Tag: #covid

DELTA VARIANT

The Delta variant, or B.1.617.2, which was first identified in India in October 2020, has now become the leading covid strain in the UK, presently reporting for more than 90% of cases there.

In the US, too, the number of Delta variant cases are speedily growing, up from 10% of the total Covid-19 cases last week to 20% this week. According to a Financial Times analysis, the delta variant reports for more than a third of new cases each day in the US.

What is Delta Plus?

The variant, called “Delta Plus” in India, was first reported in a Public Health England bulletin on June 11.

It is a sub-lineage of the Delta variant first detected in India and has obtained the spike protein mutation called K417N which is also found in the Beta variant first identified in South Africa.

Some scientists concern that the mutation, joined with current features of the Delta variant, could make it more infectious.

“The mutation K417N has been of interest as it is present in the Beta variant (B.1.351 lineage), which was reported to have immune evasion property,” India’s health ministry said in a declaration.

Shahid Jameel, a top Indian virologist, said the K417N was known to decrease the efficiency of a mixture of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.

Where all has it been found?

As of June 16, at least 197 cases had been detected in 11 countries — Britain (36), Canada (1), India (8), Japan (15), Nepal (3), Poland (9), Portugal (22), Russia (1), Switzerland (18), Turkey (1), the United States (83).

India said, on Wednesday, around 40 cases of the variant have been detected in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, with “no significant increase in prevalence”. The initial case in India is from a sample taken on April 5.

Britain said its first 5 cases were sequenced on April 26 and they were contacts of individuals who had travelled from, or transited through, Nepal and Turkey.

No deaths were accounted among the UK and Indian cases.

What are the worries?

Research is ongoing in India and world-wide to test the efficiency of vaccines against this alteration.

“WHO is tracking this variant as part of the Delta variant, as we are doing for other Variants of Concern with additional mutations,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a declaration sent to Reuters.

“For the moment, this variant does not seem to be common, currently accounting for only a small fraction of the Delta sequences…Delta and other circulating Variants of Concern remain a higher public health risk as they have demonstrated increases in transmission,” it said.

But India’s health ministry cautioned that regions where it has been found “may need to enhance their public health response by focusing on surveillance, enhanced testing, quick contact-tracing and priority vaccination.”

There are doubts that Delta Plus would impose another wave of diseases on India after it emerged from the world’s worst surge in cases only recently.

The mutation itself may not lead to a third wave in India — that also depends on Covid-appropriate behaviour, but it could be one of the reasons,” said Tarun Bhatnagar, a scientist with the state-run Indian Council for Medical Research.

Things we learned from Covid-19

We came to know real friends and relatives. In this lockdown, only a few people cared about us. Before that, in our life, we trusted everyone and helped them with good intentions. But when a problem was raised for us they left us in midway. Thanks to the virus which helped us to identify real ones and fake ones. If they betrayed us it doesn’t mean that we should not help them in the future.

Many relationships broke in this lockdown due to long-distance and lack of motivation to call the other person and the main reason is laziness. Due to this, the other person could have thought that you are no longer interested in them and the second thoughts will arise in their minds which will create a rift in your relationship. They will keep on pestering you to know the actual reason and you will say to them that there is nothing to worry about. Here you will come to know how much space your partner is giving you to breathe. If they keep on dominating you please leave that relationship immediately for your goodness and also for your partner. 

You came to know the troubles faced by healthcare professionals. They are the real gods in these tough times. They too have families to take care of but they served the patients with utmost care and good health care facilities. We should thank them for their good services in these tough times. There is a series in Dice Media channel called Operation MBBS. It has 2 seasons. The first season will talk about the normal medical college-related things. But in the second season, they captured all the issues and difficulties faced by people, healthcare professionals, and doctors. Everybody should watch that series to get a clear view of the difficulties in our life.

Many people lost their jobs. Even people working in IT companies also lost their jobs. Because there is no work left for people to do. Due to this, they got kicked out of their jobs. That is the time when we came to know the real value of jobs and skills required for us to land in good jobs. 

Nowadays skills are more important and we have to be skilled enough to land in a good company. So many students started to learn online courses to improve their knowledge and kill their time. Also, many online platforms provided free courses for students to learn. All we have to do is explore them and start learning them to keep ourselves updated.

Due to the lack of money people started to do freelancing. So heavy competition started to creep up in freelancing fields. Only people with good portfolios got selected. And another thing that arose in this lockdown is so many people started their youtube channels. They started posting so many videos and competition began to creep up. People are tired of watching them and only good productive videos got more views than random videos. 

We came to know about the importance of families and our family dinner. This lockdown gave us lots of time to connect with our family members and we spent our quality time with them by chit-chatting, playing, cooking, and laughing. These things could have happened once in a year but this lockdown made it lasted for more than 2 months. It is our family which will support us and will come with us throughout our lifetime. Others in our life are temporary and we should prioritize our time according to our needs.