Open AccessCOVID-19 in India: Are Biological and Environmental Factors Helping to Stem the Incidence and Severity?
Author(s) -
Sankha Shubhra Chakrabarti,
Upinder Kaur,
Anindita Banerjee,
Upasana Ganguly,
Tuhina Banerjee,
Sarama Saha,
Gaurav Parashar,
Suvarna Prasad,
Suddhachitta Chakrabarti,
Amit Mittal,
Bimal K Agrawal,
Ravindra K. Rawal,
Robert Chunhua Zhao,
Indrajeet Singh Gambhir,
Rahul Khanna,
Ashok K. Shetty,
Kunlin Jin,
Sasanka Chakrabarti
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
aging and disease
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.808
H-Index - 54
ISSN - 2152-5250
DOI - 10.14336/ad.2020.0402
Subject(s) - pandemic , covid-19 , government (linguistics) , medicine , disease , environmental health , transmission (telecommunications) , perspective (graphical) , infectious disease (medical specialty) , linguistics , philosophy , pathology , artificial intelligence , computer science , electrical engineering , engineering
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.