-CaravanMagazine.in A national task force on COVID-19, comprising 21 leading scientists from across the country, which was supposed to advise the Narendra Modi government on its response to the pandemic, did not meet even once in the week preceding the announcement to extend the nationwide lockdown, according to four members of the group of experts. In a national broadcast on 14 April, Modi announced the decision to extend the lockdown till...

-The Indian Express The technique, also known as the convalescent plasma therapy, seeks to make use of the antibodies developed in the recovered patient against the coronavirus. As Delhi’s coronavirus cases climbed to over 1,500, the state government on Wednesday announced that plasma enrichment technique would now be used to treat severely-ill COVID-19 patients on trial basis at a government hospital. Last week, Kerala became the first state to receive ICMR approval...

-The Hindu Lockdowns alone can’t be effective unless combined with other health measures, says the WHO Chief Scientist. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation, tells The Hindu in an interview that the fight against COVID-19 is likely to be long-term, and lockdowns alone cannot be effective unless combined with other public health measures. Dr. Swaminathan, who has worked in research on tuberculosis and HIV for 30 years, was...

-The Indian Express Scientific estimates suggest that without social distancing measures, the reproductive rate would have been 2.5 people per day, but with the lockdown, we have been able to reduce social exposure by over 75%, leading to an infection rate of around 0.625 persons per day.” New Delhi: Exposing lack of coordination within the government, the Health Ministry has rejected a statement made by the Ministry of External Affairs, which had...

-The Hindu 40% of patients with severe respiratory illness lacked travel history, suggest ICMR scientists There was evidence for community transmission — or instances of coronavirus (COVID-19) in patients who had no established contact with someone who had picked up the disease from abroad — from as early as March 22, suggests a research study in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, authored by several ICMR scientists — including its head Balram...