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- India on Tuesday reported 8,813 Covid cases and 29 deaths. The cumulative amount is 4,42,77,194 (1,11,252 active cases) and 5,27,098 deaths
- All around the world: More than 591 million cases and more than 6.43 million deaths.
- Vaccination in India: More than 2.08 billion doses. Worldwide: More than 12 billion doses.
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| TODAY |
| How well does hybrid immunity protect against SARS-CoV-2? |
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- About 75% of people globally are immune to Covid-19. However, hybrid immunity, which is the combined immunity generated by both vaccination and natural infection, is considered the most effective of all preventive drugs.
- Research: Hybrid-immunized individuals had approximately 50-fold higher neutralizing antibody (nAb) titers than recovered unvaccinated individuals. A new study published year Nature Reviews Immunology explores the reasons behind this enhanced protection.
- Findings: “Vaccination after infection with an ancestral strain or with subsequent variants increases the number of SARS-CoV-2 memory T cells and B cells by more than one order by recruiting B cell clones new to the memory pool,” reads the study. The clonal expansion of persistent immune cells also contributes to hybrid immunity.
- T cells are white blood cells that can remember past illnesses, attack cells infected with viruses, or help produce antibodies to fight them. Other memory cells, B cells, are produced by vaccines and play a role in determining the specificity of the immune response to foreign pathogens in the body.
- The team found that breakthrough infection with the Omicron variant resulted in enhanced neutralizing activity against other variants, including ancestral and Delta variants. But in unvaccinated individuals subsequently infected with the Omicron variant, this cross-neutralizing activity was absent.
- Although the uncontaminated group expressed nAbs against Omicron BA.1, the titer was six times lower after breakthrough BA.1 infection than the corresponding anti-Delta nAb group after breakthrough Delta infection.
- Implications: Maybe it’s time to change the current ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. “In the context of highly dynamic immunity with varying degrees of natural, artificial and hybrid immunity and regional circulation of Omicron sublines, vaccination strategies need to be tailored on the basis of regions, can even be personalized,” the study said.
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| LET ME KNOW ONE THING |
| Another study proves that masks reduce the transmission of Covid |
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- Pandemic fatigue, the trouble of wearing a mask, the false bravery of being immune to Covid-19, talk of herd immunity, or a combination of the above are causing many to give up masks in public, unless specifically advised by the government.
- For example, in the United States, following updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in February 2022, many statewide restrictions mandate mask wearing in schools and public settings. copper has been removed.
- But while the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education removed mask requirements in schools, only two school districts – Boston and Chelsea – out of 79 mask requirements remained in place through June year 2022.
- This gave researchers from the Boston Public Health Commission and Harvard University a unique opportunity to assess the real impact of mask wearing in schools.
- The team used district-level data from DESE on Covid-19 cases, enrollment, and staffing for the 2021-22 school year.
- More than 2.94 lakh students and 46,530 staff members were included in the study. Additional data on infection indicators from surrounding communities was obtained by the Department of Public Health.
- The study found that mask lifting was associated with a significant increase in case rates in 12 out of 15 weeks.
- “We estimate that lifting mask requirements in schools was associated with an additional 44.9 Covid-19 cases per 1,000 students and staff in the 15 weeks since the lifting of the mask requirement. statewide, accounting for nearly 30% of all cases observed in schools during that time period,” read research was recently posted to the medRxiv preprint server *.
- This means students must be absent from school for a minimum of more than 17,000 days, or teachers are absent for more than 6,500 days in the best case scenario.
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Written by: Rakesh Rai, Sushmita Choudhury, Jayanta Kalita, Prabhash K Dutta
Research: Rajesh Sharma
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