-The Hindu It is not data, but lack of transparency and awareness that causes panic during a pandemic China’s initial cover-up of the Novel Coronavirus outbreak for nearly a month invited worldwide condemnation. Similarly, there were concerns when the U.S. was reported to be barring leading scientist, Anthony Fauci, from speaking publicly about the COVID-19 outbreak without approval. Dr. Fauci has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious...

-Hindustan Times “We are trying to calm the peoples’ frayed nerves. The daily sharing of data is creating panic. People are buying masks and hoarding hand sanitisers,” said Dr Rajan Sharma, IMA president. New Delhi: The Indian Medical Association urged the government on Wednesday not to share Novel Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases daily, arguing the move would lead to panic even though the World Health Organisation declared it a pandemic. “We appeal to...

KEY TRENDS    • The 2019 India TB report says that the country accounted for a quarter of the global tuberculosis (TB) burden with an estimated 27 lakh cases in 2018. In 2018, the country was able to achieve a total notification of 21.5 lakh TB cases, of which 25 percent was from private sector. Majority of the TB burden is among the working age group. Nearly 89 percent of TB cases came from the age group 15-69 years....

-The Indian Express Contact tracing is not a novel concept and has been used as a method to track cases of the Ebola virus in Africa. As the number of coronavirus cases in India increases, authorities in different states are relying on contact tracing, a concept in epidemiology (the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events) that involves tracing the number of people an infected person comes in...

-The Indian Express What makes the elderly especially vulnerable to the virus? James Diaz, a professor at Louisiana State University’s School of Public Health, has hypothesised that the reason could lie in the victims’ medications. Across the world, the Novel Coronavirus has killed elderly people the most, especially those with pre-existing medical conditions such as heart disease. According to the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the fatality rate from COVID-19 is...