ the scientist said.

Experts said the kits were contaminated before they were shipped out to the state health labs.

Stephen A. Morse, a retired senior CDC microbiologist, said the circumstances as reconstructed by The Post point to contamination as the cause of the false positives.

“With a negative control, there’s nothing there to be amplified unless there was some contamination present,’’ Morse said. “If your negative control is giving you a positive reaction, that’s indication of contamination.’’The possibility of contamination in the CDC lab was raised by Axios in a story in early March. “The big question: It was not immediately clear if or how possible contamination in the Atlanta lab played a role in delays or problems with testing,” the story said. [..]

[DrRatnadip]

Herd immunity for covid means almost every member has been infected.. R0 for covid is very high.. Without lockdown it will be even higher.. Single individual with unrestricted movement is able to infect 100s ..

Pc ( no. of immune individuals) = 1-1/R0

Even if we assume modest R0 of 10 , we need at least 90 % immune members in given population to achieve herd immunity..

- R0 will be higher in areas with high population density .. Less regard for personal hygiene , inadequate social distancing will also increase R0 significantly.. Going for herd immunity approch in such population is likely to wipe out whole susceptible population..

In populations where density is less , people can be educated to mantain proper social distancing , R0 will be less.. For sweden population density is only around 25/ km2 .. People can be educated to and expected to follow adequate hygiene and distancing practice.. Herd immunity approch might work there..

[Lisa]

100,000 gather for funeral in Bangladesh, defying lockdown and sparking outbreak fears

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/19/worl ... index.html

[Lisa]

Forgive the question. I have not been able to understand why MERS and SARS could be controlled but chinese virus could not. Does anyone have an explanation or a reference to an article that explains this. Thank you in advance.

[DrRatnadip]

Forgive the question. I have not been able to understand why MERS and SARS could be controlled but chinese virus could not. Does anyone have an explanation or a reference to an article that explains this. Thank you in advance.

-Covid 19 has high number of asymptomatic carriers..
- Viral load in nose and throat is highest very shortly after symptoms develop.. This indicated transmission in incubation period.. In SARS peak viral load was seen much later in illness..
-In SARS transmission before development of symptoms was rare
- very long incubation period ( almost double that SARS)..

[habal]

Forgive the question. I have not been able to understand why MERS and SARS could be controlled but chinese virus could not. Does anyone have an explanation or a reference to an article that explains this. Thank you in advance.

Look at it this way :-

SARS -> MERS -> NIPAH -> COVID19

each step is an evolution. Each one is an improvement over the humble flu.

SARS was the first varient of a flu that attacked the lungs. MERS proved that it could bear high temps, NIPAH improved upon contagiousness and introduced bat dna. COVID19 with malaria and hiv characteristics added to bat dna of NIPAH made the common flu ridiculously contagious, potentially fatal, untreatable with OTC and impervious to high temps.

[anmol]

Indian kits approved by ICMR.

[madhu]

Seal down in blore and mysore

all roads leading to Padarayanapura and Bapujinagar, off Mysuru Road in Bengaluru have been sealed off and asbestos sheets have been used as barricades to prevent entry and exit of people, things are no different in Mysuru where the lockdown norms have been tightened with barricades from this morning.

All these areas are peaceful dominated areas. They have been physically sealed just like what was done in china

[sajo]

Apologies if posted earlier :

Pluristem Therapeutics uses placentas to grow smart cells, and programs them to secrete therapeutic proteins in the bodies of sick people. It has just treated its first American COVID-19 patient after treating seven Israelis.
Two of the four Israelis with multiple organ failure showed clinical recovery as well as respiratory improvement. All patients were one week after treatment at time of follow-up, apart from one, who received treatment after the others and whose health update wasn’t reported.

The treatment of select patients doesn’t constitute a clinical trial and there is no control group, but company CEO and president Yaky Yanay said Thursday that a trial will come soon and, once conducted, he hopes that “approval can be very fast.” Upon receiving the green light from regulators, he said, massive quantities of treatment can be prepared. “We can manufacture cells to treat thousands very quickly,” he said.
There is no follow-up data on the American patient, but the company reported that as of a follow-up on April 7, all seven Israelis had survived and three were on target to soon move off ventilators, while one had shown deterioration in respiratory parameters.

The cells secrete two types of proteins. One reduces inflammation; the other is to regulate the immune system. Yanay hopes these so-called immunomodulation proteins can slam the brakes on the immune system to stop it turning on itself, as commonly happens with critical coronavirus patients.

“They stop the body from attacking its own organs by having the placenta cells secrete immunomodulatory factors, basically relaxing the immune system, as the other proteins reduce inflammation,” said Yanay.

link : https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-c ... nta-cells/

Yet another stock market opportunist or a genuine breakthrough to prevent what good hakims on BRF are calling a cytokine storm ?

[pankajs]

https://twitter.com/ShamikaRavi/status/ ... 8177639424

Prof Shamika Ravi @ShamikaRavi

#DailyUpdate #Covid19India
Confirmed cases growing; growth of Active cases at 7.3% - so cases doubling every 10 days.

[Ashokk]

MHA sends inter-ministerial team to West Bengal amid reports of lockdown violations

The Narendra Modi government on Monday sent an inter-ministerial team of officers to COVID-19 infested places of West Bengal after large scale violation of lockdown norms and lacunae in health sector were reported from the state.

The inter-ministerial central team (IMCT) has been divided into two groups and each group will be headed by an additional secretary-level officer.

The first team, which will visit the districts of Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore, would be headed by Apurba Chandra, additional secretary, defence. The second team, which has headed for North Bengal districts of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri, is headed by Vineet Joshi, additional secretary of HRD ministry. Each team has five senior officials from different ministry.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, questioning the need of sending an inter-ministerial team to the state. She also questioned the choice of districts.

Banerjee also informed that the prime minister had suggested that state would provide the logistics.

"But the team arranged logistics from BSF and SSB and reached the spots," said she.

Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said, "The team has not come to us, but went to field directly on their own from airport. I have communicated with them and told them that if they need any information they should contact us, otherwise we would not let them visit."

[Jay]

https://www.nytimes.com./2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Some good information in the above link.

These patients did not report any sensation of breathing problems, even though their chest X-rays showed diffuse pneumonia and their oxygen was below normal. How could this be?

We are just beginning to recognize that Covid pneumonia initially causes a form of oxygen deprivation we call “silent hypoxia” — “silent” because of its insidious, hard-to-detect nature.

Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs in which the air sacs fill with fluid or pus. Normally, patients develop chest discomfort, pain with breathing and other breathing problems. But when Covid pneumonia first strikes, patients don’t feel short of breath, even as their oxygen levels fall. And by the time they do, they have alarmingly low oxygen levels and moderate-to-severe pneumonia (as seen on chest X-rays). Normal oxygen saturation for most persons at sea level is 94 percent to 100 percent; Covid pneumonia patients I saw had oxygen saturations as low as 50 percent.

[ramana]

I am hospitalised for pre-transplant tests. So I had to go through mandatory COVID-19 tests. Just got -ive result. What a relief.
Ex- health Minister Maggie de Block was detained for organising LOCK DOWN PARTY at her residence. She is a doctor by profession. Cry lil Belgium. Arrogance at its best. BTW Belgian govt is advising people to not to use surgical masks, as it gives false hope of protection

Rsingh, Good luck on your surgery. Great news on -ve result.
All the best. Keep us posted.
Tell your son to inform occassionally here..

Ramana

[ramana]

No mutation found in three virus strains in India: ICMR

“The initial samples had a virus sequence similar to what was found in Wuhan, China (where the outbreak began in December); the second sequence was what was circulating in Iran and has similarities to the Wuhan virus; and the third strain is what has been found in people infected in the United States or the United Kingdom,” he said at a press conference.

So three strains showing the contact paths:

First Wuhan, China
Second Iran same as Wuhan

THIRD Same as US, UK or Europe.

IOW one and two are same
Third is different.

Draw your own conclusions.

[habal]

first and second was bio war on china

third was chinese response ?

[fanne]

Rsingh ji best of luck!!

[Kaivalya]

For the last 1 week, kerala has been reporting positive cases origin as UAE\overseas in this tracker, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coro ... _in_Kerala.

Since flights have been stopped at march 22, how come foreign cases are popping up now. Or is it a secular moniker for TB league.

Same thing in TN, as I mentioned a few posts above. Today too, a bunch of 'primary' cases reported. 4 weeks into the lockdown with all flights, trains, buses shut down and borders sealed, where are these coming from? My guess is more single source folks being smoked out of hiding.

Everyone is trying their level best to not say it as "Single Source". But it is impossible. Every few days they will mention - Single Source and Total. The ratio in tamilnadu yesterday is 1300+ to 1500+ and has been holding the same pattern. Every day these guys are hiding and spreading directly costs everyone so much in so many ways

[hanumadu]

Can we predict what happens in Dharavi based on this.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/20/838324209/singapore-sees-surge-in-covid-19-cases-now-has-highest-number-in-southeast-asia?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

Last week, authorities announced they would put all dormitories housing foreign workers — some 300,000 people, mostly from Bangladesh, China and India — under near-total lockdown. In the days that followed, Singapore reported 728 new cases —almost all of them migrant workers.

Over the weekend, the numbers kept climbing. Among the cases reported Monday, 18 are Singaporeans or permanent residents, according to Reuters.

Social distancing is a challenge in the dorms, which can sometimes jam more than a dozen men per room, sharing a kitchen and toilet.

[Sachin]

Mean while at Bangalore, Kerala.
The loud whine from "secular" sources clearly indicate which community the trouble makers for Padarayanapura where. And also the place name is slightly changed, the rioting was at Bapuji Nagar.
67 residents arrested for vandalising police checkpoint in Padarayanapura
Opposition backs government on Padarayanapura scuffle; but with a caveat "This is a crime committed by individuals, not a community. We don’t want this to become a communal issue.

And..Who is Zameer Ahmed Khan, asks angry BS Yediyurappa when Zameer Khan opined - "I’m not saying officials shouldn’t have gone. My point is that they should’ve gone during the day and by creating awareness beforehand that people need to be quarantined. .

[hanumadu]

When are we doing antibody tests in India? If the infection is much more wide spread and fatality rate is low in India, we should just ask the Hindus to social distance while allowing much of the regular activities.

Let the peaceful community hide their disease from the authorities and treat themselves.

[JayS]

Indian kits approved by ICMR.

You missed a few there. No 6 & 9.

Also SD Bio had two kits in CDSCO list. Not sure if the Indian subsidiary created a kit in Desh independent of the parent entity or it was just a copy of the same kit submitted under slightly different name.

[madhu]

Mean while at Bangalore, Kerala.
The loud whine from "secular" sources clearly indicate which community the trouble makers for Padarayanapura where. And also the place name is slightly changed, the rioting was at Bapuji Nagar.
.

Are you sure the problem happened in bapuji nagar and not padarayanapura? Both are side by side. Padarayanapura esp. Goripalya is muslim dominated area, where as bapuji nagar is more SC hindu dominated area. Bapuji is pro hindu and normally they are a flashpoint between two community. The pic in news paper looks like goripalya main road and not bapujinagar.

Not all kannada channels would be so communal if the name was changed from hindu dominated to muslim dominated area.

The tremors of that has caused to seal down in mysore.

[pgbhat]

Everything we know about coronavirus immunity and antibodies — and plenty we still don’t

“Before we embark on huge policy decisions, like issuing immunity certificates to get people back to work, I think it’s good that people are saying, ‘Hold up, we don’t know that much about immunity to this virus,’” said Angela Rasmussen, a Columbia University virologist.

To be clear, most experts do think an initial infection from the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, will grant people immunity to the virus for some amount of time. That is generally the case with acute infections from other viruses, including other coronaviruses.
With data limited, “sometimes you have to act on a historical basis,” Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a webcast with JAMA this month. “It’s a reasonable assumption that this virus is not changing very much. If we get infected now and it comes back next February or March we think this person is going to be protected.”

Still, the World Health Organization has stressed that the presumed immunity can only be proven as scientists study those who have recovered for longer periods. The agency is working on guidance for interpreting the results of antibody tests, also called serologic tests.

“Right now, we have no evidence that the use of a serologic test can show that an individual is immune or is protected from reinfection,” the WHO’s Maria Van Kerkhove said at a briefing last week.

“I am concerned that some of the antibody tests that are on the market that haven’t gone through FDA scientific review may not be as accurate as we’d like them to be,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on “Meet the Press” earlier this month. He added that “no test is 100% accurate, but what we don’t want are wildly inaccurate tests.”

[Sachin]

Padarayanapura esp. Goripalya is muslim dominated area, where as bapuji nagar is more SC hindu dominated area.

There is a more detailed report in Deccan Herald.
67 residents arrested for vandalising police checkpoint in Padarayanapura
From the report..
Padarayanapura and the adjoining ward of Bapuji Nagar were sealed on April 11 after five residents tested positive for Covid-19.
...
According to the police, 22 BBMP and police officers had gone to Arfath Nagar, Padarayanapura, to take the remaining secondary contacts to a government-run quarantine centre
...
Ramesh B, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), said five FIRs had been registered against 70 residents, four of whom have been identified as Wajid, Irfan, Kabeer and Irshad Ahmed. The woman suspect is named Farzoova.

[JayS]

What do you define as "herd immunity"? My understanding is that it is defined as a large enough pool of infected but recovered people, that the disease finds it difficult to find uninfected people to spread to. So if they are highly underestimating infection, that would be a good thing?

The goal is to avoid fatalities, and also unnecessary and prolonged suffering, whether in hospitals or at home. The goal isn't necessarily to prevent infections, in fact, infections are inevitable, the only conceivable way to prevent infections is to stay locked down forever (even that probably will not work, like I said before, it's just a modern-day mega-scale "Parikshit syndrome"). No govt. goes all out to prevent common cold infections, because the death rate is minimal (still not zero of course). There's no herd immunity for the common cold either, because people keep getting reinfected, "cured" patients don't retain immunity for more than a few months.

If the fatalities in Sweden are at a plateau, that is the desirable end state (of course, also have to look at how many people are being subjected to suffering, regardless of recovery). And fatalities do seem to be slowing down. Infection numbers by themselves are meaningless.

Sweden being sparsely populated - have you looked at the population densities of their cities? Average population density of a country isn't so meaningful, you have to look at clusters like cities or towns. That's what determines disease spread. Sweden as a whole being 22 people/ km^2 isn't so meaningful, Ladakh is way less than that, even Arunachal Pradesh seems less than that.

For herd immunity to be effective for disease like COVID19, we would need a large % of population infected like 60-70%. By that number is reached, already a lot of damage would have happened. Even 1% of those 60% die, in India's case it would mean 0.6% of total population or close to 7 Million deaths in very short time. And that is an underestimate from all current data. The moment we see saturation in hospitals the death rate is bound to spike.

Most cases are in Stockholm. And its not like they are not doing anything and still their death rate is going down. The WFH has increased quite a lot in last few weeks, many companies have started furloughs. People there are maintaining self quarantine even if they have any fever or cold (they won't be tested, but are advised to remain in home quarantine and they are following it quite diligently. Even though govt had not enforced, many are following Social distancing to the letter, unlike in some other Countries. Of course, maintaining Social distancing is rather easy in Sweden even under normal circumstances, even in their most dense population centers. Try doing that in any Indian City while maintaining daily activity. You don't have to take population density literally, if you want apple to apple comparison compare Stockholm to Mumbai. Its just a rough parameter to give an idea on the order of magnitude.

The underestimation is still nowhere close to the levels where herd immunity will start playing a role. We simply cannot conclude herd immunity is doing any magic here. For all we know, its the social distancing that is playing a role here. And unlike in case of Italy, Sweden is much well prepared to handle the severe cases, they had a slow start (now we should wonder why a relatively slow increase in infection rate for Sweden, compared to even their neighbors) which gave them time to increase existing preparedness.

While its reasonable to assume this virus will work like other viruses and the recuperated persons should have at least temporary immunity of a few months, I am yet to see any conclusive proof showing this. Has anyone tried to reinfect any recovered volunteers under any control study..?? I think not. One Chinese study I saw, found the anti-bodies waning rather quickly from the cured people. We will need a lot of study and data first to establish immunity is good enough and holds at least a few months, so the herd immunity can work even in theory, before we can use it to make any policy decisions. To make matters worse we are seeing cases of resurgence. In SKorea so far 2% of cured people are found positive again, as per a report I saw. Have they tested all cured patients repeatedly to see if they have captured all resurgence cases..? I think not. Do we have some of the asymptomatic patients with resurgence to enough viral load in their bodies so they become infectious again for extended time period..?? We don't know. (though its reasonable to assume asymptomatic people would see their bodies eliminating the virus soon enough). Too many unknowns. Do we want to conduct an experiment on our population by erring on the wrong side in National decisions..? May be some countries can afford to do so as they are better equipped to deal with the fall-out. Others have thin margin of error.