India Coronavirus Dispatch: National turnout for shots lacklustre so far

Health conditions that won't hamper vaccination, virus more likely to spread by air than surfaces, and how vaccines work-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

National turnout for vaccination lacklustre amid fears of vaccine safety

Even as India began an ambitious vaccination drive last week to inoculate over a billion people, the programme has been hampered by turnout as low as 22 per cent in some states, according to a report in The Guardian.

Amid fears of the safety of the vaccines, the national turnout has averaged about 64 per cent so far. States such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab saw disappointing turnouts as low as 22 per cent and 23 per cent in the first two days of the programme. Experts attributed the low turnout to nervousness among healthcare workers about being first in line to receive the shots, as well as technical difficulties with India's app to alert people about their appointments—Co-Win. The central government aims to inoculate the priority groups numbering 300 million people by August. However, the target will become challenging if the turnout remains poor. Read more here

IIT-B study reveals how effectively the virus spreads through coughs

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay have developed a mathematical formulation to understand how virus-carrying fluid particles carried by a person’s cough or sneeze spreads through the ambient air, according to a report in Research Matters.

The researchers found that the spread of the virus does not depend on who coughs and how hard. The volume of air eventually covered by the cough cloud is independent of the speed with which it is ejected. As the droplet concentration inside the cloud reduces significantly with time, the extent of the spread falls as the virus requires droplets to survive. Earlier experiments have shown that masks reduce the distance covered by the cloud by blocking it before its spread. Researchers found that while the cloud remains effective till about 8 seconds before dissipating whether or not a person is masked, surgical masks reduce the volume by seven times compared to having no mask. N95 decrease it by as much as 23 fold. This sheds a light on why masks have been so effective in curbing the spread, the report said. Read more here

Health conditions that will not hamper vaccination

Here are some of the health conditions that still allow to you get vaccinated for Covid-19, according to a report in The Indian Express. This applies to both Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and Serum Institute's Covishield.

People who had Covid-19 in the past and have recovered, those with immunodeficiency or HIV, patients on immune suppression, persons with chronic diseases and co-morbidities such as pulmonary, cardiac, and neurological can get vaccinated, according to the report. The vaccines, however, might be less effective for those on immune suppression.  Read more here

How do vaccines work?

Shahid Jameel, one of India's best-known virologists, and Virander Singh Chauhan, former director of Delhi-based International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) explained how vaccines work and how important they are in this report in The Indian Express.

A vaccine resembles the disease-causing agent that trains the body’s immune system and creates a ‘memory’. When the virus infects in the future, this memory is deployed to destroy the pathogen and prevent disease. The incidence of an infectious disease decreases rapidly after a vaccine is developed against it, evidence shows. Many human diseases can be prevented by vaccines now. Smallpox and the near eradication of polio some of the notable ones. Vaccines have resulted in the prevention of over 20 other life-threatening diseases. An estimated 2-3 million deaths annually have been prevented thanks to vaccines, the report said. Read more here

Virus likelier in air we breathe than on surfaces

Since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak, global health guidelines have recommended disinfecting surfaces, but a year into the pandemic overwhelming scientific evidence shows that the virus is much more likely to spread through by air than by surfaces, according to a report in ThePrint. Experts said disinfecting surfaces is a waste of time, money, and effort which would be better used in avoiding breathing other people’s exhaled air, the report said. Read more here