Tony's Diary Package — page 715

Dear Dr. Collins, I hope this message finds you and your family well. I wanted to bring to your attention about a public health like message circulating among the Indian diaspora in the New Jersey area. Apparently, parents visiting from India who tested negative before their flight in India have come down with Covid (the message claims it is the B.1.617 variant from India) after 10 days. They have also visited a variety of get togethers, temples before the symptoms arose. This variant was detected in the Bay Area earlier this month and the CNBC article quotes Dr. Pinsky from Stanford saying that the variant may be a challenge. More concerning is the news from a friend of mine from Texas who says that two IT professionals who had both their shots in the US were visiting India to take care of their parents (infected with Covid). Unfortunately, the vaccinated IT professionals have died of Covid. He has promised to provide details as I have been skeptic of social media posts without backing. NPR also had a story yesterday that said 37 vaccinated doctors in Delhi have come down with Covid in New Delhi but did not say anything about their condition. As you already know that the daily caseload reported in India during the past 4-5 days has been ~200 to 300K and is probably closer to half a million or a million given the infrastructure and access to health. Even as early as last year I have suspected the numbers from India were being manipulated (see attached PDF) while looking at the Worldometer Covid update site. Sadly, I am speaking of the country I was born in and grew up- but cannot relate to or understand her values anymore. I was wondering if we are running the risk of another wave of infection in the US as hundreds (if not thousands) are flying between the US and India daily. I see that ~30% of the US population is fully vaccinated as of today and 43% have received a single shot -an enormous success by any rate in this short period. However, is it a risk, as we relax the guidelines in the US while allowing new variants enter and circulate in the community with more than half the population yet to be vaccinated? We have come this far and I really hope this sad episode does not repeat again. Sadly, there are folks within and outside our country who are waiting to use any opportunity to blame NIH/science and our president. I have lost sleep thinking of it since I saw the news circulating and thought that you or Dr. Fauci could provide an answer. I apologize for this long email. Sincerely, Sundar