India Coronavirus Dispatch: 'New app must avoid Aarogya Setu mistakes'

The country's 'R value' improves to its lowest so far, cases cross 10 million, 60% of Indians may have been exposed to the virus, and more-news relevant to India's fight against Covid-19

India’s new app for Covid vaccine rollout must learn from Aarogya Setu’s legacy of privacy issues

Aarogya Setu, India's contact tracing app, was heavily criticized for its glaring privacy loopholes in its initial versions. India now has another app to manage Covid-19. The government must ensure the same mistakes are not repeated, says the writer of the article. 

Co-Win is a mobile application and website developed by the Indian government to manage the upcoming vaccination drive in the country. The app will allow users to register for immunisation, pick time slots, and get a QR code-based certificate after receiving the jab. A QR code is a machine-readable label that has some information about the item it is attached to. The Co-Win platform would also enable vaccine administrators to sign up for the mass immunisation drive.

The app or the website is not available to the public yet. Whenever they become available, the government would do well to preemptively address data protection concerns, the writer says. Read more here

GRAPHIC: India's Covid journey so far

India is the second worst-hit country in terms of total infections, second only to the United States. Here is a graphic that summarises how India's caseload and fatalities have fared relative to other heavily hit countries such as Brazil, Russia, France, Turkey, the UK, and the US. See here

India’s Covid R value, a key measure of the pace of the spread, dips to its lowest since pandemic began

What is the R value? It is a key measure of how quickly the virus is spreading. In simple terms, it is the average number of people who become infected by an infected individual. If the R value is above 1, the virus will spread quickly. If it is below 1, the virus will slow. R stands for reproduction number.

India’s R value for Covid-19 dropped to 0.86 this week. That is the lowest it has been since the pandemic struck, the writer of this article says. Earlier, the lowest R had declined to was 0.88 in the last week of October. However, by the end of November, the value had once again increased to above 1.

The states with the highest active caseloads have also posted R values below 1. For instance, Maharashtra’s R declined from 0.88 last week to 0.71 this week. The week before that the value was 1.08. Karnataka’s R value had grown to 1.08 last week, but is now at 0.74. Delhi’s R value improved from 0.77 last week to 0.71, the writer says. Read more here

Covid death rate nearly three times higher than the flu: Lancet study

Covid-19 is often compared with the seasonal flu, for instance, in terms of the fatality rate. A new study in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal sheds some light on the relative mortality rates.

The study has found that the fatality rate among Covid-19 patients in a two-month period this year was nearly three times higher than those who suffered from flu during the peak influenza season in 2018-19, the writer of this article says citing the study. The number of people who were admitted to the hospital at the height of the pandemic was nearly twice that of influenza in 2018-2019, the writer says. Read more here

60% of Indians may have been exposed to coronavirus already

Findings of an Indian Covid-19 supermodel created by a group of scientists put together by the Department of Science and Technology say more than 800 million Indians may have been exposed to the virus by now. And most of them are asymptomatic, the writer of the article says citing the findings. 

The group of scientists also predicted that the epidemic in India would taper off by February next year. However, the model has attracted criticism from several scientists over the methods used to arrive at the findings, the writer says. Read more here