India coronavirus dispatch: How will the Covid-19 pandemic end?

From hospitals' response to rising cases, to the feasibility of work from home in the long run, and how ICMR inflated accuracy of its antibody test kits - read these and more in today's India dispatch

Here is a round-up of articles from Indian news publications on how the country is dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. From the response of hospitals to rising case levels, to the feasibility of work from home in the long run, and how ICMR mistakenly inflated accuracy of its antibody test kits — read these and more in today’s India dispatch.

Interview

The type of virus in India is different from that in Wuhan, Europe, US: The number of Covid-19-positive cases continues to rise, particularly in cities like Mumbai and Delhi. One of the outcomes of the rising number of cases is the increasing load on hospitals, and their seeming inability to admit all patients — both Covid and non-Covid. How are hospitals coping, and how are they responding to rising case levels? Read this interview with Vernon Desa, medical director at the 254-bed Saifee Hospital in Mumbai. READ MORE

Is work from home feasible in the long run? The Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdowns have made work from home an imperative for several industries. Having said that, some job profiles lend themselves to working from outside the office more than others do. In a conversation moderated by K Bharat Kumar, Ashwini Deshpande, professor at Ashoka University, and Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, chairman and managing director of Cognizant India, discuss whether work from home is likely to become a constant even in a post-Covid future. Read more here

Economy to shrink 12.5 per cent, 50 million to lose jobs: Former chief statistician and one of India’s most regarded economists, Pronab Sen, has said in an interview that the economy will shrink by 12.5 per cent this year after shrinking by 32 per cent in the first quarter, and unemployment could reach 11 per cent by the end of the year, with 50 million people without a job. Read more here

Managing Covid-19

ICMR says it mistakenly inflated accuracy of its antibody test kits: The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) had developed a kit called Covid Kavach Elisa to detect past infections with the novel coronavirus, and tasked Zydus Cadila with manufacturing it. On May 14, the council published a press release claiming the kit had a specificity of 100 per cent and sensitivity of 98.7 per cent. ICMR has now clarified that it mistakenly overstated the accuracy of the antibody-testing kit. Read more here

How will the Covid-19 pandemic end? The good news is that elimination can occur. New Zealand appears to have achieved elimination, and other countries like Vietnam, South Korea and Australia, might soon follow suit. But in many countries, including India, Covid-19 seems to be the unwanted guest just wouldn’t leave. Read more here

PPE priced high in private hospitals, public hospitals face shortage: When hospitals are not transparent about the number of PPE units used on a patient and the cost per unit of PPE, patients have no way of knowing how much PPE has been used for their care, and at what rate they were billed. They cannot gauge if the government’s guidelines on the rational use of PPE are being truly followed. Read more here

Recoveries outnumbering active cases holds little meaning in India right now: The number of coronavirus recovery cases have outpaced the number of active infections in India, according to data released by the health ministry. However, experts say it is too soon to read into this development. Patients of Covid-19 take up to two to four weeks to recover from the infection, which means the curve of active cases would typically stay ahead of the curve of recovered patients. Read more here

Understanding Covid-19

Asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 — why it matters, where evidence stands: Asymptomatic transmission is when a person who has no symptoms of Covid-19 — such as fever, body ache, cough, etc — transmits the novel coronavirus to another person. This is important because of the high infectiousness of the virus. A study from China published in Nature Medicine on April 15 estimated that in 44 per cent cases the disease had been contracted from a person who was not showing symptoms. Read more here

How Covid-19 could affect aviation in the long run: Researchers have assessed the initial impact of Covid-19 on air transport and found that it is likely to lead to a smaller, consolidated sector in the future. The research involved a series of in-depth interviews with senior aviation industry executives, along with analysis of flight and air freight data. The paper has been published in the Journal of Transport Geography. Read more here

How we can use technology to help identify higher-risk Covid-19 patients early: Physicians are already facing the onerous task of deciding who needs to be in a hospital and who can recover at home. For those in the hospital, the demand for ICU beds may soon exceed their availability. Can science help here? That is, can there be a simple blood test to separate infected people and say who is likely to develop a mild disease, and who is likely to develop moderate to severe Covid-19and need ICU care? Read more here