-The Telegraph The pandemic has given surveillance tools legitimacy in the eyes of civil society which at other times might have been more concerned about privacy issues Among the “seven” to-dos that Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed for the country on April 13 while announcing the extension of a nationwide lockdown was a call for citizens to download the ‘Aarogya Setu’ app. It would help “prevent the spread of [the] corona infection,”...

-The Hindu When testing is done for people within a cluster, the number of positive cases seem to be higher, and vice-versa Generally, the number of positive COVID-19 cases increases when the testing rate increases. However, this is not always the case, as data from Gujarat show. Who gets tested determines the number of positive cases more than how many get tested. In Tamil Nadu, the number of positive cases went up when...

-NDTV It is difficult to detect asymptomatic cases and they can be found out only after tracing the contacts of people who have beentested positive, the top scientist said, adding that testing everyone is almost impossible. New Delhi: 80 per cent of people with coronavirus in India are asymptomatic, or do not show symptoms of the infection, and this is matter of worry, a senior scientist at the country's top medical research...

-The Indian Express Last week, the ICMR brought out an advisory on pooled testing, ideally in districts where incidence of COVID-19 is low. Faced with criticism about insufficient testing and the reality of limited resources, India has decided go for pooled testing in districts where no cases have been reported. This would on the one hand give data on whether these really are zero-case districts, and on the other, save resources. * What...

-The Telegraph The government and the elite know nothing of the working poor’s problems A very distinguished virologist whom I happen to know believes that the lockdown in India was an overreaction. His argument is that since the coronavirus was coming to India from outside, testing and quarantining people coming from abroad, and those with whom they might have been in contact within the country, should have been quite sufficient to prevent...