You carry RNA or live coronavirus, when PCR confirms?

Microbiology and basic science were terribly missing in our understanding about novel coronavirus in India, from the beginning. 

It looks like, the pandemic has been totally contracted to medical fraternity to deal and we have mixed both COVID 19 and novel coronavirus as porridge or jelly.  Further such mixing has been done predominantly by our policy makers and medical fraternity, microbiology appears to have lost even its toe hold space from the game. 

The article of Gavin M Joynt, William KK Wu published under the title “Understanding COVID-19: what does viral RNA load really mean?” in The Lancet 2020 has opened the Pandora box of our panic and ignorance in reacting and doing everything; mostly what is not necessary. 

The national level lockdown could have been avoided and other pragmatic measures could have been taken to address the pandemic.

Today the world has adopted PCR based screening method to detect coronavirus positivity. The PCR detects the viral RNA.  Once the viral RNA is detected, subsequently the person is declared as either coronavirus carrier or a patient of COVID 19 with mild or severe symptoms if shows.  Patient is then taken to the hospital and the positive individual is pushed inside quarantine chamber. 

No one would disagree to the fact that the patient needs to be treated.  But the question is how have we declared and ascertained all those who show no symptoms of infection but showed the presence of viral RNA as virus carrier? 

Lancet study has shown that the viral RNA by itself cannot cause infection or transmit and only the whole virus alone can be transmitted to others.  Mere detection of RNA does not mean such people are active carriers of virus.  Need not be so.   

The practical difficulties involved in culturing the virus to confirm the viral presence is well known and that too when the virus spreads at pandemic level and such situation, culturing the virus cannot be the wise option. 

But, for the larger understanding, our country should have used the microbiological approach as well, cultured the samples to know the viral presence. If we have done such exercise, by now we would have a fantastic scientific data on how many PCR positive cases are positive for the virus as well in India.   

We approached the entire pandemic only from medical scare and for research and basic understandings, we relayed more upon Google search engine and western wisdom. 

If we have a curious data where only 1or 2 per cent of people who turned positive for coronavirus RNA had yielded live virus means, a newer medical or health surprise we would have thrown at the world from India. 

Then what happens to virus in all such individuals, how the virus dies, what is the underlying mechanism that kills the virus etc., would have created a new path.  The above possibility may be happening in India otherwise India would have shown a different medical situation where several thousands of people would have died by now due to coronavirus.  But 80% the people who turned positive for the virus were asymptomatic and observation of all such cases for reasonable duration of time also has shown no development of any medical distress.  In fact, several turned negative for viral genome. 

If microbiology and basic science had come handy to deal the pandemic, by now we would have been providing several unknown and omitted facet of novel coronavirus and COVID 19. 

But from the beginning we are engaged in mere fire fighting ‘monolithically’, possible with the presumption that all other branches of science can offer nothing except medical fraternity.  Only our present approach has reduced our country as mere ‘consumer’ of science developed other countries. 

With mere presence of the RNA of novel coronavirus from throat or nasal swab, we have stigmatised people, quarantined them, why even the living localities of all such people. 

Although the doctors alone can treat the patient but every branch of science has responsibility and capability to provide different sets of insights and understanding which are essential to deal the pandemic posed by novel coronavirus. 

God has unfortunately not given any scope to the man to keep his life inside his bank locker and hence the man runs monolithically in one direction like a horse with harness, to save his life.   But his run to save his life in unidirectional way and that has only created colossal loss to our economy, irreparable damage to the livelihood of million and millions of people, unemployment crisis, acute problem of job loss…….     

Finally all those carriers of viral RNA we have caricatured as carriers of live virus, made them inner watchman, watch every cell, every organ, heart-beat, remain in fear and hopelessness, until the PCR machine tells you don’t carry virus RNA any more, you are free. 

It is not just disconnected cohort-ism between medical fraternity and basic science we see here in India, instead what we have is the evolution of medical science and basic science as prey and predator in the same ecosystem. 

Who is superior and who is inferior, I am a medical graduate and you are a non-clinical person psychosis only deters our medical progress. 

If science had its say in the beginning as equal to that of medical fraternity, India could have dealt the pandemic much better way; our economy also would not have suffered such high beating. 

Only a thin line separates caution from unaccountable fear.  Our doctors (not all) are experts in gifting you, the both.  At the end, both have its clear dividend, certainly not the patient. 

Continuation of lockdown is not the solution.  Second or third or let there be a new viral pandemic emerges in future, to prevent all such possibilities, lock down is not the wise method; the lockdown is like euthanizing people or lyophilize them. 

Let us save India, Indians, lockdown only denies both and not the coronavirus.