India Coronavirus Dispatch: New computational tool to track Covid mutations

Parents more ready to send kids to school, trial candidates wonder if they got vaccine or placebo, Antibodies appear faster if exposed to virus earlier-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

IN NUMBERS: Over 16,000 fresh cases reported

India reported 16,838 fresh coronavirus infections on Friday, taking the cumulative caseload to 11,173,761, according to a report in the Scroll. The country saw 113 deaths due to the pandemic, taking the death toll to 157,548, according to central health ministry data. The active caseload is at 176,319, while the total recoveries have surged to 10,839,894. As many as 18,005,503 people have been inoculated since the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off on January 16. Of these, 1,388,170 received their shots on Thursday. Read more here

New computational tool to track Covid mutations

Researchers at Mumbai's Homi Bhabha National Institute have built a new computational tool that can discover the origins of new variants of coronavirus, a report in ThePrint said. The tool allows scientists around the world to keep an eye out for emerging mutations that are a source of concern. Researchers can use the tool online for free to generate an automated report on coronavirus genome sequences without any prior computational knowledge. The findings of the research were published in the journal Briefings in Bioinformatics. Read more here

Many trial participants still unsure if they got a vaccine or placebo

Even as India's vaccination programme has reached its second phase that is targeting the elderly and those with preexisting conditions many volunteers who took part in the clinical trials of Covid vaccines—Covishield and Covaxin—still do not know if they were given a placebo or the actual vaccine, a report in ThePrint said. In the case of Pune-based Serum Institute of India's Covishield, the expert panel under India's apex drug regulator Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has recommended that trial participants should be informed of their status “upon request of the clinical trial participant only”. Read more here

Parents more willing to send children back to school now: Survey

As much as 85 per cent of parents polled in a new survey were willing to send their children back to school, a report in IndiaToday said. The survey was conducted in two phases by a Bengaluru-based pre-school called KLAY. The first phase of the survey carried out in November indicated 53% of parents were not in favour of sending their children to school. However, the second phase conducted in February this year showed there was a meaningful shift in mindset with as much as 85 per cent of parents in favour of sending their children to a “safe and happy” environment by June this year. The survey polled 2,000 families in several cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Mumbai. Read more here

Antibodies appear faster if previously exposed to the virus: Study

Antibodies to a Covid-19 infection appear significantly only two weeks after a vaccine jab, while this happens in just a week in those who have been infected by the virus previously, a report in The Hindu said citing a new study. Researchers who conducted the study recommended that those who have been exposed to the virus previously can be prioritised lower than those who have remained unexposed in mass vaccination campaigns. Read more here