Bharat Rakshak

A social media post about a person who flew out of the country with high-temperature costs this doctor from Kerala her job. Dr Shinu Syamalan alleges that she lost her job at a private clinic in Thalikkulam in Thrissur district for reporting a suspected coronavirus case to the Health Department and police before writing about the same on social media.

Dr Shinu, who has a huge number of followers on social media, said she never revealed either the name of the patient or the clinic in her Facebook post.

She had posted that a person who returned from Qatar with high temperature roamed around his home town and later took a flight to Agra. She alleged that the person came to her with high temperature but hid his travel history. The doctor grew suspicious of the man's behaviour after his wife gave an answer contradicting her husband when asked about his date of arrival from the Gulf country.

The man is now reportedly back at Qatar and it is unknown if he has COVID-19 or not. She added that when asked when did the person left the country, a relative replied February 28, before correcting it as January 28. Shinu had traced him back and talked to the person's brother in law, who said that the man was under observation in Qatar.

"I shared the post just because I don't want anyone to repeat such foolishness. Before sharing about the incident, I had reported it to the health authorities in the district, but nothing could be done as he already left," she said.

Dr Shinu added that the clinic terminated her saying that people would not visit the place since she opened up about the incident.

"This is not a matter to be hushed and concealed like my former boss wanted me to do. It is selfish to think that people will stop coming to the clinic if that man really had coronavirus. I was just doing my duty. There was nothing wrong in what I said and will do the same again," Shinu wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

Shinu said that she would not go back to the clinic again and would decide on the future after consulting her family. Her husband works in a government hospital in Thrissur.

Strange coincidence that all worst affected Covid19 cases are along the same Latitude 40ํ

From left: France Italy Iran Wuhan S.Korea Japan Seattle Washington NewYork

chetak wrote:

Strange coincidence that all worst affected Covid19 cases are along the same Latitude 40ํ

From left: France Italy Iran Wuhan S.Korea Japan Seattle Washington NewYork

Mort Walker wrote:

mappunni wrote:The first case in the North Dallas area

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/frisc ... s/2327285/

Now the news is that the man post-visit California has visited the local Costco in Frisco TX

The school district is now disinfecting the building where his kids go to school.

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/03/09/fri ... ronavirus/

Maybe a travel ban on California and Washington State is needed.

Pratyush wrote:The Kerala trio, needs to be named and shamed.

chetak wrote:

Strange coincidence that all worst affected Covid19 cases are along the same Latitude 40ํ

From left: France Italy Iran Wuhan S.Korea Japan Seattle Washington NewYork

Sicanta wrote:All of Italy under quarantine now, 'except for work travel and emergency'.

The National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune is at the centre-stage since the outbreak of coronavirus across the world.

The institute was the first to start testing samples from people who displayed symptoms of coronavirus. It has succeeded in reducing the time taken to get test results back from swabbed people to close to only four hours per sample from around 12-14 hours.

ICMR-NIV, Pune was the first laboratory to start testing for the Covid-19 agent in India. We have also reported the first three positive cases within the country. As an institute, we do have the capacity to scale up our testing considerably. However, it was expected that if suspected cases were to increase, it would become logistically difficult to send all samples to Pune in a timely manner, India being a large country.

Hence, initially about 12 Virus Research Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs) under the Department of Health Research (DHR) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) within the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare were equipped to do the screening for the Covid-19 agent.

Gradually, this number has become 51 VRDLs, with a plan to further support and equip yet another 56 VRDLs all across this country. This is a sizeable network. These laboratories have received all reagent supplies from ICMR-NIV, Pune along with standard operating protocols to screen for the virus.

Many of them have also been provided with a capacity to confirm the presence of the virus by running additional confirmatory Polymerase chain reaction (PCR’s). All laboratories meet on a zoom conference every day, even on weekends, to share their results. ICMR-NIV helps with troubleshooting and providing “top-up” reagent supplies. This network has helped considerably to cope with the increasing load that we are seeing now.

Currently, the testing time for each sample is the maximum four hours. Each sample is not just tested for Covid-19 but also for 18 other respiratory viral infections, including influenza viruses.

we have just re-organized scientists and technicians from various sections from within NIV and formed a SARS-CoV-2 detection team.

SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. RNA is extracted from the clinical specimen (throat swabs, nasal swabs, sputum) and then reverse-transcribed to complementary DNA. This is then amplified in a real-time PCR using primers and probes specific for the virus.

We have a screening assay and also additional real-time PCR assays to confirm the presence of the virus. Positive results obtained in the primary testing lab are sent as part of a coded panel to the secondary lab. Results are released only after ensuring 100% concordance between both labs.

We have had requests from Maldives and Afghanistan. We tested and reported seven samples from the Maldives. We have been asked to help with setting up testing in Timor-Leste. You may be aware that we are right now helping Iran.

ramana wrote:

Mort Walker wrote:
Maybe a travel ban on California and Washington State is needed.

The rest of the US would vote for that!!!

President Xi Jinping has visited the city of Wuhan, the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, sending a message that Beijing has the situation under control.

His visit comes as China recorded its lowest number of infections, just 19 on Tuesday, all in Wuhan apart from two who had arrived from overseas.
China has seen 80,754 confirmed cases, 3,136 of whom have died.

The visit was Mr Xi's first trip to the city since the outbreak began.

sooraj wrote:‘Equipped other labs, reduced time to test’: NIV director on how India is fighting Coronavirus

The National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune is at the centre-stage since the outbreak of coronavirus across the world.

We have had requests from Maldives and Afghanistan. We tested and reported seven samples from the Maldives. We have been asked to help with setting up testing in Timor-Leste. You may be aware that we are right now helping Iran.

ramana wrote:ldev they mean a zone between 50N and 30 N.
All generalizations are general.
The intent is to show temperature as a factor.

sudarshan wrote:

srin wrote: That said, I don't know how any amount of sanitizer can help if, at the security check, one has to keep bags, electronics and jackets in the same bin where you keep your shoes !

Hah! There you go. Not just your shoes, but the shoes of hundreds of others before you on the same day. And if those bins aren't regularly cleaned, well.... Americans don't have this sense of footwear being unclean. In India, you leave them outside as much as possible, definitely don't go tramping around the house wearing them, most definitely don't get into bed with them (cuddling your pets in bed with you to ensure a good dose of nasties). Americans do all of those. Their sense of hygiene is *#$#@(!## ass-backwards. I've seen guys keep their cell phones and wallets deep inside their street shoes, while working out in the gym. How do you avoid smearing your face and ears with germs after an experiment like that?

I guess the best thing to do is to wipe down your own baggage and electronics after taking them out of those (dust)-bins. Either that, or they need to start selling shoes in airports, and ensure everybody has a new pair before boarding, just leave your old pair behind. That way the security can be sure there's no weapons in those shoes. Somebody suggest this to Nike, I'm sure they'll flip for the idea.

RKumar wrote:

sooraj wrote:‘Equipped other labs, reduced time to test’: NIV director on how India is fighting Coronavirus

We should help Maldives and Afg but due to limited resources we can’t support bigotry country like Iran. We are poor Hindus killing Peacefuls only. How we can save those who speak against India? Bad karma must be punished as soon as we can.

Cain Marko wrote:Latest from worldometer shows more than a doubling of the cases in last 2 days . It was about 400 cases and 19 deaths the last I posted.

Today's tally:
880+ cases
28 deaths

sudarshan wrote:

Cain Marko wrote:Latest from worldometer shows more than a doubling of the cases in last 2 days . It was about 400 cases and 19 deaths the last I posted.

Today's tally:
880+ cases
28 deaths

They're catching up on testing, those cases were probably already there. The deaths are a shocker, but again, could be neglected cases.

chetak wrote:

Strange coincidence that all worst affected Covid19 cases are along the same Latitude 40ํ

From left: France Italy Iran Wuhan S.Korea Japan Seattle Washington NewYork

ldev wrote:

chetak wrote:

Factually incorrect. Check out the latitudes.
Seattle is 47N
Milan is 47N
Wuhan is 30N
Teheran is 35N

and each degree is 110 km.

I was reading somewhere that Chinese researchers are saying that the virus becomes more contagious as the ambient temperature increases upto 8.7 degrees Celsius and then as the temperature continues to rise above that the propensity to spread decreases. No idea how accurate this information is though. But if it is accurate information, then as winter progresses into spring should be good news for people living in temperate climates.

BSR Murthy wrote:Just to put the Covid 19 fatalities in the US in perspective. The bulk of the deaths came from the Life Care nursing facility in Kirkland skewing the numbers. Most of the deaths are in the elderly with health conditions.

Excerpt from NYT article:
“By Monday, 19 deaths had been tied to the Life Care Center nursing facility in Kirkland, Wash., where dozens of residents, staff members and visitors were sickened. Many of those cases involved older people with other health problems that made them especially vulnerable to coronavirus.

Among the people in the United States who have died from coronavirus, almost all have been in their 70s, 80s or 90s. The youngest known fatality was a man in his 40s.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... cases.html

hanumadu wrote:Can the chinese be forced to stop eating everything that moves?

The WHO says 70 per cent of global disease-causing pathogens discovered in the past 50 years came from animals.