[IP_Man]

Originally Posted by Oxy

A very popular face in Hindi news. Shocking.

https://zeenews.india.com/india/tv-j...9-2358591.html

OMG, sad sad news. He was and always be one of the best in journalism.

RIP

[tsk1979]

More news on foreign aid stuff


https://theprint.in/diplomacy/india-...for-it/652673/

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by poloman

A sad irony. Renowned infectious disease specialist Dr Rajendra Kapila dying of COVID even after two doses of Pfizer Vaccine is deeply worrying. This shows how vicious this virus is.. This is a huge warning to all those who think two doses of vaccine will push us back to normal life.
Vaccines can only help us deter a calamity. But covid appropriate behavior will be still key. Travel to India did him in.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india...168008338.html

Only Pfizer along with other third-party investigative agencies will be able to confirm if he actually died of Covid-19. Vaccines are imperfect and the rapidly (not so rapid as compared to other viruses it seems) evolving virus will make these set of initial vaccines almost pointless soon.
TLDR - I will take this news with a generous pinch of salt.

[Gansan]

Adar Poonawala bit off more than he could chew. Made huge promises which he could not keep and also committed huge numbers overseas. Was unable to meet deadlines. And has now scooted to UK. The government tried to cross the Corona river on a mud horse. Expect more shortages of vaccines. An 82 year old lady from our apartment complex had to commute 20 km to get her second shot yesterday.

https://youtu.be/q7pLWsrM4yo

[drrajasaravanan]

Originally Posted by Gsynch

All the
My queries are as follows:
- Is it fine to go along with only paracetamol or do we need some early-stage intervention with anti-viral or some other drugs.
- CT value of 14 of RT PCR, does it denote anything about infection or disease: Mild, moderate etc.
- Though I am asymptomatic, should i get myself (and kids) tested too?
- I am playing the role of caregiver and difficult to avoid contact with kids especially younger one with the mother being isolated in another room. What is the protocol here?
Apologies for the long post and thank you for your patience to read through this.

Hi,
To answer your questions
1. Paracetamol and vitamins they are the mainstay. Keep monitoring her respiratory effort and oxygen levels. Antiviral may not help and are not indicated in majority.
2. Cycle threshold indicates the viral load in a patient and doesn't go well with the clinical presentation or course of illness.
3. Testing can wait. Isolate and if symptomatic adopt COVID appropriate behaviour and start recommended supportive measures.
4. Interaction with kids is paramount. Isolation for them is traumatic for their mental health. Wear N95 at home, wash your hands frequently and other COVID appropriate behaviour as much as feasible. If your kids are slightly older they too can use N95.

Originally Posted by adi.mariner

This might be a noob question. How are recovered cases calculated in the daily reported Covid-19 figures? This is specifically for India. I couldn't find any clear answers online.

Hi,
After talking to the personnel reporting to the central authority for COVID related information I am Sure the data reflected is not true in all aspects. No point in looking at the statistics which is skewed to say the least.

Originally Posted by poloman

A This is a huge warning to all those who think two doses of vaccine will push us back to normal life.
Vaccines can only help us deter a calamity. But covid appropriate behavior will be still key.

Hi,
Thank you for that post. Even if we are vaccinated we need to adapt COVID appropriate behaviour as the first two weeks is the key for the body to mount an appropriate response. And yes vaccination doesn't mean we are immune and few cases where the response is poor and all we should expect is reducing the impact of severe infections requiring hospitalization. Majority will benefit by vaccination

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Here's a question about inhalation. I'm sure that many of us are used to adding decongestant stuff for inhalation, like those small green capsules (karvol, I think) from the pharmacy. They have often worked wonders for me. But my instinct is that, in the case of a viral infection of the chest, they could cause severe irritation. Am I right? Should be warned against them?

Hi,
Decongestant for upper airway, nose and throat, congestion should not impact your lower airway.
As long it's used as indicated it should not make a negative impact.

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by Gansan

Adar Poonawala bit off more than he could chew. Made huge promises which he could not keep and also committed huge numbers overseas. Was unable to meet deadlines. And has now scooted to UK. The government tried to cross the Corona river on a mud horse. Expect more shortages of vaccines. An 82 year old lady from our apartment complex had to commute 20 km to get her second shot yesterday.

The fact is that the government did not anticipate nor "care " for any possible second wave, this despite witnessing similar situations in western countries. In fact, they also claimed to have beaten the virus at events like Davos. They had no backup plan by making bulk advance purchases of other vaccines like Sputnik, Moderna, Pfizer or JJ.

Read the following article, which exposes some deeper issues about public health infrastructure.
https://www.ft.com/content/c99d2f9f-...8-3f3dd4dd87c1

[drrajasaravanan]

Originally Posted by SahilS

.

1st query:
Will my wife be able to donate Plasma to the needful if required, say after a month or 15 more days? means will her igG antibodies continue to increase and reach a minimum value which is required for donating plasma.

2nd query
Am I still Ok to get vaccine in say next 15 days. Normally people who recover from Covid are advised to get vaccines after 60 days as they already have enough Covid antibodies at present. But no high antibodies are there in me.

3rd query
I remained asymptomatic but still some antobodies were detected, although very very low. Is there a possibility that I also contacted very mild case of Covid and because I remained asymptomatic, there is very small but detectable amount of antibodies.
Can these tests show very less amount of antibodies falsely i.e even if some person never contacted Covid, but still tests could show some detectable antibodies(both igG and total)?

4th query
Can we say that more the severeness of Covid infection, more will be antobodies? So in our case, as the infection was mild for my wife, so lesser antibodies. Or for me, I was asymptomatic, so very less but still detectable antibodies.

Thanks a lot!

For other readers, the following chart shows on average, how these short term(igM) and long term(igG) antibodies are formed after infection.
image source: link

Hi,
To answer your questions
1. Convalscent plasma therapy has very narrow window of use and still studies are going on. If your wife is keen to donate she can 14days after she has recovered from the illness. In my friends department there are proponents supporting it for early cases with high viral load and they track probable donors too with high antibody titers.
2. If your chance of reinfection is high or you have potential comorbids which are high risk than get the vaccine after recovery. The antibody detected in your sample may not protect you. Though most people are advised to wait for a month or two I would request you to consider getting the shot after 2weeks if possible.
3. Antibodies checked are specific and you cannot detect unless you are infected. 50% of people are asymptomatic so you can still have antibodies even if you have no symptoms. It's extremely rare for people not to seroconvert but there has been reports.
4. The proportion of antibodies is directly related to the virus load. Greater the virus load more is the chance to produce antibodies. More antibodies improves the chances of rapid clearance of the virus. Having said that there are random reports of non sero conversion due to low viral load or poor immune system. It's complex and data is still lacking.
Hope this helps..

[vinu_h]

Folks, running/cycling/walking etc(not gym/pool) - are you permitting in your apartments ? Your views. Writing from experience in my complex.

Reasons to permit:

1. Mental and physical well being is a must and enables better immunity.
2. Humans function better in a social setup and isolation erodes confidence; especially for kids, with schools and play areas closed.
3. Good for the marriage

Reasons to not permit:

1. About 25 of ~400 residents were infected, BBMP was threatening to classify us as a micro containment zone. We are now down to just 7 infected.
2. A few C+ and primary contacts weren't isolating and were roaming the common areas recklessly.
3. High population of residents that step out to work in the essentials sector - banks, business etc. They have the most exposure and can possibly spread to the rest.

[praveen789]

Originally Posted by adi.mariner

This might be a noob question. How are recovered cases calculated in the daily reported Covid-19 figures? This is specifically for India. I couldn't find any clear answers online.

Just making an educated guess here based on how things are happening in Mumbai -

When a lab tests an individual as positive, it is mandated to upload the data to ICMR and inform local authorities before it even informs the patient. Once the patient is informed, there are 2 outcomes:

1. The patient has to be hospitalised or put in a quarantine centre
a) The patient has severe symptoms
b) The patient does not have place at home to isolate

2. The patient can self quarantine
a) The patient has minor/no symptoms
b) The patient has place at home to self quarantine

In case of point 1, it is easy to track recoveries as hospitals would report how many patients got discharged in a day (this might be before the required 14 day quarantine as well)

In case of point 2, it depends more on how the local authorities are following up with patients who are home quarantined. In a worst case scenario, they might be automatically adding the patient to the recovered list post 14 days of infection. In best case scenario, they would follow up regularly with the patient and confirm post 14 days whether the patient did not move to category 1 (to avoid double counting recovered cases).

[subramaniamj]

Yeah, its that time again. Unfortunately, with us being reporting over 35k cases a day on an average for the past couple of weeks the Govt. of Kerala has decided to initiate a lockdown starting from 6 AM on May 8th till midnight on 16th. All essential services shall be allowed, and no person shall move around unwanted and would initiate stringent punishment.

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...le34496164.ece

It was seen that on average, the law enforcing authorities have been collecting almost 1000+ cases a day for not wearing masks or breaking quarantine protocols, a few thousands of cases for not maintaining social distance, north of 55 Lakhs every day as fines all over Kerala and still people aren't co-operating.

Source https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news...nday-1.5625248

Stay safe all.. This time too shall pass..

[drrajasaravanan]

Hi,
For people who are looking for hospital beds in Chennai and Tamil Nadu, the following link will be of some assistance. I can't say it's accurate or up-to-date but can give a fair idea of the closes places to access. I hope the people who worked on this make it more robust.
https://tncovidbeds.tnega.org/

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by vinu_h

Folks, running/cycling/walking etc(not gym/pool) - are you permitting in your apartments ? Your views. Writing from experience in my complex.

... About 25 of ~400 residents were infected, BBMP was threatening to classify us as a micro containment zone. We are now down to just 7 infected.
.

Just curious, were all 400 residents tested? Or was it that 25 people were symptomatic and were tested to be Covid positive?

[Zen2001]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Here's a question about inhalation. I'm sure that many of us are used to adding decongestant stuff for inhalation, like those small green capsules (karvol, I think) from the pharmacy. They have often worked wonders for me. But my instinct is that, in the case of a viral infection of the chest, they could cause severe irritation. Am I right? Should be warned against them?

Yes, most contain camphor which can irritate the (already inflammed) lower respiratory tract, causing further edema (swelling), mucous secretion, bronchoconstriction - leading to further aggravation of existing breathing difficulty. They are more useful to clear (decongest) the upper tract; however can be irritating to those who are sensitive - best avoided.

[poloman]

4.2L cases, 4000 deaths. Most states in lock down and you see what..
https://twitter.com/ndtv/status/1389851414667530240
https://twitter.com/ShivAroor/status...91044776562688
https://twitter.com/EconomicTimes/st...85228945432581

This is true unity in diversity.
Alright, let us take a deep breath and start the blame game. Everyone other than you responsible for this mess.

[Zen2001]

Doctor Vs Doctor

Radiologists rubbish Dr Randeep Guleria's CT scan claim.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...edium=Referral

But here's another view from a radiologist himself :

https://www.matkamedicine.com/p/doingsomething

We are caught in the malady of "seeing as doing something" when doing nothing would have worked equally well.