Covid India Updates: Can coronavirus travel on radio waves/mobile networks? Debunking myths

The Johnson & Johnson single-dose Covid-19 vaccine has been approved in the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said on Friday. This is the fourth Covid-19 vaccine to be authorised by the UK's independent regulator and is the first to be approved for protection against the Covid-19 with a single dose.

The United States and Britain are stepping up calls for the World Health Organisation to take a deeper look into the possible origins of COVID-19, including a new visit to China where the first human infections were detected. WHO and Chinese experts issued a first report in March that laid out four hypotheses about how the pandemic emerged.

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Maharashtra's daily Covid-19 deaths remained on the higher side while the state toll raced beyond the 93,000 mark, but new infections continue to dip, health officials said on Friday. Against 884 deaths on Thursday, the state reported 973 fatalities (424 fresh and 549 previous deaths), taking its toll to 93,198.

The number of fresh cases remained below the 25,000 level- and fell from 21,273 on Wednesday to 20,740, as the tally rose to 56,92,920 now.

Antibodies aren't the only immune cells needed to fight off Covid-19, T cells are equally important and can step up to do the job when antibodies are depleted, suggests a new study of blood cancer patients with coronavirus. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, US, found that blood cancer patients with Covid-19 who had higher CD8 T cells, many of whom had depleted antibodies from cancer treatments, were more than three times more likely to survive than patients with lower levels of CD8 T cells.

"It's clear T cells are critical in terms of the early infection and to help control the virus, but we also showed that they can compensate for B cell and antibody responses, which blood cancer patients are likely missing because of the drugs," said Alexander C. Huang, Assistant Professor of Hematology-Oncology at the varsity's Perelman School of Medicine.

"This is important when we think about how to improve the care of cancer patients with Covid. We need to maximise all the arms of the immune system, especially if we know that one particular arm of the immune system is down," Huang added.

-- IANS

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday said that India's active caseload shows a declining trend as cases further dipped to 23,43,152 and active cases decreased by 76,755 in the last 24 hours. At 1.86 lakh cases, the daily new cases are the lowest in the last 44 days with less than 3 lakh daily new cases for 12 consecutive days. Recoveries continued to outnumber the daily new cases for the 15th consecutive day with the recovery rate increasing to 90.34%.

The AAP on Friday alleged that the Centre is creating "artificial scarcity" of COVID-19 vaccines to benefit Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India, a charge termed by the Delhi BJP as "unfounded".

Addressing a press conference, AAP spokesperson Atishi said the government's vaccine drive has stopped in schools and this is the case throughout the country while in private hospitals, vaccination is still going on at different rates.

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Ministry of health on Friday took to Twitter to share optimistic news. The tweet informed that the recovery rate of COVID 19 patients has increased to 90.34%.

The price of DRDO’s 2DG anti-COVID 19 drug has been fixed at Rs 990 per sachet by pharma major Dr Reddy’s Laboratories , news agency ANI reported. However, the drug will be provided by government hospitals at a discounted price, officials told ANI. 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) is an oral anti-viral drug for Covid-19 patients. The drug has generated a lot of curiosity after it was launched on May 17 by the Ministry of Defence. It has been developed by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), a leading laboratory of the DRDO, in collaboration with Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) in Hyderabad.

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Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan took to Twitter to quash misinformation regarding COVID vaccines.

With 1.86 lakh new covid cases in last 24 hours, India recorded lowest in the last 44 days, according to Union Health Ministry. The coronavirus tally now stands at 2,735,142. The daily death toll, however, remained over the 3,000-mark, with 3847 deaths. Active caseload further declines to 23,43,152 with active cases decrease by 76,755 in last 24 hours, said Union Health Ministry.

With 2,59,459 patient recoveries reported during the last 24 hours, a total of 2,48,93,410 patients have recovered in the country so far. The recovery rate has jumped to 90.34%, as per Union Health Ministry data.

There are many myths doing the rounds on the internet about Covid19. The latest is if the coronavirus can travel on radio waves or mobile networks. Debunking the myths, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting reveals that viruses can not travel on radio waves or mobile networks. Covid19 is spreading in many countries that do not have a 5G mobile network.

According to AIIMS director Dr. Randeep Guleria, black fungus is not a contagious disease. The disease does not spread from one person to another. If a person is diabetic or takes high steroids, then in such cases, mucormycosis occurs. This is found in 95 percent of cases. Therefore, blood sugar patients have to take special care of their oral and physical hygiene.