Chicago IL: The COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on communities across the globe. Thanks to the effort put forth by scientists, researchers, doctors, among many others, vaccines have been developed that have shown evidence of generating strong immune responses against the COVID-19 virus. As the scientific community and public officials have emphasized, widespread vaccination is an essential pillar of battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

 BAPS Charities organized a COVID-19 Vaccination Drive in Bartlett, Illinois on April 01, 2021, in collaboration with Prism Health Lab. A total of 1,111 vaccine doses were administered to essential workers and adults with underlying health conditions in just one day.

 Volunteers from BAPS Charities ensured that all participants’ vaccination experience was orderly and safe by providing social distancing, sanitization, and translation services. Medical staff from Prism Health Lab also carried out the vaccination registration, delivery of vaccines and offered post-vaccination care. “It is a passion for our volunteers to give back, and we’re grateful to have Prism Health as a partner in this vaccine drive,” said Yagnesh Patel, a BAPS Charities volunteer. The recipients of the vaccine appreciated the seamless organization of the vaccination process. Dr. Mehbub Kapadia, Medical Director of Prism Health Lab, said, “I am so thankful to the BAPS Charities volunteers for putting this event together in only two days. This event is one of the best events we have done, among the over 100 drives we have done so far.”

Rachel L, a local resident stated, “I am getting vaccinated for the loved ones in my family, for those that I am encountering, just to save a life, to protect those who I love.”

BAPS Charities has supported local communities during these trying times by battling the misinformation surrounding COVID-19 vaccines and providing vaccination infrastructure. Similar Vaccination Drives have been planned at over 30 cities throughout North America wherein thousands of community residents will get easy access to vaccines.

 BAPS Charities has actively served the community, particularly frontline workers, first responders, community support organizations, medical centers and the underserved since the onset of the pandemic. BAPS Charities has provided over 110,000 pieces of personal protective equipment, donated $180,000 in financial assistance and prepared and delivered over 80,000 meals to those battling the Coronavirus for all. For further details about the above efforts and information regarding supporting the ongoing BAPS Charities COVID-19, visit the following links.

Exactly one year after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic and about three months since the first Americans outside of clinical trials got shots, one in 10 people in the US are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on its website that at least 33.9 million Americans are protected with either a one-dose or two-dose vaccine. One vaccine expert is concerned that as case numbers fall and days get warmer and longer, many people will forgo getting a shot.

“I think we are going to get fooled.” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said. “I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to see that as we enter the summer months, numbers are going to go down, people will think great, we’re good.” If the United States doesn’t reach 80% of the population having immunity via inoculations because people lost interest in being vaccinated, another surge is possible, he said.

But the rise in cases late this year could be less significant if more than 260 million get their shots. “I think when next winter comes, because this virus isn’t going away, (if we get to 80% vaccinated) we’ll see a bump instead of a surge,” Offit said at a virtual event hosted by the Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organization, and Leaps.org, a science media platform. “And that’d be the test of how well we’ve done with getting this in hand.”

Preliminary CDC data shows 2020 deadliest year for US

Largely because of the pandemic, 2020 appears to have been the deadliest year in the recorded history of the United States — at least since 1900, according to early data from the CDC.

The health agency said in an email that its analysis suggests 2020 was the deadliest year in recorded history in terms of total number of deaths, and there was a 15% increase in the US death rate last year because of the pandemic.

“We are working on a future report, but the underlying data on which the report is based are already available from our website,” a CDC spokesperson wrote in the email.

For now, provisional data online shows that last year, 3,362,151 people died from all causes in the United States. Among those deaths, 378,292 involved Covid-19, according to the CDC data. With the US population being around 330 million people, about 3.3 million deaths represents 1% of the nation’s total population.

Total deaths last year were 18% higher than expected relative to recent years, according to the provisional data on the CDC’s website.

Overall, “2020 will have been the deadliest by far as long as we’ve kept records and almost certainly as long as the US has existed,” Bob Anderson, chief mortality statistician for the CDC, told CNN on Thursday. But, he added, you have to account for population growth and also aging of the population.

The longest year

More than 29 million cases and 530,000 deaths have been reported in the United States since March 11, 2020. The virus plunged America into grief and crisis. Several rounds of steep surges in infections prompted local and state leaders from coast to coast to order safety restrictions — in some cases, curfews — hoping to curb the deadly spread. Waves of Covid-19 patients crippled health care systems.

“After a year of this fight, we are tired, we are lonely, we are impatient,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement Thursday. “There have been too many missed family gatherings, too many lost milestones and opportunities, too many sacrifices.”

On this day last year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a congressional hearing that “things are going to get much worse before they get better.”

“But I did not in my mind think that much worse was going to be 525,000 deaths,” he said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show. Now, the country is at a pivotal point.

Case numbers, after plateauing at high levels, may be beginning to decline again, Walensky said at a White House briefing Wednesday. Average hospital admissions and Covid-19 deaths were also down over the past week, she added.

“While these trends are starting to head in the right direction, the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths still remain too high and are somber reminders that we must remain vigilant as we work to scale up our vaccination efforts across this country,” Walensky said.

Some experts have warned another possible surge could be weeks away, fueled by a highly contagious variant spreading across the country. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the US is at a “perfect-storm moment.” The B.1.1.7 variant — first reported in the United Kingdom — has “transmission unlike I’ve seen any at all since this pandemic began” in some areas, particularly in Florida, Texas and Georgia.

“And, remember, this is coming at us at the very same time we’re opening up America as if there is nothing else happening,” Osterholm said on CNN’s “New Day.” He added, “I think the dynamics of the virus right now, I’m afraid, are going to beat us at the vaccination game.”

What will help now, while the country works to boost its vaccination numbers, are the precautions that have been touted by officials for months: face masks, social distancing, avoiding crowds, washing hands.

And it’s especially crucial, according to experts, that Americans heed this guidance, even as more governors announce it’s time to begin loosening Covid-19 restrictions and paving the way for a return to normal.

Covid-19 model foresees more deaths with Americans increasingly on the move

A Covid-19 forecast from a group at the University of Washington said Thursday that with Americans more on the move, with fewer people wearing masks and with coronavirus variants infecting more people, the death toll in the United States by July 1 will be tens of thousands higher than previously predicted.

The researchers project 598,523 Americans will have died of Covid-19 by July 1, more than 22,000 fatalities higher than a forecast released four days ago.

“Over the last week the US has seen the largest one-week increase in mobility since the pandemic began,” the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation team wrote in an analysis containing data through March 8. “This huge jump in mobility means 22 states have mobility levels within 10% of the pre-COVID-19 baseline.”

Mask use has dropped from 75% in January to 73% in the first days of March, the IHME team said. The latest projection is based on a scenario that accounts for continued spread of the B.1.1.7 virus variant in some locations and scaling up of Covid-19 vaccination in the United States over the next few months. Under this “most likely” scenario, the projected total of deaths each day in the United States could drop from 1,395 to 86 and about 75,000 people will die between now and July.

South Africa has had by far Africa’s worst experience with the virus. The country of 60 million people has had more than 1.5 million confirmed cases, including more than 50,000 deaths. “You can imagine, I was really, really frightened. I had all the symptoms. except dying,” she said, with a survivor’s grim smile. Her recuperation period was lengthy. “I had shortness of breath and tightness of the chest. It lasted for six months,” she said. “I didn’t think it would ever go away.”

At the same time, people are looking back at where they were when they first understood how drastically life would change. On March 11, 2020, confirmed cases of COVID-19 stood at 125,000, and reported deaths stood at fewer than 5,000. Today, 117 million people are confirmed to have been infected, and according to Johns Hopkins, more than 2.6 million people have died.

On that day, Italy closed shops and restaurants after locking down in the face of 10,000 reported infections. The NBA suspended its season, and Tom Hanks, filming a movie in Australia, announced he was infected.

On that evening, President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office, announcing restrictions on travel from Europe that set off a trans-Atlantic scramble. Airports flooded with unmasked crowds in the days that followed. Soon, they were empty.

And that, for much of the world, was just the beginning.

(CNN’s Homero De la Fuente, Christopher Rios, Lauren Mascarenhas, Elizabeth Stuart and Gisela Crespo contributed to this report.)

A year after COVID-19 forced the first lockdowns, school and business closures and event cancellations across the country, most Americans are not optimistic about a quick return to the way things were before the outbreak. And the public is even less optimistic about when the job situation may return to its pre-pandemic level.

How we did this

Despite recent increases in the shares of Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 – and who say they plan to get vaccinated – just 9% of the public says it will be less than six months before most businesses, schools, places of worship and other public activities operate about as they did before the outbreak. Roughly a third (34%) say this will take between six months and a year.

Nearly six-in-ten (57%) say it will be a year or more before things mostly operate as they did before the pandemic struck the U.S., including 14% who expect it will take more than two years, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, conducted March 1-7 among 12,055 adults.

For the most part, expectations about when life will return to the way it was before the pandemic do not vary widely across demographic groups or by partisanship.

Women (59%) are somewhat more likely than men (53%) to believe that it will take more than a year for public activities to return to the level they were before the outbreak.

Nearly two-thirds of Black Americans (64%) say it will be a year or longer, compared with smaller shares of White (56%), Asian (56%) and Hispanic adults (51%).

Upper-income Americans are the most optimistic about when life when will return to normal: 49% predict that schools, businesses and other public activities will fully reopen in a year or sooner. Fewer middle-income (43%) and lower-income Americans (40%) say the same.

Similar shares of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (57%) and Democrats and Democratic leaners (56%) say it will take more than a year for life to return to normal in the country. But Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe it will be more than two years (17% vs. 10%).

When it comes to the nation’s job situation, Americans are even more pessimistic. About eight-in-ten Americans say they expect it will take one to two years (46%) or more than two years (35%) for the job situation to recover to where it was before the outbreak. Just 19% believe it will recover in less than a year.

There are modest demographic differences in these predictions. For example, those who live in rural areas (40%) are slightly more likely than those who live in suburban (34%) or urban areas (31%) to say the job recovery will take more than two years.

While partisans are largely in agreement that it will take more than a year for employment to reach the level it was at before the pandemic, Republicans are more pessimistic: 44% expect jobs to return in more than two years, compared with about a quarter of Democrats (26%).

When is this finally going to end? That’s the question on many minds after a year of living through the COVID-19 pandemic.

But public health experts say we do have an answer, and you’re not going to like it: COVID-19 is never going to end. It now seems poised to become an endemic disease — one that is always a part of our environment, no matter what we do.

“We’ve been told that this virus will disappear. But it will not,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and medical director of the National Foundation For Infectious Diseases, tells CBS News.

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. A year later, the virus has infected 118 million people worldwide and killed over 2.6 million, including more than 530,000 Americans, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. But researchers say there’s simply no track record of infectious diseases being completely eradicated, and everything about COVID-19 shows that it will be no different.

“The more infectious a microbe is, the harder it is to control,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CEO of Resolve To Save Lives and a former CDC director, tells CBS News. “COVID is very challenging to control, and the new variants suggest that we may end up playing kind of a game of cat and mouse.”

Prior to COVID, people were already used to living with endemic diseases. The flu is one example. Measles is another. Both continue to spread and kill people every year despite decades of vaccination and containment.

Even the virus that causes COVID-19 is just a new type of coronavirus; other coronaviruses had long been circulating and in some cases could cause the common cold. COVID itself has already gone through mutations that made it more contagious and potentially deadlier.

The Global Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (GAPIO), a non-profit organization, and leading association for the Indian medical diaspora organised its annual Global Indian Physicians Congress on February 27^th – 28^th 2021. The Congress is an important event in the medical calendar where the exchange of knowledge from subject specialists from across the world takes place. This year’s virtual conference provided an international forum to delegates to share their knowledge and exchange ideas on clinical skill development, solutions to contemporary health issues and modernizing the approach to delivering healthcare.

Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Hon’ble Health Minister, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare was Chief Guest. In a video message, Dr. Harsh Vardhan praised GAPIO, as a shining example of the talent and caliber of Indian physicians who have made remarkable contributions in various fields of medicine across the globe.

Praising the contribution of medical professionals in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “As the world faced the unprecedented crisis of COVID19, it has been our doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers who have cemented their position as the foremost champions of humanity, saving humankind as it was staring at an existential crisis.” The Minister also praised India’s efforts domestically and internationally and commended the physicians, nurses, and scientists involved in fighting the pandemic. India can greatly benefit from GAPIO’s support, he emphasized and concluded by complimenting the awardees for their outstanding work.

“I am so proud to be part of GAPIO, a great organization with the mission to bring together 1.4 million physicians of Indian origin on one professional platform,” said GAPIO Secretary General USA and Chairman and Publisher of Parikh World Wide Media and ITV Gold 24×7 TV Channel in the U.S., Padma Shri Dr. Sudhir Parikh, at the Congress. “This was a great event. From the time it was started in 2011, GAPIO is now in 53 countries. Not only does it provide a professional platform to more than 1 million Indian physicians, it also brings all the resources they have to offer to impact the much greater philanthropic work we can do in India and around the world,” Dr. Parikh told News India Times.

Since its inception in 2011 GAPIO has endeavored to bring 1.4 million physicians of Indian origin across the world on a single platform to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, skills and research. This was the 11^th edition of the Congress. More than 5000 participants from USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Middle East, Africa, UAE, India and other countries participated in the Congress, making it one of the largest such events in the world.

The GAPIO Congress featured highly qualified medical professionals and leaders from around the world, and an award ceremony for those who have excelled in their areas of expertise, including young physicians.

Founder President of GAPIO and Chairman of Apollo Hospitals Group Dr. Prathap C Reddy, said, “The exemplary work by the awardees is an inspiration for others to emulate. The spirit of the physicians of Indian origin to excel in India and overseas is what we hope to recognize.
There are countless examples of pathbreaking work across the globe that would make every Indian proud. COVID-19 has once again shown the important role played by physicians of Indian origin in handling global health crises. The valuable lessons learnt from these clinical leaders will form part of the deliberations. The need for innovation and cross-systemic learning is more important than ever before. Apart from the COVID-19 pandemic, India and the world at large are facing an epidemic of non-communicable diseases – NCDs like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. We seek involvement of everyone to overcome this biggest challenge to mankind posed by COVID-19 and NCDs.”

President of GAPIO and Group Medical Director, Apollo Hospitals Group and Senior Consultant Pediatric Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist Dr. Anupam Sibal, said, “From supporting liver transplantation to pioneering cardiac surgery to establishing high-end lab services to excelling in rheumatology to introducing geriatric care to performing complex arthroplasty in a rural setting, the awardees represent the spectrum of path-breaking achievements.

“Remarking on the young physician’s category, Vice President GAPIO and CEO cum Chairman of Columbia Asia Group of Hospitals Dr. Nandakumar Jairam, said, “The awardees in the Young category represent the aspirations of the Young Indian Physician who is willing to take on challenges to improve the delivery of care, while excelling in academics and research. Research and innovation can improve the delivery of quality healthcare in India to the last mile. As the country braces to overcome its myriad health challenges, this Congress will help identify methodologies most suitable to skill and scale the healthcare workforce in the country.”

Dr. Sudhir Parikh, Secretary General of GAPIO and Chairman and Publisher of Parikh World Wide Media and ITV Gold 24×7 TV Channel in USA, said, “Global health challenges need global solutions, and we believe through GAPIO we will evolve constructive and tangible ways of ensuring that healthcare is affordable and accessible to all citizens.”

The award winners in the Distinguished Category, each of whom receives Rs. 100,000, a citation, and a trophy include:

• Pravin Agarwal (Mr Pravin Agarwal Foundation) for Dr. Prathap C Reddy Philanthropy award
• Rohini Handa for the Dr. IA Modi Award
  • Navin Dang for GAPIO Excellence in Diagnostics Award
• Maligail Ramkrishna Girinath for GAPIO Karl Storz Surgical Excellence Award
• VS Natarajan for GAPIO Lifetime achievement award.
  Dr. Madan Mohan Reddy received the GAPIO Special Appreciation Award for his pathbreaking work in delivering orthopedic care including joint replacements in villages.

The award winners in Young Category each of whom receives Rs. 50,000, a citation and a trophy, include:

• Sonali M Khobragade and Dr. Purvi Parikh (joint winners) for Dr. IA Modi Award
• Nishat Hussain Ahmed for GAPIO Excellence in Diagnostics Award
• Susovan Banerjee for GAPIO Excellence in Radiology/ Radiation Therapy Award
• Bhavuk Garg for GAPIO Karl Storz Surgical Excellence Award.

Karl Storz provides an endoscope to the winner of the Storz Surgical Excellence Award.

Speakers at the well-attended event included

Dr. Sathyaki Nambala, India, senior consultant and chief of Cardiac Surgery, Apollo Hospital, Bangalore;

Dr. Jatin Shah, USA, professor of surgery at Cornell Medical College, New York;

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, India, founder, chairperson and managing director of Biocon Limited;

Dr. Arun Garg, Canada, consultant medical biochemist at Royal Columbian Hospital, Canada and President of Canada India Network Society (CINS);

Dr. Sanjay Patole, Australia, senior neonatologist, KEM Hospital for Women in Perth, Western Australia;

Dr. Sandeep Guleria, India, senior consultant, Renal Transplant surgeon at Apollo Hospital, New Delhi;

Dr. OM Ganda, USA, senior physician and medical director, Lipid Clinic – Joslin Diabetes Center, and also associate professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School;

Dr. Venkataraman Sundareswaran, USA, fellow – Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation at World Economic Forum;

Dr. Mani Menon, USA, robotic surgeon and one of the foremost Urologists in the United States; and

Dr. Senthil Seniyappan, UK, consultant paediatric endocrinologist, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool.

There has been a global puzzlement at how India has managed to dramatically lower the spread of Covid-19 cases and fatality rates over the last few months, with some experts calling it a “mystery”, but American scientist Yaneer Bar-Yam has said credit should go to the government for being able to identify and leverage its strengths to limit the spread of the infection.

Bar-Yam, who specialises in quantitative analysis of pandemics, said underlying factors such as previous successful response efforts in pandemics, less urbanisation that limits travel and rates of community transmission, limited travel and localised tourism were all important in mitigating the impact of Covid-19.

But he pointed out that swift government action of “restricting/regulating movement to increasing public health capacity to meet the increasing demands of the pandemic,” were equally essential as India seems to have done enough to emerge successful in limiting the impact of the virus.

In September last year, India was confirming nearly 1 lakh cases a day, but that figure has dropped to approximately 12,000 as the country has effectively flattened the curve. The case fatality rate has also dropped sharply.

Highlighting steps taken by the government, Bar-Yam said that in particular decisions to impose severe restrictions on travel, stop gatherings, targeted localized lockdowns, school closures, had proven effective in controlling the outbreak. Other major steps like effective public communication, improvements in case identification, rapid ramping of industrial production of masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing capacity, have also contributed, he added.

Bar-Yam said that India’s success showed that time and travel are key to controlling pandemics. “The message to go out from India therefore is ‘restrict travel in areas wherein cases are there, isolate cases and don’t allow them to transmit infection’,” he wrote.

In a paper published on his website endcoronavirus.org, he listed the nine major government actions because of which India had managed to tame the infection as well as it has:

1. He described the zoning of the country into three zones – red, orange and green – for localised lockdowns as probably the most effective step taken by the government last April. While severe restrictions were imposed in affected districts, there was partial lifting of restrictions in unaffected districts, along with the opening up of some sectors to meet the economic challenge.
2. Restriction on travel was the second most important step, as travel was regulated through issue of e-pass with checks on state borders across the country. The regulation of travel continues into 2021 as travel has not been fully de-regulated, he said.
3. Isolation and contact tracing of individuals who test positive to Covid-19, and quarantining of primary high-risk contacts has been an effective strategy.
4. The government shut down all colleges and schools for an extended period, and the recent reopening has been partial and only in the context of the very low number of cases recently.
5. Bar-Yam said highlighted the contribution of the Indian industry, which he said responded like never before by producing masks and personal protective equipment at great pace not only to meet the country’s requirements, but also to supply to the world.
6. India has gone from a single lab that could perform RT-PCR tests for Covid-19 to over 2300 in a short span of time, and this number has reduced the test result return time and also strengthened isolation and quarantine strategy.
7. From cautionary caller tunes on phones to heavy fines for not wearing masks, spreading public awareness about Covid-19 risks has been a major initiative of the government, and this has meant the population more willingly accepted restriction guidelines.
8. The American scientist also praised the response in high-density urban areas, which posed the greatest challenge, but the refinement of lockdowns, travel restrictions, rapid case identification, and communication found in other locations, has helped limited the spread.
9. He said that the vaccination drive, which is the largest in the world, is also expected to have an increasingly significant impact on the outbreak control in India.

With the fifth consecutive day of rising Covid-19 cases in the country, fears of India on the brink of a second Covid-19 wave appear to be gaining ground. From reporting under 10,000 fresh cases last week, India’s daily fresh Covid-19 cases climbed back to over 14,000 on Saturday — with the bulk of new cases emanating from the five states of Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

While Kerala, which gained global fame in the initial days of the pandemic for effectively controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus, is now the second worst affected state, the worst affected, Maharashtra, is not just battling a laxity on adherence to Covid-19 protocols but also a multiplicity of strains of the novel coronavirus.

According to Dr Shashank Joshi, member of Maharashtra’s Covid Task Force, India has 240 new strains of SARS-Cov-2 in circulation, which is causing a resurgence in the number of positive cases, especially in Maharashtra. Adding to the concern, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director of the Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), said that these new strains could be highly contagious and more lethal.

The presence of hundreds of new strains also makes it difficult to attain herd immunity, Guleria added as at least 80% of India’s population will need to be infected with Covid-19. Moreover, there’s the possibility that the new strains could also cause re-infection among those who have recovered from Covid-19, negating the presence of antibodies they have developed.

Reinforcing the need “to go back to aggressive measures of testing, contact tracing and isolating infections”, Guleria, while speaking with NDTV said the virus variants have an “immune escape mechanism”, which allows them to circumvent either vaccination-imbued or disease-caused immunity. However, he added, getting vaccinated may still be the best shot in controlling Covid-19 — as even if their efficacy against new variants is less, the infection will be milder.

Young adults were among the most likely to be uninsured prior to the Affordable Care Act, but the law’s Medicaid expansion had a significant impact on those rates, according to a new study.

Research published by Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank, this week shows the uninsured rate for people aged 19 to 25 declined from 30% to 16% between 2011 and 2018, while Medicaid enrollment for this population increased from 11% to 15% in that window.

The coverage increases were felt most keenly between 2013 and 2016, when many of the ACA’s key tenets were carried out, including Medicaid expansion and the launch of the exchanges, according to the study.

“Before the ACA, adolescents in low-income households often aged out of eligibility for public health insurance coverage through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program as they entered adulthood,” the researchers wrote. “Further, young adults’ employment patterns made them less likely than older adults to have an offer of employer-sponsored insurance coverage.”

States that expanded Medicaid saw greater declines in the number of young people without insurance, the study found.

On average, the uninsured rates among young people declined from nearly 28% in 2011 to 11% in 2018, according to the analysis. In non-expansion states, however, the uninsured rate decreased from about 33% to nearly 21%.

In expansion states, Medicaid enrollment for people aged 19 to 25 rose from 12% in 2011 to close to 21%, according to the study, while enrollment in non-expansion states remained flat.

Urban’s researchers estimate that Medicaid expansion is linked to a 3.6 percent point decline in uninsurance among young people overall, and had the highest impact on young Hispanic people. Uninsurance decreased by 6 percentage points among Hispanic young people, the study found, and that population had the largest uninsured rate prior to the ACA.

“The effects of Medicaid expansion on young adults’ health insurance coverage and health care access provide evidence of the initial pathways through which Medicaid expansions could improve young adults’ overall health and trajectories of health throughout adulthood,” the researchers wrote.

“Beyond coverage and access to preventive care, Medicaid expansion may affect young adults’ health care use in ways not examined in our report. Thus, ensuring young adults have health insurance coverage and access to affordable care is a critical first step toward long-term health,” they wrote.

For the first time since November, average new daily coronavirus infections in the U.S. fell under 100,000 — well below the average infection rate in December and January, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The seven- day average of new infections dropped below 100,000 on Friday, continuing at that level through Sunday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Researchers reported 83,321 new infections and 3,361 new deaths Sunday.

These figures are well below the average daily infection rate of 200,000 for December and nearly 250,000 in January.

A grim new forecast confirms what experts caution amid declining Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations: when it comes to the pandemic, the US is not yet out of the woods. Another 130,000 Americans are projected to die of the virus over the next three and a half months, according to the latest model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

And while Covid-19 numbers may be trending in the right direction now, there are four key factors that will determine how the next months unfold, the IHME said in a briefing accompanying its model.

The first two are what will likely help the pandemic numbers continue a downward trajectory: increasing vaccinations and declining seasonality — the pattern of lower transmission that’s likely in the US during the spring and summer months.

“Two factors, however, can slow or even reverse the declines that have begun,” the IHME team said.  The first factor is the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first identified in the UK and experts warned could become the dominant strain in the US by spring. Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 980 cases of the variant have so far been detected across 37 states.

The second factor, according to the IHME team, is “increased behaviors that favor COVID-19 transmission. Transmission has been contained over the winter through mask wearing, decreased mobility, and avoidance of high-risk settings such as indoor dining,” the team said. “As daily case counts decline and vaccination increases, behaviors are likely to change towards increased risk of transmission.”

That’s why experts say now is not the time for the US to let down its guard, even as a growing list of governors loosen Covid-19 restrictions.  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said the state rolled back Covid-19 restrictions on youth sports, allowing parents or guardians of young athletes to attend. On the same day, Maine’s governor issued an executive order expanding gathering limits for houses of worship.

Indoor dining — with capacity limits — resumed in New York City ahead of the Valentine’s Day holiday, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announcing Friday he was extending bar and restaurant closing times to 11 p.m. statewide.

Despite lingering concerns, officials are hopeful the continued ramping up of vaccinations is beginning to shift the pandemic’s course in a positive direction.  So far, about 37 million Americans have received at least their first dose of the two-part Covid-19 vaccines available to the US market, CDC data shows. About 13 million Americans are now fully vaccinated.

The IHME expects 145 million adults to be vaccinated by June 1, it said in a statement, which would prevent 114,000 deaths. “Our vaccine supply is going up, the positivity rate is going down and we’re getting one step closer to winning the war against COVID each day,” Cuomo said in a statement, referring to New York’s vaccinations.

The state has so far administered 90% of the first dose vaccines it’s received from the federal government and more than 80% of first and second doses, the governor said.

In California, officials announced millions of people will be added to the vaccination priority list, including residents “at high risk with developmental and other disabilities” and residents with serious underlying health conditions. The plan, which will begin mid-March, broadens the ages of eligible individuals from 65 and older to ages 16 through 64 who are in those categories.

In the early 1990s, the annual prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening test for men 50 years of age and older reduced prostate cancer (PCa) mortality by 50%. Unfortunately, in 2012, based on a flawed PCa screening trial (Screening for Prostate Cancer in Older Patients [PLCO], NCT00002540), the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended against PCa screening.

By 2018, the USPSTF upgraded the recommendation for PSA-based PCa screening from grade D to C (but maintained a grade D for men 70 years and older). These recommendations are largely followed by frontline primary care physicians, and currently 50% of primary care doctors are not offering their patients annual PCa screening.

The US data indicate that the lack of PCa screening has increased the number of patients with PCa, PCa metastasis, and PCa mortality, especially in men 70 years and older. The American Cancer Society reported 161,360 new cases of PCa and 26,730 deaths due to PCa in 2017 compared to 191,930 new cases and 33,330 deaths in 2020, respectively.

In 2010, Medicare spent $11.8 billion on PCa treatment which increased to 15.3 billion by 2018, largely due to treatment of advanced PCa. As PCa specialists, we have reviewed our local experience with PCa and have published our results in US urology peer reviewed journals (7 papers and 13 letters).

Our most recent paper, A trend toward aggressive prostate cancer,1 showed that the number of prostate biopsies have decreased by 45% while the diagnosis of PCa has increased threefold. Our data (and other US data) have highlighted 3 highrisk groups for PCa—African American (AA) men, men with a family history of PCa and healthy men age 70 and above.

The PLCO PCa screening randomized trial on which the USPSTF based its recommendations against PSA-based PCa screening was contaminated (90% of the men in the non-screening arm were screened) and had only 4% AA men. In the US, AA men represent about 12% of the population and in large cities represent over 30%.

Based on our data and that of other US groups, we strongly believe that annual PCa screening (PSA and digital rectal exam) should be offered to all men 55 years and older. PCa screening should especially be offered to high-risk men—AA men, men with a family history of PCa, and healthy men 70 years and older. Currently, due to enhanced risk assessment tools (both MRI imaging and genetic tests) and the ability to offer men active surveillance, overtreatment of PCa has been significantly reduced. According to current Medicare policy, Medicare covers an annual PSA-based PCa screening for men 50 years and older.

Our goal is to highlight this coverage policy so that PSA-based PCa screening can be increased in order to diagnose and cure early PCa, thereby reducing PCa morbidity, mortality, and cost associated with late-stage treatment. Navin Shah, MD; and Vladimir Ioffe, MD / Greenbelt, Maryland REFERENCE 1. Shah N, Ioffe V. A trend toward aggressive prostate cancer. Rev Urol. 2020;2

(Picture: Medicare FAQ)

February is the “American Heart Month” to raise awareness of heart disease and promote “Healthy Heart” lifestyles. Heart disease is the number one Global Public Health problem. South Asians are at a four-times greater risk of heart disease than their western counterparts and have a greater chance of having a heart attack before 50 years of age. Heart attacks strike South Asian Men and Women at younger ages, and as a result, both morbidity and mortality are higher among them compared to any other ethnic group. They tend to develop heart disease ten years earlier than other groups.

Almost one in three in this group may die from heart disease before 65 years of age. In India, heart disease remains the number one cause of death. Common risk factors are smoking and a diet high in sugar, salt, refined grains, and fat. A large number of South Asians appear to have “insulin resistance”, a condition in which the body does not utilize insulin efficiently, resulting in Diabetes, which leads to a significant number of heart-related problems. Lack of adequate exercise, stress, and genetic predisposition are also contributing factors.

Body Mass Index (BMI), a measure that determines if a person’s weight is healthy, often falls into “skinny fat” category in South Asians,who may have an acceptable BMI, but carry more of their weight in their abdomen. The fat surrounding their internal organs (visceral fat) increases the risk of having a serious heart attack. More than one-third of South Asian men and about 17% of South Asian women have “Metabolic Syndrome”, with high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, excess fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels that increase Heart Disease risk, Stroke, and Diabetes.

The triglyceride levels tend to be higher with lower levels of HDL-good cholesterol. South Asians also tend to have smaller luminal diameters of the coronary (Heart) arteries and higher grade obstructions of multiple vessels that can lead to the “death” of parts of heart muscle during a “Heart Attack”. “Cardiac Arrest” is when the heart stops beating due to any underlying condition or cause. Some 350,000 cases occur each year outside of a hospital in the United States, and the survival rate is less than 12 percent.

Immediate Bystander CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) can double or triple the chances of their survival. There is insufficient data on the prevalence of Sudden Cardiac Arrest among South Asians living in the United States or Indians in India. Given the fact that South Asians tend to have more heart problems, it is presumed that the incidence of Sudden Cardiac Arrests might be higher in them compared to the general population in the United States.

It is evidence-based information that women, in general, have a different pattern of heart symptoms and seek emergency medical help less often than men, and may receive less treatment for the same condition in both primary care and secondary prevention. In an observational study of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac arrests (OHCA) reported in Indian Print Media, published recently (2020) in the Journal of Indian College of Cardiology, the important role of mass media was recognized in raising public awareness of cardiac arrests and encouraging bystander CPR help to improve outcomes. (The Author is a Co-Author of this study).

To collect available information on OHCA in India, a pilot project called WACAR (Warangal Area Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Registry) was initiated during January-December 2018 to understand OHCA in a regional setting in the State of Telangana.(The Author is the CoInvestigator of the WACAR Study, which was published (2020) in the Indian Heart Journal). The study, which was based on an internationally accepted Utstein template, included 814 subjects of OHCA.

With the available collected data, results of the study showed that Heart disease with pre-existing conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and tobacco addiction led to sudden cardiac arrests in a majority of cases. The study addressed the need for a reliable Cardiac Arrest Registry with accurate and detailed data of all OHCAs.

The data is essential to develop a comprehensive community cardiac care plan involving EMS(Emergency Medical Services), Bystander CPR, Public Access Defibrillators (devices to reverse dangerous heart rhythms), and faster access to emergency interventions in tertiary cardiac care hospitals. A recently completed project in India to improve outcomes after heart attacks is the “HeartRescue India” project (2015-2020) in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

The University of Illinois College of Medicine and UI Health in partnership with Ramaiah Medical College and Hospital in Bengaluru initiated this groundbreaking program in India. The project was funded by the Medtronic Foundation. The purpose of this project was to reduce deaths due to sudden cardiac arrests and improve access and quality of care for heart attack patients in Bengaluru.

The program implemented interventions with successful outcomes across the three settings of cardiac care: (1) communities, (2) pre-hospital EMS, and (3) a network of hospitals within a 10- kilometer catchment area in Bengaluru. The project is a unique, comprehensive Indian Cardiac Care Model, tailored to the local community’s needs, efficiently utilizing available resources and workforce. COVID-19 Pandemic has slowed down the progress of global health initiatives. With the administration of the COVID-19 Vaccine combined with robust international public health measures, it’s possible to regain the lost momentum of these “life-saving” programs.

The following recommendations will enhance the “Heart Health” of a community: 1. Prevention: A. Increasing awareness through Community Education about Heart Disease, Stroke, Sudden Cardiac Arrests, High Blood Pressure, and Diabetes B. Targeted CPR-training Programs for Communities and High School Students 2. Early diagnosis: Community Health Screenings and Personal Counselings and 3. Timely interventions Mental health-promoting strategies with an individualized holistic approach need to be encouraged.

In summary, it’s critical to initiate “Community Heart Health” programs with preventive strategies, retard the progression of heart disease with early diagnosis and individualized treatment plans, and implement measures to enhance neurological and other functional outcomes after sudden cardiac arrests. The latter involves providing immediate resuscitation help with high-quality bystander CPR, early defibrillation, and faster transportation to tertiary cardiac care hospitals.

Needless to say, a concerted effort is needed to achieve the goals by all involved stakeholders, Governmental and non-Governmental, with individual participation! Acknowledgement: Terry Vanden Hoek, MD, Bellur S. Prabhakar, MSc, Ph.D. (University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA), Srinivas Ramaka, MD (Srinivasa Heart Center, Warangal, Telangana, India) and Aruna C. Ramesh, MD (Ramaiah Medical College & Hospital, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India) were actively in studies referred in the article.

(Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy, an Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine @ The University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA and Visiting Professor in India, is an Advocate of Resuscitation education, training and research in USA and India.His current work involves Cardiac Arrest Registries and Cardiac Health-promoting Projects with Indo-US collaborations.)

Newswise — CHICAGO — A new study, led by professors at the University of Chicago and Duke University, found that COVID-19 cases in the southern state of Karnataka, India, are nearly 95 times greater than reported.

The study – led by Prof. Anup Malani from the University of Chicago’s Law School and Pritzker School of Medicine, and Prof. Manoj Mohanan from Duke University – suggests that 44.1 percent of the population in rural areas and 53.8 percent in urban areas in the southern state of Karnataka tested positive for antibodies to COVID-19 by the end of August 2020.

The findings, published today in JAMA, are based on data collected from a representative sample of households in 20 districts in the state, suggest that Karnataka alone had approximately 31.5 million cases of COVID-19 by then, relative to 8 million reported nationally in India until now.

Funded by ACT Grants in India and supported by IDFC Institute, the study collected data on antibodies for recent and past COVID-19 infection using a test that targets the RBD spike protein and better identifies exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus rather than other coronaviruses.  A unique feature of the study is that it also tested the same individuals for current infections using the RT-PCR test.  This pairing allows the study to both report current levels of immunity and forecast future immunity because most of today’s infected population will, in a few weeks, join tomorrow’s immune population.

“Our data shows evidence of high levels of active infections and transmission, especially in urban areas of Mysore and coastal districts during our study period – where 9.7 percent to 10.5 percent of individuals tested positive for current infection,” Malani said.

The study found that rural areas had nearly the same level of exposure to COVID-19 as urban areas.  Although cities were more densely populated, rural area face additional risk because agriculture is an essential sector and exempt from many lockdown restrictions.

The study also demonstrated the feasibility, in resource-constrained settings, of conducting pooled sample RT-PCR testing where multiple samples are tested simultaneously and individual samples are further tested if a ‘pool’ tests positive. It also demonstrated the feasibility of simultaneously measuring current and past infection in a population-representative sample even in rural areas of a lower-middle income country.

The University of Chicago is a leading academic and research institution that has driven new ways of thinking since its founding in 1890. As an intellectual destination, the University draws scholars and students from around the world to its campuses and centers around the globe. The University provides a distinctive educational experience and research environment, empowering individuals to challenge conventional thinking and pursue field-defining research that produces new understanding and breakthroughs with global impact.

(Picture: WBFO)

Chicago IL: Prism Health Lab has developed its sixth COVID-19 testing location in order to provide Chicagoland’s various communities with access to safe, easily accessible, and affordable testing options. 

 The locations, which offer no-cost testing and are open to all, are part of a joint effort with State Rep. Theresa Mah and Ald. Byron Sigcho (25th) to bring permanent testing sites to communities that need them the most. Prism Health Lab’s 6th site, located at the Chicago Public Library in Chinatown at 2100 S Wentworth Ave, is permanent.  

“The goal of having these locations is to do everything we can to eliminate the barriers to our health care for our Chinese and Latinx community, particularly our immigrant community,” Sigcho-Lopez said.

 “Our immigrant communities, particularly our Spanish-speaking and Chinese immigrant community, are disproportionately suffering from COVID-19,” Mah said. “Making testing more widely available is part of what we can do to help people protect themselves and, ultimately, our communities.”

 “We are happy to be here with members of this diverse community because we’re dedicated to getting everyone one step closer to life before COVID-19,” said Zul Kapadia, CEO & President of Prism Health Lab. “We have faith that grassroots initiatives like ours will be recognized, and as we transition into the Biden Administration, we hope our voices – the voices of Chicago’s communities – will be heard when executing the vaccine roll-out.”

 Prism Health Lab’s testing sites offer a wide range of services & support, and can accommodate patients who speak English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin. Insurance is not required and there is no copay or deductible.

Prism Health Lab testing sites are open from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday – Friday and 11a.m. – 4 p.m. on Saturday in the following areas:

Laramie & 18th, Cicero, IL
Peterson & Western, West Ridge, Chicago, IL
Archer & Wentworth, Chinatown, Chicago, IL
Lake & Bryn Mawr, Roselle, IL
Schaumburg & Plum Grove, Schaumburg, IL
Touhy & Niles Center, Holiday Inn, Skokie, IL

 To make an appointment, visit prismhealthlab.com/appointment or call (800) 325-1812.

(Photographs and Press release by: Asian Media USA)

Chicago, Il: January 20, 2021) “On behalf of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), I want to congratulate and offer our best wishes to our President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the occasion of their solemn swearing ceremony as they commit the nation to unity, prosperity and strengthening of democratic values,” Dr. Sudhakar Jonnalgadda, President of AAPI said here today. Describing these as “critical times” for the nation, Dr. Jonnalagadda said, “We, the members of the medical fraternity are encouraged by President Biden beginning his presidency with paying tributes to the 400,000 Americans who have lost their lives to COVID and thanking the services of the healthcare professionals who are at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic.”

In her congratulatory note, Dr. Sajani Shah, Chair of AAPI BOT, while wishing the new Administration the very best as Biden and Harris were sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States, assume office on January 20th, 2021, praised Biden for pledging “to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify; who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States.”

“America’s leadership is vital on the issues that matter to us all, from climate change to COVID,” said Dr. Anupama Gotimukula, President-Elect of AAPI, in a message. She praised Vice President Kamala Harris, who has “made history by being elected to be the first ever woman and of South Asian heritage to become the Vice President of the United States.” Referring to her Indian origins, Dr. Gotimukula described the election of Kamala Harris as “Inspiring and is of immense pride for all Indian-Americans and to all women.”

Describing the 202 elections and the oath ceremony today on Capitol Hilly as a demonstration of the resilience of American democracy, Dr. Ravi Kolli, Vice President of AAPI said, “I do hope that the new Biden-Harris administration will be guided by its deep concern for building a society marked by authentic justice and freedom, while fostering understanding, reconciliation and peace within the US and among the nations of the world.”

“The overrepresentation of Indians in the field of medicine is striking – in practical terms, one out of seven doctors in the United States is of Indian Heritage. The nominations of dozens of leading experts in the new administration by Biden, including our own Dr. Vivek Murthy as the US Surgeon General makes us all proud,” said, Dr. Amit Chakrabarty, Secretary of AAPI said.

Describing the numerous efforts by AAPI during the pandemic, Dr. Satheesh Kathula, Treasurer of AAPI, pointed out, “AAPI as an organization has helped and is continuing to help the communities, especially during COVID-19 pandemic. I am confident that under President Biden’s administration the vaccine distribution will take place at a faster pace to end this pandemic. It is really great to see the diversity in the government. AAPI will continue to advise the new administration when needed

Established in 1982, with the lofty ideal to bring together Physicians of Indian Origin in the United States under a single umbrella organization, and be their Voice in this adopted land of ours, American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) is a non-political umbrella organization which has over 100 local chapters, specialty societies and alumni organizations. Almost 10%-12% of medical students entering US schools are of Indian origin. AAPI represents the interests of over 80,000 physicians and 30,000 medical students and residents of Indian heritage in the United States. With their hard work, dedication, compassion, and skills, they have thus carved an enviable niche in the American medical community. AAPI’s role has come to be recognized as vital among members and among lawmakers. 

 While offering fullest cooperation to the Biden administration, Dr. Sudhakar Jonnalagadda said,  “The American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (APPI) the largest ethnic medical organization in the country has taken several proactive steps in educating their members and the general public about the disease, the preventive steps that needs to be taken at this time and most importantly, they are using all their contacts and resources at the hospital administrative and government level to facilitate treatment protocols to be in place at the various hospitals around the country.” For more information on AAPI, please visit: www.aapiusa.org

(Biden Harris. Picture Courtesy  of Whitehouse.gov)

One of the great tragedies of the past year, as some 400,000 Americans lost their lives to Covid-19, was not only that many victims died alone — their loved ones robbed of the chance to say goodbye — but that the pain of that loss was whitewashed by a President who chose to minimize and deny it.

In a somber ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial on Tuesday night that was his first stop in Washington, President-elect Joe Biden signaled that honoring that grief and the terrible toll of the last year would be at the very heart of his administration. Elected because of his empathy and his compassion for Americans, who are suffering through a confluence of crises that have created a time of great uncertainty, Biden spoke just a few words as the sun set over the National Mall, casting a rosy glow in the twilight. 

The President-elect told Americans he shared in their grief — with his own understanding deepened by the loss of his first wife and daughter in a car accident as a young man and the loss of his son Beau to cancer at the age of 46.

“It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation,” Biden said in brief remarks before 400 lights were illuminated along the edges of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, marking the more than 400,000 Americans who have died from Covid-19. 

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He and his wife, Jill Biden, watched in silence, alongside Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, as the reflections of the lights glimmered in the water. Hundreds of towns, cities and communities across the country joined in the tribute, lighting up buildings from the Empire State Building in New York to the Space Needle in Seattle. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, delivered the invocation and gospel singer Yolanda Adams performed “Hallelujah” after Biden spoke.

Harris spoke briefly at the memorial, noting that “for many months, we have grieved by ourselves. Tonight, we grieve and begin healing together.”

“Though we may be physically separated, we, the American people, are united in spirit and my abiding hope, my abiding prayer, is that we emerge from this ordeal with a new wisdom: to cherish simple moments, to imagine new possibilities and to open our hearts just a little bit more to one another,” Harris said.

The President-elect arrived in Washington, DC, on Tuesday for the start of his inaugural ceremonies at a dark moment in American history, preparing to take his oath of office as the US passes 400,000 coronavirus deaths and is more divided than at any time since the Civil War.

As he departed for the nation’s capital earlier in the day, Biden gave an emotional farewell to his home state of Delaware, his voice breaking at times as he thanked the state’s residents for believing in him and standing with him throughout his career.

“I’ll always be a proud son of the state of Delaware,” Biden said at the Delaware National Guard headquarters in New Castle County. “Excuse the emotion,” he said, tears streaming down his face, “but when I die, Delaware will be written on my heart and the hearts of all of us — all the Bidens. We love you all. You’ve been there for us in the good and the bad.” 

He gave a moving tribute to his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46, stating that he had hoped to see his son become president one day. “We should be introducing him as president,” he said. 

The President-elect also noted the historical arc of his career witnessing the civil rights struggle as well as signs of progress in the United States. He said he came home to Wilmington, Delaware, from law school after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated — inspired by the turmoil to become a public defender. In 2009, he made the journey to Washington with Barack Obama, who became the nation’s first Black president. And he is returning to Washington, DC, this week “to meet a Black woman of South Asian descent, to be sworn in as President and vice president of the United States. That’s America,” he said Tuesday. 

The nation’s continuing struggles for equality and racial justice also drew Biden into the 2020 presidential race. He has said he decided to seek the highest office after watching President Donald Trump’s dismissive handling of the deadly White supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when he said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

(Picture: Market Watch)

India on Saturday began one of the most ambitious and complex initiatives in its history: the nationwide rollout of coronavirus vaccines to 1.3 billion people, an undertaking that will stretch from the perilous reaches of the Himalayas to the dense jungles of the country’s southern tip.

The campaign is unfolding in a country that has reported more than 10.5 million coronavirus infections, the second-largest caseload after the United States, and 152,093 deaths, the world’s third-highest tally. India’s rollout, among the first in a major developing country, comes as millions of people in the United States, Britain, Israel, Canada and the European Union have received at least one dose.

The first dose was administered to a health worker at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, after the prime minister, Narendra Modi, kickstarted the campaign with a national televised speech as 3,000 centers nationwide were set to inoculate a first round of health care workers. About 300,000 people were set to receive the vaccines on Saturday alone, followed by millions more health care and frontline workers by spring. “Everyone was asking as to when the vaccine will be available,” Mr. Modi said. “It is available now. I congratulate all the countrymen on this occasion.”

Covishield and another vaccine called Covaxin were authorized for emergency use in India this month. Neither Covaxin’s manufacturer, Bharat Biotech, nor the Indian Council of Medical Research, which contributed to the vaccine’s development, has published data proving that it works. In a Covaxin consent form at District Hospital Aundh, one of a handful of sites in Pune where the vaccine was being administered, the manufacturer noted that clinical efficacy was “yet to be established.”

At Kamala Nehru Hospital in Pune, a city of about 3.1 million southeast of Mumbai, 100 long-stemmed red roses were stacked neatly on a table beside a bottle of hand sanitizer. Each person registered to receive the Covishield vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, was to get a rose.

Dr. Rajashree Patil, one of the health workers who received the Covishield vaccine at Kamala Nehru Hospital, said she was both excited and nervous. After contracting the coronavirus while working in the government hospital’s emergency room in May, she spent 12 days in a Covid ward at another hospital, having lost her senses of smell and taste and experiencing extreme fatigue. “I’m a little bit worried. Actually we’re on a trial basis,” Dr. Patil said. “But I am happy we are getting it so we can one day be corona-free.”

Another doctor who received the Covishield vaccine at that hospital, Usha Devi Bharmal, said that she had wanted to get a shot to dispel people’s fears about coronavirus vaccines. “There are rumors on social media,” she said, adding that she hoped to help show that vaccines are a “positive thing.”

Mr. Modi has pledged to inoculate 300 million health care and frontline workers, including police officers and, in some cases, teachers, by July. But so far the Indian government has purchased only 11 million doses of Covishield and 5.5 million doses of Covaxin.

Indian television stations showed Dr. Randeep Guleria, the director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi and a prominent government adviser on Covid-19, receiving a jab on Saturday. It was unclear whether Mr. Modi was vaccinated.

India’s vaccination effort faces a number of obstacles, including a growing sense of complacency about the coronavirus. After reaching a peak of more than 90,000 new cases per day in mid-September, the country’s official infection rates have dropped sharply. Fatalities have fallen about 30 percent in the last 14 days, according to a New York Times database.

City streets are buzzing. Air and train travel have resumed. Social distancing and mask-wearing standards, already lax in many parts of India, have slipped further. That alarms experts, who say the real infection rate is probably much worse than official numbers suggest. 

 (Picture Courtesy: ITV Hub)

The nationwide Covid vaccination rollout will begin on January 16, with an estimated 3 crore healthcare workers and frontline workers identified to get the jab in the initial phase. They will be followed by those above 50 years of age and those under-50 with co-morbidities. And for the vaccine distribution effort, an unprecedented official machinery is being cranked up.

India has recorded the second-highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world, after the US.Since the pandemic began it has confirmed more than 10.3 million cases and nearly 150,000 deaths.

The country’s drugs regulator has given the green light to two vaccines – one developed by AstraZeneca with Oxford University (Covishield) and one by Indian firm Bharat Biotech (Covaxin), India’s first domestic pharmacy to get nod for vaccine distribution in India, with more than 1.3 billion people.

The Drug Controller General of India has approved the company’s application to conduct a Phase I and II clinical trial of Covaxin, which was developed along with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology, the company said in a statement on Monday.

Bharat Biotech, which makes the vaccine in partnership with ICMR, said it found that the “serious adverse reaction” was “not related to vaccine or placebo”.

January 16 has been chosen as the launch date for Covid-19 vaccination since it falls after the festivals of lohri, makarsankranti, maghbihu and pongal. The government didn’t say why festivals were a factor in choosing the date.

The effort: 20 central government ministries, including the Railways, Power, Defence and Civil Aviation, among others, are being used to roll out the vaccination programme which will initially target 30 crore healthcare and frontline workers, along with the high-risk population.

The roles: Each ministry has a specific role — Railways will conduct vaccination sessions at its hospitals and other premises, apart from doing their brand promotion on its tickets; Power to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply at vaccine storage facilities and vaccination sites; Defence to ensure supply of vaccines in remote and inaccessible areas; IT to utilise its village-level Common Service Centres for vaccination registrations and ensure telecom companies send SMS and voice messages on vaccination; and Civil Aviation to ensure proper transportation logistics, including temperature regulation.

State level: State PWDs are being tasked with the logistics such as identification of vaccination centres and supply of drinking water while state police forces will provide security to vaccine consignments and ensure crowd management at vaccination centres. State education departments will launch an awareness campaign to explain why children aren’t being inoculated in the first phase while the Panchayat level apparatus will be used for registration of healthcare workers.

The challenges: A shortage of vaccine supply in the first phase itself, admitted to by Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla — whose company’s vaccine, Covishield, will be the first to roll out — who said the shortage of vaccine will be felt for the first six months of 2021 after which it will ease off. Low internet penetration along with the mandatory requirement of pre-registration — no on-the-spot registrations allowed — for vaccination, lack of cold chain facilities coupled with their uneven spread and vaccine hesitancy are some of the challenges India’s vaccination drive will encounter.

P Chidambaram writes on the pandemic, vaccine and controversy: “There was, I suspect, a tinge of business between the SII and Bharat Biotech. Happily, both Mr Adar Poonawalla and Mr Krishna Ella buried the hatchet in a couple of days and promised to cooperate and work together. That is the way frontline companies, especially in research and development, should conduct their affairs, with a right mix of public good and private profit.”

(Picture Courtesy: Bloomberg News)

At AAPI’s New Year Celebrations, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar Praises The Sacrifices Of Indian American Physicians, Hoping For End to Covid in 2021

“Let me congratulate the great work done by the physicians around the world, and especially the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) members,” said Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishnakar in a live message via Zoom from his home in India to the members of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) at a colorful New Year 2021 Welcome Event organized by AAPI on Friday, January 1st. Recognizing the leadership of AAPI, led by Dr. Sudhakar Jonnalagadda and the executive committee, he commented them “for their service to humanity, putting their own life at risk, doing so much for the society.”
Acknowledging that the past year 2020 has been a period of immense challenges for Humanity, Sri Sri Ravishnakar acknowledged the sacrifices and heroic efforts and contributions of physicians of Indian origin. “Healthcare professionals, particularly the Physicians of Indian Origin have put their life at risk, and have served humanity well,” he said.
“I wish you all a brighter and happier New Year in 2021,” hoping that “we will find answers for the problem of covid-19.” Stressing that “What matter is the need for Inner Strength,” Sri Sri told Indian American physicians that “I’m sure you all recognize the value of mental health and Inner Strength. May all you be very strong physically and mentally.” Showering his spiritual blessings on each of them, he said, “I want to wish you all a very happy new year and lots of blessings for you to continue to serve the society the way you have been doing.”
In his New Year message, Dr. Jonnalagadda, President of AAPI said, “All across the world, people are looking forward to welcoming 2021 and bidding goodbye to the challenging year that was 2020, which will be a year seared in all our memories. It’s been a year that has fundamentally challenged long established certainties about what we think is safe and what we believe is healthy in all areas of our lives.”
Pointing to the record time in which healthcare professionals and leaders have been able to make, distribute and administer vaccines around the world in order to combat and mitigate the deadly virus, he said, “The innovative ways healthcare professionals have learnt and begun to practice Medicine gives humanity HOPE. A New Year is a powerful occasion: It’s a time when we reflect on our gratitude for the past and our hopes for the future. And it’s a chance to welcome a fresh start to reinvigorate our enthusiasm for chasing goals and dreams. As we wave goodbye to the old and embrace the New Year with hope, dreams, and ambition. A Very Happy New Year full of Blessings, Happiness, Health and Prosperity!”
The event was coordinated and presented by Dr. Anajana Samaddar, Chair of AAPI’s Women’s Forum and Dr. Udaya Shivangi, Event Chair.
The celebrations included contemporary and classic music live from India by a talented and much acclaimed team of artists led by Gautham Bharadwaj & Niranjana, who were the only band chosen from India to perform at the 2012 London Olympics. The team performed live to the delight of a large audience from across the US with melodies in several Indian languages.

For more details on year round activities and programs, please visit: www.aapiusa.org