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. 2020 May 9;11(3):480-488.
doi: 10.14336/AD.2020.0402. eCollection 2020 May.

COVID-19 in India: Are Biological and Environmental Factors Helping to Stem the Incidence and Severity?

Sankha Shubhra Chakrabarti  1 , Upinder Kaur  2 , Anindita Banerjee  3 , Upasana Ganguly  3 , Tuhina Banerjee  4 , Sarama Saha  5 , Gaurav Parashar  6 , Suvarna Prasad  7 , Suddhachitta Chakrabarti  8 , Amit Mittal  9 , Bimal Kumar Agrawal  10 , Ravindra Kumar Rawal  11 , Robert Chunhua Zhao  12 , Indrajeet Singh Gambhir  13 , Rahul Khanna  14 , Ashok K Shetty  15 , Kunlin Jin  16 , Sasanka Chakrabarti  17
Affiliations

COVID-19 in India: Are Biological and Environmental Factors Helping to Stem the Incidence and Severity?

Sankha Shubhra Chakrabarti et al. Aging Dis. .

Abstract

The ongoing Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic has witnessed global political responses of unimaginable proportions. Many nations have implemented lockdowns that involve mandating citizens not to leave their residences for non-essential work. The Indian government has taken appropriate and commendable steps to curtail the community spread of COVID-19. While this may be extremely beneficial, this perspective discusses the other reasons why COVID-19 may have a lesser impact on India. We analyze the current pattern of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, testing, and mortality in India with an emphasis on the importance of mortality as a marker of the clinical relevance of COVID-19 disease. We also analyze the environmental and biological factors which may lessen the impact of COVID-19 in India. The importance of cross-immunity, innate immune responses, ACE polymorphism, and viral genetic mutations are discussed.

Keywords: ACE2; COVID-19; India; cross-immunity; mortality; transmission.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Representation of total COVID-19 tests performed in different countries for total confirmed cases of COVID-19. The status of India is shown with respect to other major nations. X-axis: total COVID-19 cases (logarithmic scale); Y-axis: total COVID-19 tests performed (logarithmic scale) (Figure courtesy https://ourworldindata.org/search?q=corona).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Representation of country-wise timeline of COVID-19 case fatality rate. The status of India is shown with respect to other major nations. (Figure courtesy https://ourworldindata.org/search?q=corona).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Representation of total confirmed cases with respect to total confirmed deaths in India, in comparison with other major nations. X-axis: total COVID-19 cases (logarithmic scale); Y-axis: total confirmed deaths due to COVID-19 (logarithmic scale) (Figure courtesy https://ourworldindata.org/search?q=corona).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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