With inputs from Dr Monica Vasudev

India Covid-19 Update

Latest data from the Health Ministry shows 3611 new cases in the last 24 hours. The number of active cases have declined to 33,232 from 36,244 recorded on Thursday. The current recovery rate is 98.74%. The positivity rate is currently 2.08% (daily) and 2.88% (weekly). In the last 24 hours, 1930 vaccine doses were administered. The total vaccine doses administered till date are over 220.66 crore with 95.21 crore second doses and 22.87 crore precaution doses. Over 1.7 lakh tests were conducted yesterday… (Source: Press Information Bureau, May 5, 2023).

Covid-19 is the 4^th leading cause of death in the US 

Covid-19 is now the fourth major cause of death in 2022 in the United States. It was the third major cause of death in 2021. Provisional Mortality Data reported in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report show that unintentional injury is now the third leading cause of death. Heart disease has remained the number one cause of death in 2022 followed by cancer, unintentional injury and Covid-19. In 2022, Covid was mentioned as the underlying cause or contributing cause in 244,986 deaths in 2022 vs 462,193 deaths in 2021… (Source: CDC, May 5, 2023).

A new Covid outbreak linked to a CDC conference

The CDC is investigating an outbreak of 35 new Covid-19 infections, which has been linked to the CDC’s annual Epidemic Intelligence Service conference held in Atlanta last week. More than 2000 attended the conference. It is likely that these attendees were fully vaccinated. As reported, many delegates at the conference did not wear a mask, maintain social distancing or adhere to other precautionary measures… (Source: Washington Post, May 2, 2023).

Patients with rheumatic disease at risk of long Covid 

Covid survivors with rheumatic disease have a 2-fold higher risk of developing long Covid with an odds ratio of 2.1, according to a study presented at the Annual Meeting of the British Society for Rheumatology 2023 recently held in Manchester. The prevalence of long Covid in this patient group was 10.8% vs 5.3% in those who did not have rheumatic or any other autoimmune disease. The prevalence was 7.3% among those with nonrheumatic autoimmune diseases … (Source: Medscape, May 2, 2023).