426 CMAAO CORONA FACTS and MYTH 19th April:New mutant in India
Dr K K Aggarwal
426 CMAAO CORONA FACTS and MYTH 19th April: New mutant in India
Dr K Aggarwal President CMAAO, HCFI,
With input from Dr Monica Vasudev
1567: Excerpts from Reuters
1. The second surge of COVID-19 cases in India has swamped hospitals much faster than the first because mutations in the virus mean each patient is infecting many more people than before.
2. India's daily infections skyrocketed more than 20-fold to more than 200,000 on Thursday since a multi-month-low in early February
3. India has reported about 950 cases of people contracting the variants first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.
4. Even if it is a new variant, you need to do the same things to control it and treat patients but it requires a different urgency to recognise that
5. One patient is now infecting up to nine in 10 contacts, compared with up to four last year.
6. Scientists in Britain say the B.1.1.7 version of the virus, widely known as the UK variant, is 70% more transmissible than previous versions, and potentially deadlier.
7. The northern Indian state of Punjab, which has reported one of the highest recent fatality rates in the country, said late last month 81% of 401 COVID-19 samples it sent for genome sequencing were found to be the UK variant.
8. This virus is more infectious and virulent.
9. More children are reporting high-grade fever compared to last year.