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This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

The lockdown imposed in India on 25 March 2020 resulted in the indefinite closure of education institutes all across the country. The government and educational institutes were quick to respond, they shifted teaching from offline to online mode. This article aims to identify the approaches made by the higher education institutions for continues imparting of education amidst lockdown. The article also identifies the challenges faced by teachers in online teaching from their homes. The study is descriptive and analytical in nature and data has been collected from secondary sources like reports, news articles, blogs, interview videos, magazines, social media, and journals to achieve the objective of the paper. Based on the secondary sources' information, the article also advocates the learning curve for the future to deal with any such crisis impact on the education system of India. The findings revealed that higher education institutions (HEIs) have taken many initiatives in this pandemic situation for imparting education. But these initiatives have not been very successful from the teacher's perspective. Teachers faced may issue in online teaching such as lack of technical facilities, family interruption, lack of training, lack of clarity & direction, lack of technical knowledge. The learning curve of the article facilitates the HEIs to help them to execute the online educative in an effective manner.

We are living in an unprecedented difficult time due to the infectious COVID-19 pandemic, a global emergency. During the on-going pandemic, most allergy/immunology care could be postponed/delayed or handled through virtual care. Seven experts from different parts of India deliberated on this subject in 3 weekly webinars (May 10, 17, and 24, 2020) charted out consensus-based approach for diagnosis and management of patients suffering with allergic respiratory diseases in India during this COVID-19 pandemic. This publication includes these recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The first human case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19, subsequently named SARS-CoV-2 was reported by the officials in Wuhan City, China, in December 2019. In India, on January 31, 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was reported. Materials and Methods: The Indian scale of fear related to COVID-19 (ISF-C19) Scale was developed in Hindi and was rated by two raters. Then, it was applied on twenty individuals (ten males and ten females) as a pilot study. The study had been conducted in Eastern India, in the state of Jharkhand. ISF-C19 was completed by 118 participants (females – 75; males – 43), aged 18 years or older from the community, and the subjective well-being was assessed. The psychometric properties of this instrument were investigated. Safety measures (i.e., mask, maintaining distance, gloves, and sanitizers) were taken throughout the data collection period. Results: Findings suggested that this scale has adequate sampling, adequate interitem reliability coefficient, and higher overall scores on the ISF-C19 indicated more severe fear related to COVID-19. Conclusion: In light of the current scenario of the emerging cases in India, there is an urgent need to develop a scale related to COVID-19 as there is no published Indian standardized scale before this recent outbreak of pandemic. Considering the current scenario, this scale is useful to assess the fear related to COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The merits and demerits of India's burgeoning population have created more than a flutter in the lives of many an economist, yet interest never seems to peter out. By the end of 2020, 'the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan'. According to the UNFPA, the window of demographic dividend opportunity in India is expected to be available for five decades from 2005- 06 to 2055-56 - longer than any other country in the world. So in 2020, India seems to have entered into the 16 year period under the Demographic Dividend. While the brains of the country burn the midnight oil and grapple with the menacing pandemic - COVID 19, fact of the matter remains that, India's bulging population is indeed a blessing in disguise!. So what if half of the sub-continent is still struggling to come to terms with a two children per mother norm, and that too well into 2020?. To conclude, there's still enough light to be seen at the end of the tunnel. Ranked pretty high in GDP (especially in terms of Purchasing Power Parity) - thereby qualifying to be counted as one of the world's biggest economies, India, deals with extremes that range from delightful to excruciating. A country juxtaposed with mysteries spread over centuries, demographic dividend offers a formidable contradiction, indeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at representing the supportive steps taken by the government in favor of the Indian Agricultural sector during the COVID-19 crisis and the changes made in the APMC Laws by the state governments. The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare launched some new features in the electronic- National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) portal which will make it possible for farmers to sell their harvested crops without being physically present in the mandi and they can receive the payments online so that the risk for them of getting infected can be reduced. The Government has also passed some ordinances to allow farmers to do direct selling and facilitate contract farming. The Uttar Pradesh government has removed around 46 fruits from Krishi Utpadan mandi ordinance so that businessmen can purchase these products directly from farmers without being charged the mandi fee. The government also announced some changes in the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) which allows them to sell their produce at a gainful price and barrier-free trading over the states. But in the end, all these steps seem to be tilted towards the profit for the Agribusiness Companies. The Government also stated that farmers will be given Minimum Support Prices and is providing money under the PM-KISAN scheme although it is stated that these two were to be given even without lockdown so basically, some old points are again highlighted by the Government which is part of politics rather than remedial support for the needy farmers. But it should be kept in mind that a decline in the farmer's income will also lead to a decline in India's Economy. so all such steps should be taken after due consideration and discussion with the stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been the gravest global pandemic in this century which has devastated the growth of economies worldwide. As a measure to curb the spread of this deadly virus, lockdowns were even announced in India during which there was a sudden shift to the online mode for majority of transactions. In this context, internet banking played a pivotal role in spite the numerous challenges and unpreparedness to handle the whole situation efficiently. Hence, this empirical assessment was conducted to examine the efficacy of the internet banking. It was a descriptive research which was based on the data collected online through an online questionnaire with suitable modifications. For this purpose, seven independent variables, namely, reliability, responsiveness, security, feedback management, speed of service, device compatibility, and ease of navigation were chosen based on their appropriateness. Efficacy was stipulated as variable that was measured as a summated score of the mentioned factors. Working professionals and corporates were taken as the sample and the sample size was 349. Impact of the given variables on the overall efficacy of internet banking was assessed using multiple regressions at 5% level of significance. Resource limitation is indispensable. Due to the inhibitions posed by the pandemic, face to face meetings could not be possible with the respondents, yet the responses were collected online. This empirical assessment would add to the recent literature pertaining to the banking industry and its role in supporting the Indian economy. It could even serve insights regarding the successful performance of Indian banks and creates scope for future research to understand the strategies of banks to perform at optimum level in a situation of crisis. This research is unique as studies on studying performance of banks in India during COVID-19 are still in their naïve phase and more studies are yet to be conducted. It would serve as an insightful paper that examines the relationships between variables quantitatively as well as qualitatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business of tourism is woven around creating longing consumer experiences through a variously connected chain of divergent spatially fixed tangible and intangible assets. Relentless pursuits of the visitors for novelty and uniqueness drive the business forward with great momentum and enhance its resilience. However, the natural and anthropogenic stressor events push the vulnerabilities of tourism and destinations, often making it very fragile and struggling to withstand the effects of the onslaughts. This paper has been scoped to map the vulnerabilities of tourism in Indian context and to elucidate the perspectives for a resilient tourism. The results suggests that domestic and outbound tourism sectors in India have been seen largely resilient in the 21st Century while FTA's did face setbacks during the global level disasters. Building resilience is a multi-faceted praxis and its effectiveness demands involvement and integration of key stakeholders at all levels- destination, industry and establishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The RNA genome of the emerging novel coronavirus is rapidly mutating, and its human-to-human transmission rate is increasing. Hence, temporal dissection of their evolutionary dynamics, the nature of variations among different strains, and understanding the single nucleotide polymorphisms in the endemic settings are crucial. Delineating the heterogeneous genomic constellations of this novel virus will help us understand its complex behavior in a particular geographical region. Objective: This is a comprehensive analysis of 95 Indian SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences available from the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) repository during the first 6 months of 2020 (January through June). Evolutionary dynamics, gene-specific phylogeny, and the emergence of the novel coevolving mutations in 9 structural and nonstructural genes among circulating SARS-CoV-2 strains across 12 different Indian states were analyzed. Methods: A total of 95 SARS-CoV-2 nucleotide sequences submitted from India were downloaded from the GISAID database. Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis, version X software was used to construct the 9 phylogenetic dendrograms based on nucleotide sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 genes. Analyses of the coevolving mutations were done in comparison to the prototype SARS-CoV-2 from Wuhan, China. The secondary structure of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase/nonstructural protein NSP12 was predicted with respect to the novel A97V mutation. Results: Phylogenetic analyses revealed the evolution of "genome-type clusters" and adaptive selection of "L"-type SARS-CoV-2 strains with genetic closeness to the bat severe acute respiratory syndrome--like coronaviruses. These strains were distant to pangolin or Middle East respiratory syndrome--related coronavirus strains. With regard to the novel coevolving mutations, 2 groups have been seen circulating in India at present, the "major group" (66/95, 69.4%) and the "minor group" (21/95, 22.1%), harboring 4 and 5 coexisting mutations, respectively. The "major group" mutations fall in the A2a clade. All the minor group mutations, except 11083G>T (L37F, NSP6 gene), were unique to the Indian isolates. Conclusions: This study highlights the rapidly evolving SARS-CoV-2 virus and the cocirculation of multiple clades and subclades. This comprehensive study is a potential resource for monitoring the novel mutations in the viral genome, interpreting changes in viral pathogenesis, and designing vaccines or other therapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to global despair, risking the well-being of individuals and progress of societies. Prior to the pandemic, the Indian economy was grappling with the triple burden of rising unemployment among the educated youth, declining female labour force participation, and slowing growth momentum beginning 2017-18. With negative growth projections and pervasive gender gaps in formal employment, Indian educated women will be adversely affected as they are highly participative in the unpaid and informal work. The Indian development scenario looks bleak as the pandemic is likely to accentuate the existing tribulations in the postpandemic period. Attempting to identify vulnerable states and provide a forward-looking approach, this paper explores the inter-play of growth, higher education, and employment from a gender perspective. The findings also highlight that neither growth nor the ballooning educated labour force resulted in the disposal of gender bias in India's labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the age of social media, every second thousands of messages are exchanged. Analyzing those unstructured data to find out specific emotions is a challenging task. Analysis of emotions involves evaluation and classification of text into emotion classes such as Happy, Sad, Anger, Disgust, Fear, Surprise, as defined by emotion dimensional models which are described in the theory of psychology (www 1; Russell, 2005). The main goal of this paper is to cover the COVID-19 pandemic situation in India and its impact on human emotions. As people very often express their state of the mind through social media, analyzing and tracking their emotions can be very effective for government and local authorities to take required measures. We have analyzed different machine learning classification models, such as Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest Classifier, Decision Tree and Logistic Regression with 10-fold cross validation to find out top ML models for emotion classification. After tuning the Hyperparameter, we got Logistic regression as the best suited model with accuracy 77% with the given datasets. We worked on algorithm based supervised ML technique to get the expected result. Although multiple studies were conducted earlier along the same lines, none of them performed comparative study among different ML techniques or hyperparameter tuning to optimize the results. Besides, this study has been done on the dataset of the most recent COVID-19 pandemic situation, which is itself unique. We captured Twitter data for a duration of 45 days with hashtag #COVID19India OR #COVID19 and analyzed the data using Logistic Regression to find out how the emotion changed over time based on certain social factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World has been disrupted by Covid-19 affecting lives and livelihood. This paper intends to portray how in pre-covid-19, the consumer's awareness and technology leveraged the markets for both good and services, increased competition as market players started using various platforms such as e-commerce, m-commerce, s-commerce. While during covid, markets have shrunk to bare minimal, the world is already prepared to bounce back mainly because world and India are technologically well prepared to serve the market in various platforms which covid cannot destroy. As the new forms of markets are emerging, market leaders are also changing strategies of branding, creating brand values to be in the fore front and build trust among the techno savvy aware consumer. Yet keeping up in the fore front of creating brand image needs collaboration of a number of experts such as strategist, supply chain experts, scientist and big data analysts. This has been possible in pre-corvid situation and will be carried on in post covid period also. The paper is based on the observations made by leading market research organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a surge in epidemiological modeling research due to sudden onset of COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. In the absence of any pharmaceutical interventions to control the epidemic, nonpharmaceutical interventions like containment, mitigation and suppression are tried and tested partners in epidemiological theories. But policy and planning needs estimates of disease burden in various scenarios in absence of real data and epidemiological models helps to fill this gap. Aims and Objectives: To review the models of COVID-19 prediction in Indian scenario, critically evaluate the range, concepts, strength and limitations of these prediction models and its potential policy implications. Results: Though we conducted data search for last three months, it was found that the predictive models reporting from Indian context have started publishing very recently. Majority of the Indian models predicted COVID-19 spread, projected best-, worst case scenario and forecasted effect of various preventive measurements such as lockdown and social distancing. Though the models provided some of the critical information regarding spread of the disease and fatality rate associated with COVID-19, it should be used with caution due to severe data gaps, distinct socio-demographic profiling of the population and diverse statistics of co-morbid condition. Conclusion: Although the models were designed to predict COVID spread, and claimed to be accurate, significant data gaps and need for adjust confounding variables such as effect of lockdown, risk factors and adherence to social distancing should be considered before generalizing the findings. Results of epidemiological models should be considered as guiding beacon instead of final destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally the cases of Covid-19 are making the world panic. Undoubtedly, all the countries are involved in management of COVID-19 whether it is a country with a population over a billion or less than a billion in numbers. India, with a population of 1,324,171,000 (according to 2016 Census). It can't act as the other nations are working. It is important to India to work on a strategy that shall manage the pandemic. The paper reveals on various surveillance strategies to be taken by the countries around the globe in covid-19 pandemic management. The strategies in control and management of Covid-19 are based on the spread of the pandemic in the country as well on the basis of density of population of the country affected by the pandemic. The paper recommends a density of population-based surveillance strategy can really help in the Covid-19 pandemic management. And also concludes taking into the consideration of the economics of countries, a different surveillance strategy will work for Governments in Covid-19 management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globe is combating COVID-19 and a lockout has been announced by economies around the world. Work from home (WFH) has now become the standard, particularly for service organizations including educational institutions. Furthermore, the institutions of higher learning had to close down unexpectedly, disrupting the educational operation, according to government orders. Therefore, they needed to consider new approaches to the teaching process, and the path ahead was digital classrooms. In India, around 32 crore learners halted to move school/colleges and all instructive exercises brought to a conclusion. Be that as it may, the questions almost the readiness, planning, and viability of e-learning is still not caught on, especially for a creating nation like India, where the specialized imperatives like reasonableness of gadgets and transmission capacity accessibility postures a genuine challenge. Despite all these challenges, the Higher Instruction Educate (HIE) has responded empathetically and overseen to guarantee the coherence of teaching-learning, inquire about and benefit to the community with a few apparatuses and methods amid the pandemic. In this study, we will center on understanding Generation Z pharmacy student's discernment and inclination towards internet learning through an online review of 300 respondents. We will likewise investigate the understudy's inclination for different traits of online classes; which will be useful to structure viable learning conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national legal preparedness for COVID-19 pandemic has feeble supportive health legislations. The limits of sanction and extent of liberation never took the critical understanding and discourse building of health equity during the sledgehammer lockdown period. The legal strategy policy is power centric and underplays the government's duties and the citizens' rights. The government clamped national lockdown to combat COVID-19 pandemic under Indian Penal Code, 1860; Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Epidemic Diseases (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020. The statutory innovation of 'catastrophe and calamity' beyond the 'coping capacity of the community' of Disaster Management Act, 2005 did not extend to relief and rehabilitative mechanism of Disaster Management Act, 2005. The slew of the enactments such as National Health Bill, 2009 and Public Health (Prevention, Control and Management of Epidemics, Bio-Terrorism and Disasters) Bill, 2017 stalled even in a situation when India became the third country in terms the COVID-19 infections. The Indian government did not resort to Article 47 and Entry 29 of the Constitution of India, 1950 to embark on quarantine and health laws. There is an urgent need of the new generation of epidemic and pandemic driven laws to combat the cascading effect of the COVID-19 beyond the colonial parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic originated in China in December 2019 and has since then, swept across the world. The last Influenza pandemic of 1918 happened before the advent of modern medicine. We have come a long way since then. But the pandemic has still caught us unprepared in many quarters. The review focuses on the management of critically ill COVID-19 patients and the various challenges faced by intensivists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anesthesiologists are amongst the front line warriors in this COVID-19 pandemic. We need to change our preferences and practices to reduce the spread to healthcare workers and patients in the hospital. General anesthesia involves aerosol-generating procedures while ventilating and intubating the patients. Regional anesthesia maintains respiratory functions, circumvents airway instrumentation and helps to limit viral transmission. This makes a strong case to patronize regional anaesthesia practises whenever possible. Due to various limitations of diagnostic tests available, all patients can be treated as COVID-19 positive and necessary precautions are suggested to limit the transmission. The importance of a practise advisory is to clear the mist around the dos and don'ts to ensure clarity of thoughts leading to improved safety of both patient and health care professional. We propose clinical guidelines for regional anaesthesia practices in COVID-19 positive patient posted for surgery. Furthermore, current recommendations on confirming the COVID-19 negative status is referred. These features are subject to change further with time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid 19 situation in India holds forth tremendous challenges for the Indian public healthcare system. The current situation is unprecedented. The Covid 19's high infectivity rate coupled with a high case fatality rate have created a situation where India could see between 2 and 25 lakh deaths over the next 12 to 18 months. The final number of fatalities will depend a great deal on several factors of which surveillance is a critical one. Surveillance will determine the extent to which the government is able to mount a data driven response. Surveillance will help in identifying hot spots and clusters. This in turn will help in mounting targeted responses. In the words of the WHO director general: "Test, test, test. A fire cannot be fought blindfolded." India's response has not been satisfactory. This paper discusses the need for a stronger surveillance system and a higher testing rate. If the avalanche of Covid 19 cases requiring hospitalisation comes, the current infrastructure and manpower will be grossly inadequate for it. If India is able to set up a robust and comprehensive surveillance system across urban-rural divides, that might well be a game changer in the covid 19 battle. Failure could mean lakhs more die. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID-19 presenting as SARI (severe acute respiratory syndrome) mandates the need for ICU (intensive care unit) hospitalization, increasing healthcare burden. This study aims to determine knowledge of healthcare professionals towards management of SARI in COVID-19 suspected cases. Methods: A total of 313 healthcare professionals from the state of Maharashtra, India completed a questionnaire-based survey study adapted from the WHO interim guidance for management of SARI in COVID-19 suspected cases. Convenience sampling method was used and the distribution of responses was presented as frequencies and percentages. Sub-groups were classified on the basis of gender, age, profession and ICU vs. Non-ICU setting. Descriptive statistics were performed for all groups based on percentage of correct responses and individual pairwise comparisons were done using the Chi-Square test. Results: The median and mean percentage of correct responses for all sub groups was only 66.80% and 58.62% respectively. A higher percentage of total correct responses were those from the ICU setting with a higher overall performance from medical postgraduates. The nursing and allied healthcare professionals had a poor overall performance. Conclusions: The findings indicate lacunae in several aspects of SARI management which calls for nationwide studies and implementation of comprehensive training programmes. A uniform structured training program with team-oriented crisis resource management suitable for all healthcare professionals irrespective of prior training in COVID-19 management must be implemented. Furthermore, the findings of this study can serve as a baseline to develop training resources for healthcare professionals for COVID-19 management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global pandemic involving severe acute respiratory syndrome--coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2) has stretched the limits of science. Ever since it emerged from the Wuhan province in China, it has spread across the world and has been fatal to about 4% of the victims. This position statement of the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine represents the collective opinion of the experts chosen by the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With declaration of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by World Health Organization, India came to alert for its being at next potential risk. It reached alert Level 2, i.e. local transmission for virus spread in early March 2020 and soon thereafter alert Level 3, i.e. community transmission. With on-going rise in COVID-19 cases in country, Government of India (GoI) has been taking multiple intense measures in coordination with the state governments, such as urban lockdown, active airport screening, quarantining, aggressive calls for 'work from home', public awareness, and active case detection with contact tracing in most places. Feedback from other countries exhibits COVID-19 transmission levels to have shown within country variations. With two-third of Indian population living in rural areas, present editorial hypothesizes that if India enters Level 3, rural hinterland would also be at risk importation (at least Level 1). Hence, we have to call for stringent containment on rural-urban and inter-state fringes. This along with other on-going measures can result in flattening curve and also in staggering 'lockdowns', and thus, helping sustain national economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is passing through a global pandemic of COVID 19. The number of positive cases has crossed over twenty thousand as of April 2020. Like everyone else, it is indeed a very challenging situation for family physicians and primary care providers as most of the guidelines presently have focused on screening, quarantine, isolation, and hospital-based management. Limited information or clarity is available on running small private clinics during pandemic times. The key concern is professional obligation versus risks of community transmission. Family physicians see routine flu-like illnesses throughout the year with seasonal variation within their practices. This document is intended to develop consensus and standard practices for the family physicians and other primary care providers during the pandemic, ensuring optimal continuity of care. This document was reviewed by the national executive of the Academy of Family Physicians of India and approved for dissemination among members. However, due to the dynamic status of the pandemic, all practitioners are advised to closely follow the instructions, guidelines, and advisories of national, state and local health authorities as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, COVID -19 pandemic has put Indian economy in a bad shape with loss of production, income and employment. Due to uncertainties regarding revival of the economy in the near future, banks are hesitant to lend. Consequently, small borrowers have to look for financial assistance from the other sources of finance. In this context, P2P lending seems to be a dependable source of finance for small borrowers because it operates online and provides financial services at cheaper rate due to low overheads. Non Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) engaged in P2P lending offer mostly unsecured loans to small borrowers and, that too, for meeting personal credit needs. More importantly, a majority of them are those small borrowers whose loan request was earlier rejected by the banks. Appreciating the unique features of P2P lending and growing demand for it in India, Reserve Bank of India, since 2016, has been regulating NBFC-P2P lending platforms to protect the interest of lenders and borrowers. While both borrowers and lenders are benefitted from this new line of activity, risk associated with P2P lending is high and increasing which shall be checked by addressing concerns relating to technology and compliance requirements. In view of the growing importance of P2P lending, banks have to view the P2P lending companies as their competitor in future. In this backdrop, it is necessary to create awareness of P2P lending on the part of bankers at the grass root level particularly when is seized by COVID-19 pandemic. Towards this end, the present paper shares the relevant information and thoughts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 is a global public health emergency. This has led to challenges for healthcare facilities to optimally manage other important medical emergencies. Stroke is an important public health emergency with significant mortality and morbidity. Timely treatment of acute stroke is critical to prevent disability. The current expert consensus statement on behalf of the Indian Stroke Association outlines the issues and suggestions related to the management of stroke during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2002, β coronaviruses (CoVs) have caused three zoonotic outbreaks, SARS-CoV in 2002, MERS-CoV in 2012, and the recent outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 late in 2019 (also named as COVID-19 or novel coronavirus 2019 or nCoV2019). Spike (S) protein, one of the structural proteins of this virus plays key role in receptor (ACE2) binding and thus virus entry. Thus, this protein has attracted scientists for detailed study and therapeutic targeting. As the nCoV2019 takes its course throughout the world, more and more sequence analyses are being done and genome sequences are being deposited in various databases. From India, two clinical isolates have been sequenced and the full genome has been deposited in GenBank. We have performed sequence analyses of the Spike protein of the Indian isolates and compared with that of the Wuhan, China (where the outbreak was first reported). While all the sequences of Wuhan isolates are identical, we found point mutations in the Indian isolates. Out of the two isolates, one was found to harbor a mutation in its receptor-binding domain (RBD) at position 407. At this site, arginine (a positively charged amino acid) was replaced by isoleucine (a hydrophobic amino acid that is also a C-β branched amino acid). This mutation has been seen to change the secondary structure of the protein at that region and this can potentially alter receptor binding of the virus. Although this finding needs further validation and more sequencing, the information might be useful in rational drug designing and vaccine engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has directly or indirectly affected every human being on this planet. It's impact on the healthcare system has been devastating. The medical fraternity across the world, including India, is facing unprecedented challenges in striving to cope up with this catastrophic outbreak. Like all other specialties, dermatology practice has been profoundly affected by this pandemic. Measures have been taken by dermatologists to control the transmission of the virus, whereas providing health care to patients in the constrained environment. Preventive measures such as social distancing and hand hygienic practices along with patient education is being prioritized. Dermatological conferences and events scheduled across the globe in the first half of year 2020 have been either cancelled or postponed to discourage gatherings. Rationalization of resources and practice of teledermatology are being encouraged in current scenario. Non-urgent visits of the patients are being discouraged and elective dermatology procedures are being postponed. Many national and international dermatology societies have recently proposed recommendations and advisories on usage of biologicals and immunomodulators in present context of COVID-19 pandemic. Urticarial, erythematous, varicelliform, purpuric and livedoid rash as well as aggravation of preexisting dermatological diseases like rosacea, eczema, atopic dermatitis, and neurodermatitis rash have been reported in Covid-19 patients. Self medications and poor compliance of dermatology patients in addition to lack of proper treatment protocols and monitoring are a serious concern in the present scenario. Strategies for future course of action, including the dermatology specific guidelines need to be framed. This issue includes a special symposium on dermatology and COVID-19 having recommendations from special interest groups (SIGs) of Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists (IADVL) Academy on leprosy, dermatosurgery, lasers and dermoscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background  A nationwide lockdown due to the outbreak of COVID-19 has posed unforeseen challenges. Lockdown, physical distancing, and restrictions on medical practice have affected the training of residents and the professional and personal life of plastic surgeons. An online survey was conducted to assess this impact. Methods  A questionnaire was circulated on Whatsapp groups from 15 to 21 of May and snowball sampling was done. The survey was designed to have a separate set of questions for residents and practitioners. The obtained results were analyzed, according to SPSS software version 25. Results  A total of 206 responses were obtained (107 residents and 96 consultants) from across the country. The average age of consultants was 38.10 years, with mean experience of 4 years (range 0.5–33 years). As much as 56.3% of practitioners and 87.8% of residents were working in hospitals treating COVID-19. Average fall in number of OPD cases and elective surgeries was 75%. This led to financial strain on 86.5% of consultants and adversely affected training of 86% residents. As much as 86.9% of residents and 67.7% of consultants hoped that the online teaching pattern continued after the pandemic. Conclusion  Universities need to recognize the loss in training for residents due to the pandemic and formulate plans to overcome it. Institutions and associations conducting webinars can streamline and archive them for future use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan City in China. It spread across the world and captivated India on 30th January, 2020. Today the cases have reached 93322 and are still spreading at a rapid pace. Detection is becoming difficult with the periodic mutation of the virus as it shows no or mild symptoms. To manage the spread Global containment and quarantine efforts have been currently enforced. This review provides an outlook of COVID-19 with the existing literatures focusing on public health, emergency response, and diagnosis, impact of global disaster, preparedness and challenges as well as current state of art. Materials and Methods: Information's from PubMed, CDC, WHO, website of MOHFW, ICMR, NIH along with the journals and papers has been searched and compiled the appropriate information for awareness of people and current challenges on transmission, asymptomatic and symptomatic virus shedding, and diagnosis and future challenges of viral pathogenesis. Result: Cooperation from public is utmost appreciable and the only need of time endeavor to overcome of this emergency. Lockdown, steps for regular self and environmental sanitization, social distancing, self-quarantine, follow-up guidelines are more effective while dealing with coronavirus. Various articles on recommendations, clinical trials, PPE, Mask and Sanitizer production, State Lockdown strategies, testing strategies, understanding of clinical pathways has been discussed with facts and figures on COVID-19. Conclusion: As the huge efforts made by scientist all over world is still continued for prevention and awareness by government to deal with pandemic. Unfortunately, many of lessons from past outbreaks have not been learnt, even disease control professionals, scientists and practicing physicians are reverently in the fight against SARSCoV-2. In past few weeks many interesting papers have been published on genomic sequence, potential target for antiviral development and clinical characteristics on COVID-19. Based on these findings, the urgent needs in prevention and control of COVID-19 is required to understand the mechanism. Many challenges and research questions have arisen in the field from our personal perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude, and practice of medical students towards coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: A self-designed questionnaire was developed and given to the students of a government medical college in Uttarakhand. The demographics, mean knowledge, attitude, and practice of the participants were investigated, and the scores were calculated. t-test and ANOVA were used for statistical analysis. Results: Out of the total participants (n=354), 50.3% were male and 54.5% were 21-23 years. Almost all the participants (96.6%) increase the frequency of washing hands under the influence of COVID-19. Although no significant relationship was found between different religions, age-categories in terms of knowledge, the participants who were aged 21-23 years had higher knowledge. In addition, gender had a significant impact on practice scores (P<0.05) while no demographic variable was found to have a significant relation with attitude score (P>0.05). Conclusions: The majority of the participants had good knowledge, positive attitude, and sufficient practice. Females and males have significantly different practices. Although the results are very positive, it is suggested that people should continue to strengthen knowledge, attitude, and practice towards COVID-19, so that India can win the battle against the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocular surgery is one of the most performed medical procedures in the world. Its limitation or suspension, recursively extended over time, could be associated with a significant increase in the number of blind people worldwide. Indeed, cataract causes more than half of all cases of visual impairment in those countries with limited availability of means for performing eye operations (e.g., Africa or India). In this scenario, the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) quickly resulted in the suspension or sharp reduction of various ophthalmic activities considered non-urgent, including lens replacement surgery or some intraocular injections. Despite the imperative need to continuously practice eye operations to avoid the abovementioned problems, there are currently little-shared and vague recommendations among the various countries on safety in operating rooms (for health care workers and patients) and poor legal protection for surgeons (potentially transmitting the COVID-19 infectious agent). Herein, we individuated and discussed some critical points in safety recommendations and medical liability. A paradigm shift for ocular surgery during the COVID-19 era is now mandatory. While telemedicine has been able to solve some problems in clinical ophthalmology, the lack of adequate health and legal protection for surgeons and patients may result in an excessive reduction in the volume of surgical interventions during a pandemic era and the immediately following period, thus determining inability to ensure health care to all patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This paper fulfills an identified need to study the mental health status of the population under situations like lockdown, thereby helping fill a persistent gap in Indian research on this issue, and present research on the impact of lockdown on mental health during epidemics is limited, especially in India. This study aims to scale the association between anxiety and sociodemographic factors during the coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown among the general Indian population. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional nationwide study designed to enroll the general population. The inclusion criteria for this study were Indian citizens aged 18 years and above. The study was conducted from March 29, 2020, to April 12, 2020, using an online google questionnaire. The anxiety among respondents was detected and measured using a Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) Scale, which consists of seven questions (in English), that is, GAD-7. Results: Responders were 392, and from these participants, the prevalence of anxiety was 25.3%. The predictors of anxiety were gender, religion, occupation as business/self-employed, marital status, family size, health status, and sleep deprivation based on the bivariate logistic regression analysis. Conclusion: This study reports the early prevalence of anxiety among the Indian population who were grounded at their homes during lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel coronavirus initially reported in Wuhan, China, is the causative agent of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Symptoms of the disease comprise of fever, tiredness, dry cough, aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat, diarrhoea and pneumonia at the late stage. SARS-CoV-2 has severely crippled the healthcare system and has caused huge economic losses. Following the outbreak, the SARS-CoV-2 was recognized timely and its genome was sequenced, leading to the development of real-time polymerase chain reaction assays for its detection in clinical samples collected from suspected cases. The management of the pandemic is limited by a number of misconceptions and insufficient information about laboratory testing for SARS-CoV-2 to confirm the disease. This includes a lack of awareness about procedures for the collection, transport, testing, and handling of biological samples for COVID diagnosis. This article provides an overview of the current laboratory diagnostic methods with a purpose to provide information and guidance to laboratories, stakeholders, broader community and especially public health professionals involved in laboratory testing for SARS-CoV-2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current pandemic of COVID-19 has caused havoc all over world since its emergence and rapid spread. Within three months the virus SARS-CoV-2 which was isolated from pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China in late December 2019, has affected almost all countries. India reported its first case of COVID-19 from state of Kerala on January 30, 2020, a student returned from city of Wuhan. Till date in India the disease had affected 12759 patients with 420 deaths. With every passing day the mysterious virus is been uncovered with its unique characteristics enabling the researcher to unfold the various methods including hand washing and social distancing to curtail the pandemic. Measures like 21 days lockdown to certain extent are effective but considering asymptomatic spreaders, extended measured lockdowns will be useful in the long term war against COVID-19. Till the vaccine and therapeutic solutions are derived, answer to pandemic and SARS-CoV-2 lies in lockdown, social distancing, contact tracing and containment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 virus has resulted in the lockdown of schools, offices, factories, temples, railway stations, and even the airspace. It is estimated that due to the lockdown, the Indian economy may face prolonged adverse impact. The paper is an attempt to ascertain the impact of lockdown on the Indian economy and explore future perspective. The study has addressed important issues like consumption expenditure, demand & supply, unemployment rate, purchasing power, financial market, etc. Under the given circumstances, the lockdown will cost India around USD 120 bn. The manufacturing and service sector has come to an abrupt stop and interrupted domestic supply chains. If this crisis continuous it will indirectly affect all economic sectors. The study has given suggestions as a learning curve which can be used by different stakeholder to improve the economic situation of the country and minimize negative effect of lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 classified under emerging infectious diseases has spread across the world resulting in many casualties. India reported its first case on 30th January 2020 and has completed 100 days in this pandemic period. The government of India has issued stringent guidelines and imposed a lockdown for long periods to ensure the practising of social distancing. This paper reviews and discusses the current trends in the confirmed cases of India in comparison with the other prominent countries around the globe. A novel approach using a sigmoid function to predict and forecast the trends for cases in India are also presented in this work. By placing the current time on the sigmoid curve, forecasting the total number of confirmed cases by the end of the pandemic is made. If proper measures and stringent guidelines are not followed, India may have to endure a total confirmed case of up to 4.4 lakh. The prediction also suggests that 99.9% of the pandemic may end in India by 27th July 2020. The best possible approach is to undertake preventive measures by strictly adhering to the guidelines and policies set by the government. Performing hand hygiene, practicing social distancing, surveillance and isolation is the only means to break the chain of transmission and control the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cases of COVID-19 were rising in India and the country's political leadership instituted a nationwide lockdown, one of the authors of this article received a timely invitation from a friend – a government official – to make rounds with him and his team to various neighbourhoods within the metropolitan city of Bangalore. The team consisted of members working in healthcare, municipal corporation, and local police, and was tasked with ensuring that the government enacted measures of social distancing were being observed by local residents in public spaces. The author witnessed, in real time, the ways in which residents were engaging with the containment measures that were instituted as part of the political leadership's attempt to flatten the curve of COVID-19. What was observed in an urban slum was particularly poignant and illuminating. The observations captured how, for residents of the urban slum, social distancing is more an aspiration than an attainable reality. Indeed, social distancing is impossible if such a protocol does not come with concomitant economic support targeted to the most socially vulnerable in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An invisible entity, through naked eyes, the Virus, the pandemic (as WHO puts it), named Covid19 (or Corona Virus Disease) has created an environment of 'fear' across the world for the past few months and has spared none - the most developed economies of the 'Globalized' era as well as the struggling economies spread across continents. The impact is so big that the functioning of households, business organizations, religious and spiritual bodies, educational institutions, etc. is witnessing a sea change. Even our lifestyles have altered to a great extent. All this is actually attributed to what our minds think! The external environmental message is clear, shape up or ship out, no one wants to die nor wishes to see their near and dear ones falling to the same. It is our mind that has decides about the changes we need to bring in our activities in order to 'survive'. And hence, the mind knocks the 'Innovation' door quite often to find if there exists a solution for current and future problems. The same has been the case in our learning mechanisms, obviously both the formal and informal ones, during this period of 'lockdown'. Let us analyse this through a real-time observational study involving how our education system has changed and the impending pros and cons of the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]