Is the Indian COVID-19 strain weaker? – Times of India

COVID-19 has not only caused a worldwide disruption but has also infected large numbers of people around the world. While scientists are trying their best to find a cure or vaccine to the disease, a report on the study of the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2) strain is doing rounds on Twitter. Dr. Subramanian Swamy, Rajya Sabha MP recently tweeted that his US based friends have informed him that the COVID-19 strain in India is a less virulent mutation. The tweet also stated that the Indian immune system can more effectively target it. Here is his tweet: After this a lot of people questioned the authenticity of the tweet and also trolled him for the same. In response to the trolls, many people tweeted the link to the report which is a Comparative analyses of SAR-CoV2 genomes from different geographical locations. Link to the report:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.21.001586v1.full.pdf

Disclaimer: The below given findings are from a preliminary report which has not been peer-reviewed. These abstracts are directly taken from the report.

The ongoing pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2). Various researchers from Translational Bioinformatics Group, International Center for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB) and Department of Biochemistry, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, performed an integrated sequence-based analysis of SARS-CoV2 (2019 virus) genomes from different geographical locations in order to identify its unique features absent in SARS-CoV (2003 virus) and other related coronavirus family genomes, conferring unique infection, facilitation of transmission, virulence and immunogenic features to the virus.

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Is the Indian COVID-19 strain weaker? - Times of India