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New Delhi, Apr 14: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday requested young scientists of the country to come forward and take the lead in developing a vaccine for novel coronavirus which has claimed over one lakhs lives worldwide.

"While India has limited resources today. I have a special request for India's young scientists. They should come forward and take a lead in developing a vaccine for coronavirus for the welfare of the world, for the welfare of the human race," the Prime Minister said in the address to the nation.

He said that if people continue to be patient and follow rules then the country will be able to defeat even a pandemic like coronavirus.
Prime Minister Modi also announced that the country will remain under lockdown till May 3 to contain COVID-19 cases. The 21-day lockdown, which was announced by the Prime Minister last month, was slated to end today.

However, he indicated at easing of lockdown restrictions in places where there are no hotspots after April 20.

"Till 20th April, all districts, localities, states will be closely monitored, as to how strictly they are implementing norms. The states which will not let hotspots increase, they could be allowed to let some important activities resume, but with certain conditions," Modi said.

Odisha, Punjab, Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry have already announced the extension of lockdown.

India's total number of coronavirus positive cases has climbed to 10,363 including 8,988 active cases, 1,035 cured/discharged/migrated and 339 deaths, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said today.

Jan 28: China said on Tuesday that 106 people had died from a new coronavirus that is spreading across the country, up from the previous toll of 81.

The number of total confirmed cases in China rose to 4,515 as of Jan. 27, the National Health Commission said in a statement, up from 2,835 reported a day earlier.

The United States warned against travel to China on Monday and Canada issued a more narrow travel warning as the death toll from the spreading coronavirus passed 100, with tens of millions stranded during the biggest holiday of the year and global markets rattled.

Global stocks fell, oil prices hit three-month lows, and China's yuan dipped to its weakest level in 2020 as investors fretted about damage to the world's second-biggest economy from travel bans and the Lunar New Year holiday, which China extended in a bid to keep people at home.

The health commission of China's Hubei province said on Tuesday that 100 people had died from the virus as of Jan. 27, according to an online statement, up from the previous toll of 76, with the number of confirmed cases in the province rose to 2,714.

Other fatalities have been reported elsewhere in China, including the first in Beijing, bringing the deal toll to 106 so far, according to the People's Daily. The state newspaper put the total number of confirmed cases in China at 4,193, though some experts suspect a much higher number.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump offered China whatever help it needed, while the State Department said Americans should "reconsider" visiting all of China due to the virus.

Canada, which has two confirmed cases of the virus and is investigating 19 more potential cases, warned its citizens to avoid travel to China's Hubei province, at the heart of the outbreak.

Authorities in Hubei province are taking increasing flak from the public over their initial response to the virus. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the city of Wuhan, epicentre of the outbreak, to encourage medical workers and promise reinforcements.

Visiting Wuhan in blue protective suit and mask, Li praised medics, said 2,500 more workers would join them in the next two days, and visited the site of a new hospital to be built in days.

The most senior leader to visit Wuhan since the outbreak, Li was shown on state TV leading medical workers in chants of "Wuhan jiayou!" - an exhortation to keep their strength up.

China's ambassador to the United Nations, following a meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, said "the Chinese government attaches paramount importance to prevention and control of the epidemic, and President Xi Jinping has given important instructions. ...

"China has been working with the international community in the spirit of openness, transparency and scientific coordination," he said.

Guterres said in a statement, "The UN appreciates China's effort, has full confidence in China's ability of controlling the outbreak, and stands ready to provide any support and assistance."

MOUNTING ANGER

On China's heavily censored social media, officials have faced mounting anger over the virus, which is thought to have originated from a market where wildlife was sold illegally.

Some criticised the governor of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, after he corrected himself twice during a news conference over the number of face masks being produced.

"If he can mess up the data multiple times, no wonder the disease has spread so severely," said one user of the Weibo social media platform.

In rare public self-criticism, Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang said the city's management of the crisis was "not good enough" and indicated he was willing to resign.

The central Chinese city of 11 million people is in virtual lockdown and much of Hubei, home to nearly 60 million people, is under travel curbs.

Elsewhere in China, people from the region faced questioning about their movements. "Hubei people are getting discriminated against," a Wuhan resident complained on Weibo.

Cases linked to people who travelled from Wuhan have been confirmed in a dozen countries, from Japan to the United States, where authorities said they had 110 people under investigation in 26 states. Sri Lanka was the latest to confirm a case.

INVESTORS WORRIED

Investors are worried about the impact. The consensus is that in the short term, economic output will be hit as authorities limit travel and extend the week-long New Year holiday — when millions traditionally travel by rail, road and plane - by three days to limit spread of the virus.

Asian and European shares tumbled, with Japan's Nikkei average sliding 2%, its biggest one-day fall in five months. Demand spiked for safe-haven assets such as the Japanese yen and Treasury notes. European stocks fell more than 2%.

The US S&P 500 closed down nearly 1.6%.

"China is the biggest driver of global growth so this couldn't have started in a worse place," said Alec Young, FTSE Russell's managing director of global markets research.

During the 2002-2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which originated in China and killed nearly 800 people globally, air passenger demand in Asia plunged 45%. The travel industry is more reliant on Chinese travellers now.

Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, which has had eight cases, banned entry to people who had visited Hubei recently.

Some European tour operators cancelled trips to China, while governments around the world worked on repatriating nationals.

Officially known as 2019-nCoV, the newly identified coronavirus can cause pneumonia, but it is still too early to know just how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads.

"What we know about this virus it that transmission occurs through human contact but we are speaking of close contact, i.e. less than a meter," said Jerome Salomon, a senior official with France's health ministry.

"Crossing someone (infected) in the street poses no threat," he said. "The risk is low when you spend a little time near that person and becomes higher when you spend a lot of time near that person."

New Delhi, May 23: The nationwide lockdown will no longer help India in its fight against COVID-19, and in its place community-driven containment, isolation and quarantine strategies have to be brought into play, leading virologist Shahid Jameel said.

The recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology also stressed that testing should be carried out vigorously to identify coronavirus hotspots and isolate those areas.

"Our current testing rate at 1,744 tests per million population is one of the lowest in the world. We should deploy both antibody tests and confirmatory PCR tests. This will tell us about pockets of ongoing infection and past (recovered) infection. This will provide data to open up gradually and let economic activity resume," Jameel told PTI in an interview.

He stressed that testing has to be dynamic to continuously monitor red, orange and green zones and change these based on that data.

About community transmission of COVID-19 in India, Jameel said the country reached that stage long ago.

"We reached community transmission a long time ago. It's just that the health authorities are not admitting it. Even ICMR's own study of SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) showed that about 40 per cent of those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 did not have any history of overseas travel or contact to a known case. If this is not community transmission, then what is?" he posed.

Lockdown bought India time in its fight against coronavirus, but continuing it is unlikely to yield any further dividend, Jameel said.

"Instead, community-driven local lockdowns, isolations and quarantines have to come into play. Building trust is most important so that people follow rules. A public health problem cannot be dealt with as a law-and-order problem."

The nationwide lockdown, initially imposed from March 25 to April 14, has been extended thrice and will continue at least till May 31. The virus has claimed 3,720 lives and infected over 1.25 lakh people in the country so far.

Jameel has expertise in the fields of molecular biology, infectious diseases, and biotechnology. He is the CEO of Wellcome Trust/Department of Biotechnology's India Alliance and is best known for extensive research in Hepatitis E virus and HIV.

He said COVID-19 will eventually be controlled through herd immunity, which is acquired in two ways – when a sufficient fraction of the population gets infected and recovers, and with vaccination.

"It is estimated that for SARS-CoV-2 at least 60 per cent of the population would have to be infected and recovered, or vaccinated. This will happen over the course of the next few years," Jameel said.

Herd immunity is reached when the majority of a population becomes immune to an infectious disease, either because they have become infected and recovered, or through vaccination. When that happens, the disease is less likely to spread to people who aren't immune, because there just aren't enough infectious carriers.

"India has 1.38 billion people, a population density of about 400/sq km and a healthcare system ranked at 143 in the world. If we allow 60 per cent people to get infected quickly in the hopes of herd immunity, that would mean 830 million infections," Jameel said.

"If 15 per cent need hospitalization that means about 125 million isolation beds (we have 0.3 million). If five per cent need oxygen and ventilatory support, this amounts to about 42 million oxygen support and ICU beds; we have 0.1 million oxygen support beds and 34,000 ICU beds. This would overwhelm the healthcare system causing mayhem," he said.

Jameel said if the population level mortality is 0.5 per cent that would mean 40 lakh deaths. "Are we prepared to pay this price for herd immunity in the short term? Clearly not," he said.

He said it is unlikely that a vaccine would be available by the end of the year.

"Even then, we don't know yet how long it would give protection – weeks, months, one year, a few years? I don't think we will return to pre-coronavirus days for at least the next 3-5 years. This is also a chance to evaluate if we want to return to those unsustainable, environment-damaging ways. COVID-19 is a timely warning to reform our way of living," he said.

Jameel said it is hard to predict but plausible that COVID-19 would return in second or third wave.

"Later waves come when we don't understand the disease and become lax. A comparison to Spanish Flu is not entirely valid because in 1918 no one knew what caused it. No one had seen a virus till the mid-1930s as the electron microscope needed to view those was invented in 1931," he said.

"Today we know a lot more about the pathogen, its genetic makeup, how it transmits and how to prevent it. We need to be sensible and follow expert advice," he said.

If there is any scientific evidence linking deforestation, rapid urbanisation, climate change with pandemics like COVID-19, he said zoonotic viruses -- those that jump from animals to humans -- happen so when wild animal–human contacts increase.

"Deforestation destroys animal habitats bringing them closer to humans. When you cut forests, bats come to roost on trees closer to human habitations. Their viruses in secretions/stool get transmitted to domestic animals and on to humans. This happened clearly with Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia in 1997-98 from fruit bats to pigs to humans," he said.

"COVID-19 possibly arose in wet animal markets due to dietary habits that bring all kinds of live and dead wild animals in close contact with humans," Jameel added.