Delta wave of Covid-19

Delta, a variant of concern

India saw an unparallel devastation of human life, in the living memories of present generation, in the second wave of Covid-19 of Delta variant infection, which ran from mid April to mid May 2021. We are a nation of multitude of population. So in such a demanding situation, health infrastructure and system remained fail. We may have 'many' research institute, many oxygen plant, many hospital and serum institute in 'number', but when demand rose for providing it to 'per capita'; to our dismay, it proved a failure. And it was supposed to be. We are in no way capable of providing 'health needs' to such a 'large number' of people at any given instance, if a sudden pandemic rose even in future. Unfortunately disposal of dead bodies have also seen unprecedented scenario, which put humanity on shame.

People suffering, in desperate need of medicine, oxygen, hospital bed, doctor; and there was none. Disposal of dead bodies saw such painful and shameful visuals. Business of hoarding medical needs and market of fake medicine were on high. There is no 'actual number' of lives lost, because there was no one to record to in such a messy situation. Bonds of accountability of any kind was broken. A time of shame; pity, pain, tears ran high on faces of masses, those who lost their dear ones or children who lost their both parents; not to mention the neglect and negligence by the system to which we are proud of as most religious and democratic nation. Holy values saw a deepest dip of our time.

Delta plus variant acquired a spike protein mutation called K417N, the sub lineage of Delta, is on rise now. No one knows, what are in the store as mutation causes more transmissibility. Precaution measure and vaccines are the only answer at present.

First report from China was of 30th December 2019, later WHO issued disease outbreak news on 5th January 2020. Ever since, this virus has shown tendencies of a quick and efficiently evolving variants. Since one and half year, the cases and deaths are on rise, every minute. As of June 22, the country wise variant reported are; Alpha in 170, Beta in 119, Gamma in 71 and Delta in 85 countries. 

Lab leak theory of Covid-19

WIV image credit: Kyodo News via Getty

There is a huge debate these days about the origin of Covid-19/Corona/SARS-CoV-2; that this virus either has emerged from some zoonotic host in nature or it is bioengineered in some Virology lab. Before coming to any conclusion, it would be better to evaluate both possibilities in the light of available evidences. 

Possible spillover from nature: 

1. Most scientist believe that SARS-CoV-2 has a spillover from nature, because

bats are the known carrier for coronavirus. Horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus affinis) is commonly found in southern China. Genome of virus RATG13 found in this bat is 96 percent identical to the genome of SARS-CoV-2 causing Covid-19 in human.

2. This means that a closer link in between human and bat is missing for the difference of 4 percent genome.

3. Again the spillover from the lab is a remote possibility as lab engineered strain mostly cause small outbreaks. They are well documented and contained. 

4. Same covid-19 like pattern were found for emergence of infectious diseases causing pandemic in previous years; e.g. SARS coronavirus, influenza, Ebola, HIV etc. in other parts of the world.

5. 'WHO' too agreed for investigation in to pandemic's origin in depth (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00375-7).

Lab leak theories are basically grounded on:

1. SARS-CoV-2's closest relative is still elusive to scientists.
2. Covid-19 first reported in Wuhan, is not a coincidence where WIV lab is researching on the same virus.
3. SARS-CoV-2 is spreading unusually quickly in humans, that points intention.
4. Furin cleavage site on virus protein spike, absent in it's closest relative. (But opponent to lab spillover theory believe it a convergent evolution for evolutionary advantage as virus adapting to the similar environment; as furin cleavage is also found on common cold viruses)
5. Original host of virus could not be found as yet.
6. CGG encoding for Amino Acid Arginine underlying a segment of furin cleavage site is preferred code for Arginine by humans, not viruses. (https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038). (But opposite believer point the 3 percent of Arginine been coded by CGG code in SARS-CoV-2, citing example of Indian variant (B.1.617.2 or Delta) has mutations in nucleotides encoding it's furin cleavage site, making it more virulent variant.)

Spillover theory and word of politics: 

There are many voices echoed in favor of a fair enquiry in this matter. 

1. US President Joe Biden tasked US Intelligence community to find the origin of SARS-Co-2. 

2. Australia, EU, Japan were also in the same league in voicing their concern for a fair investigation. 

3. World leaders in G7 summit were also vocal in a statement issued to the media on June 13, 2021.

(https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/g7-leaders-discuss-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-behind-covid-19-pandemic/article34804805.ece)

It's true that:
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China's central Hubei province is located in the same city from where the first Covid-19 were reported, but there is no substantial evidence to prove the controversial spillover theory from lab as of yet.

A spillover from nature through a bat directly or indirectly seems most likely.

Latest:
Amidst all the suspicion of lab leak theory, the Chinese Academy of Sciences reportedly nominated the 'Wuhan Institute of Virology' for top science award in conducting 'the most comprehensive and systematic identification research on the aetiology of covid-19'.
(https://www.wionews.com/world/wuhan-lab-suspected-of-leaking-covid-19-nominated-for-top-science-award-in-china-393263)

Corona virus outbreak, symptom, medicine, vaccine and lesson learnt

Corona Virus outbreak, causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (Covid-19) was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30th January 2020 and a global Pandemic on 11th March 2020 by World Health Organization. Then it was thought as of zoonotic origin of some mammal like bat or other.

Covid-19 was first reported on 31st December 2019 from Wuhan, China. Spreading swiftly on global scale and adapting itself to gradually more lethal strain, surprised the medical community as well because mostly next level of strains are supposed to be less pathogenic, as considered generally.

Disease symptom is most intriguing so far as this affects different people in different ways. Common symptoms of fever, dry cough, tiredness, sore throat, diarrhea, loss of taste or smell to severe symptoms like breathing difficulty, chest pain, speech loss etc., ranging from 5-6 days to 14 days long period.

Getting blood oxygen level down is one point when body seems to be struggling for adequate supply of oxygen to their body parts. It is though lungs and RBCs who are the major player in this mechanism. Either lung being turned to morbid state or RBCs being in clotting phenomenon due to enzymes exudes of the virus, is yet to be fully explored and understood. But post-Covid death is all due to the organ failure at one or many level. Seriously infected patients even after been cured are suffering with many troubles of organ systems as one or more.

Medicines prescribed were mostly meant to take load away from fever and virus with immunity booster pills to fight; are the direction in which medicines were used by prescribing suitable doses of antipyretic, anti viral drugs and vitamin tablets. Plasma therapy in this case is used but with efficacy and validity controversy.

Vaccines in this turmoil came as the only hope, even infection after the second vaccine dose is also on the record. It was and still is a hard task economically and physically to administer to all human population. This pandemic period has shown us as we humans are sitting in the same boat. A person standing last in the line can not be left as he/she will be the asymptomatic carrier. Rich or poor, black or white are the world citizens as deserving equal rights of life, sustainability, health care and education. This is the time to learn this hard lesson for humanity. 

In India by the time of second Covid wave in March-April 2021, every kind of medical system was in total failure. People were asking for medical oxygen for anything and there was none. Death were so enormous that disposal of human dead bodies saw most unprecedented visuals of the century. India was truly devastated. Systems failed at many levels. 

Lessons learnt are to be carried with our life style now and that is cleaning hands often with soap and alcohol based rubs, maintaining safe distance, wearing mask, not going out when it's unnecessary, 

Delta variant is in the corner to meet us, we don't exactly know that what is in store of the Covid strain or some other viruses in future, safety should be the prime concern of every individual as for self and safety of other human fellows too.

Sun sneeze is a heritable trait

Sun sneezing, as name suggests is a photo sneeze reflex or better said a naso-ocular reflex caused by the exposure of an individual to bright light, so Photosneezia is another name came from. Claimed to be affecting 18 - 35 percent of world's population which is quite sizeable number as 1 in 4 persons are sun sneezers, whose exact physiology is yet to be explained.

It is well recorded in history by Aristotle and others but was less understood until recently.

Some believe that it may have evolutionary advantages for the cave dwellers in terms of spreading of pathogens present in their naso-pharynx, to their fellow cohabitants. It doesn't fits that way because we all should have had this in our DNA.

Rock Garden, Chandigarh, India

 

By 1980s it was established as a heritable autosomal dominant trait, is now called ACHOO syndrome (Autosomal-Dominant Compelling Helio-Opthalmic Outbursts), caused by single-nucleotide polymorphism on Chromosome 2, where a single base Adenine (purine) is replaced by Cytosine (pyrimidine) on DNA due to random mutation.

Being of dominant nature (name; the C allele on the rs10427255 SNP), it expresses itself even if being transmitted by the single parent through Chromosome 2 (location; 146,125,523). 

Physiology is simple as Opthalmic branch (Optic nerve) of Trigeminal nerve (longest Cranial nerve) inhances the irritability of the Maxillary branch to get sneeze.

How alien we humans are

In a recent study 19 ancient viral DNA fragments were found, adding 2 to the previously known 17, deep embedded in human genome.(Research article published online on March 21, 2016 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.)

In a way 8 percent of human DNA is alien, scientifically named as Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs).

More studies are in offing as to prove that how useful or infectious they are to the human beings. 

May be the viral outbreak in the human history have some link to HERVs as if these are capable of causing an epidemic.

These viruses incorporated in our DNAs ever since hundreds of millions of years must have shaped the course of human evolution history, God knows if benefiting to their own ends, is unknown as more studies and speculations are yet to be made. 

We all know that evolution is an endless creative process as what we find useless today, tomorrow it may play a vital role in adaptation course of genetic material. (http://www.nature.com/articles/nature11244.epdf?)

Ancient viruses hibernating in the human genome is a frightening call.

We are viral from the beginning.... 

Now the question is how alien we are ?

courtesy shared screenshot: 

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/03/16/1602336113.abstract

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Some related article reference links:

Viruses are cellular organisms
Mitochondria is a symbiotic bacteria
Chloroplast is a symbiotic bacteria
Viruses hidden in human genes
Human a curious case of symbiont body
Human body and theseus paradox

Languages as science of acoustic adaptation

Sound mechanics of language
1. Words are basically strings of sound frequencies travelling through air to ear. 
2. Sound travel through media (like air) to reach ear at a distance.
3. High frequency consonants are prone to loss and distortion in media obstacles such as dense vegetation, rough terrain, reflection etc as compared Low frequency vowel sounds.
4. According to linguists  Ian Maddieson  of the University of New Mexico and Christophe Coupé of the Laboratoire Dynamique de Langage-CNRS in France, is why language spoken in warm, wet and heavily wooded areas tend to use more vowels and fewer consonants and mostly in simple syllables.

Ian Maddieson
http://www.unm.edu/~ianm/index.html#

Christophe Coupé
http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/annuaires/index.asp?Langue=EN&Page=Christophe%20COUPE

Summary:
High Frequency > Consonant sound like f, p or t > Get lost easily in their travel > Spoken in Georgian (Caucasus mountain region) > Cluttered syllables. (consonant heavy languages, strung together into clusters creating syllables too complex)

Low Frequency > Vowel sound like e, o and u > tend to travel long > Spoken in Pacific island & SE Asia > Simple syllables. (spoken in warm, wet, heavy wooded areas, tend to use more vowels, few consonants, simple syllables) 

Note:
1. Number of cycles per unit time is called frequency.
2. Wavelength is the distance in space required to complete a full cycle of a frequency.
    The wavelength of a sound is the inverse of it's frequency,
3. Higher frequency, shorter wavelength. e.g. 20,000 Hz frequency/Wavelength is 0.68 in or 1.72 cm
4. Lower frequency, longer wavelength. e.g. 20 Hz frequency's Wavelength is 56.5 ft or 17.22 m


Acoustic adaptation hypothesis
Propounded by biologist E.S.Morton in 1975 is about the idea that animal species adapt their vocalizations to get most out of the local acoustics.

Morton in a study noticed that in woodland areas, where trees might muffle or distort bird songs, birds tend to sing songs made up of lower frequencies, with less variation, than birds in open areas.

Phonology relates to environment 

Biologists have noticed that birds in some cities are adapting their songs to be heard amid the background noise of the urban life.

Maddieson and Coupé in their presentation to The Acoustic Society of America at it's 170th meeting this week in Jacksonville Florida, wrote, "Our research shows a significant pattern of the same kind among human languages."


Article was prepared after thankfully consulting and quoting researches from:
1. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/
2. http://acousticalsociety.org/

Laboured breathing or shortness of breath (dyspnea) due to pulmonary edema

Laboured breathing/shortness of breath (dyspnea) may have more than one causes as:
Asthma, 
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 
adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), 
head injury, 
swallowed or inhaled foreign object, 
agoraphobia (anxiety disorder), 
diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), 
diphtheria (fatal bacterial infection), 
skull fractures, 
lung cancer, 
encephalitis, 
patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), 
croup (virus causing swelling around vocal cords); 
and that needs to be explored for.

The symptoms may include one or many as:
Shortness of breath, 
rapid breathing, 
vomiting, 
cough, 
loss of consciousness, 
stopped breathing, 
wheezing, anxiety, 
gasping for breath, 
high-pitched breath sounds, 
coma, 
tired.
Link for more detail/thankfully consulted for:http://www.healthline.com/symptom/labored-breathing

Laboured breathing/shortness of breath (dyspnea) is alarming as it causes:
i. Respiratory distress,
ii. Cardiac arrest due to hypoxia.

Laboured breathing/shortness of breath (dyspnea) could also be due to pulmonary edema,
which may be of,
i. cardiogenic or 
ii. non cardiogenic types.

Edema is a medical term for swelling.
It is a general response of the body to injury or inflammation.
Edema can be isolated to a small area or affect the entire body.
Edema results whenever small blood vessels become 'leaky' and release fluid into nearby tissues.

Edema may have many causes as:
Low albumin (hypoalbuminemia), 
allergic reactions, 
obstruction of flow, 
critical illness, 
heart disease.

Old age is also a cause of edema as when heart weakens and pumps blood less effectively, fluid can slowly build up creating leg edema.
If fluid buildup occurs rapidly, fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema) can develop.
If there is heart failure of the right side of the heart, often times edema can develop in the abdomen as well.
Changing weather ('stress) is often a 'predisposing factor' for pulmonary edema in elderly people.

Link for more detail/thankfully consulted for:http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/heart-failure/edema-overview

Mode of action
As this results in distressing and emergency situations, consulting a qualified physician and admitting patient to an equipped hospital so that he/she can get oxygen, blood infusion and other sos medication for the control of urgent distressing health conditions.

Medications:
That also varies with cause of the edema and  the physical condition of the patient, which only can be ascertained by examination by a qualified physician.
Adequate blood studies and ECG should be made available and physician to be consulted with the outcome of these tests reports.

If the heart is okay, old age and environmental condition seems to be the causal factor then with due consultation and advise of a qualified physician these medicines on prescribed doses could be given for the period as advised by a qualified physician only:
1. Etofylline Theophylline tablets (100mg)
2. Torsemide tablets (10mg)
3. Levocetrizine tablets (5mg)

Note: Following is a prescription slip of a 90 years old male patient with dyspnea due to pulmonary edema