India Coronavirus Dispatch: Armed forces stave off second wave

Daily average jabs nearly halved in April-May, how self-test kits help, BioNTech says vaccine might work against Indian variant-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

Over 259,000 fresh cases reported

India reported 2,59,551 fresh coronavirus infections on Friday, taking the cumulative caseload to 26 million, according to central health ministry data. The country saw 4,209 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 291,331. The active caseload is at 3 million, while the total recoveries have surged to 22.7 million. As many as 191.8 million shots have been administered since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 1.5 million were given on Thursday. Read more

Armed forces stave off second wave thanks to vaccines, strict protocols

The armed forces personnel in India have seen about 52,000 cases and 140 deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic since the virus broke out last year, a report in ThePrint said. However, the armed forces have been largely safe in the second wave—thanks to nearly 90 per cent double vaccination and strict protocols implemented by the Army, Navy and Air Force—even as the civilian population has been badly hit across the country. The Army has further expanded its medical capacity across India to prepare for the third wave while also helping the civilian administration, the report said. Read more

Daily average vaccinations fell by almost 50% between April and May

The national average in daily inoculations hit a high in April, but slipped to nearly half of that in May soon after the vaccination programme was opened up for all adults, a report in ThePrint said. In April, India, on average, administered 30,24,362 shots a day. In May, that number fell to an average of 16,22,087 doses a day. This comes even as the Modi government and the States exchange blame and citizens continue to struggle to find slots on the Co-Win platform, the government’s centralised system for booking a vaccine dose, the report said. Read here

How does a self-test Covid kit help?

There's enormous pressure on diagnostics laboratories as many states are going through a second wave of infections, explains a report in The Indian Express. The RT-PCR test, while it is considered the gold standard, takes 3-4 days to give results. This delays hospitalisation and treatment. Self-help kits can reduce queues in labs, cut costs, lower the burden on manpower for sample collection from homes, and also provide quick results within 15 minutes. This can help in prompt treatment and isolation, the report said. Read more

BioNTech says vaccine likely to be effective against Indian variant

German biotech firm BioNTech has said the Covid vaccine it developed with Pfizer should be about as effective against the so-called Indian variant as it has been against the South African variant, a report in The Indian Express said. The firm's Chief Executive Ugur Sahin felt encouraged by recent findings in a scientific paper based on blood analysis of vaccinated persons, which showed that the antibodies elicited by the vaccine were able to neutralise the Indian variant, the company said. Read here