Milk in Nepal and India: the difference!

-
Image
 I have observed that whenever milk ferments when I am in India, the paneer or cottage cheese does not come out easily. Even if I boil it and add lime juice to it, the cheese formed is quite little and more powdery than cheesy.  But when the same happens in Nepal, the cheese formation is immediate, dense and cheesy. I do not have to do more efforts to get cottage cheese out of the milk in Nepal. What is the reason? I checked internet and found some factors that can affect the quality and amount of cheese  1. Freedom from pathogenic bacteria - Good cheese forms of milk is free from pathogenic bacteria. Differences between Nepali vs Indian panipuri  2. Different milk quality with different amounts of fats and proteins  3. Ultra-pasteurization can destroy vital enzymes and bacteria that are required for cheese formation  4. If temperature of milk is less when it ferments, cheese formation will be less.  5. If milk is rancid, it means it's fats are also br...
Post a Comment

Flu cases this season are lesser due to covid-19 pandemic! The complete analysis here!

-

 US CDC data has revealed that with COVID-19 taking the world by storm in 2020, flu cases were low. This points to the fact that covid is far more contagious than flu and is also less forgiving. More details below!

Flu cases and the year 2020

In 2019, from 19 September to 28 December (the flu season), there were 65k cases of flu reported in the USA. However, during the same flu period in the year 2020, there were only 1016 influenza cases reported.

Thus, in 2020 when the coronavirus cases were high with massive mortality rates, flu was incidentally low in numbers. What is the reason for such low incidence and transmission of the disease?

The causes of low influenza cases in 2020

The health experts feel that the reason for the low incidence of flu cases this season of 2020 was that flu vaccination rates were high. These helped to control the flu. Besides, for covid-19 people were forced to wear face masks and follow social distancing at public places. There was also the hand-washing protocol in place. Hence these preventive measures for covid-19 spread also helped to keep flu cases low.

There was a 6-fold rise in the number of testing done in labs for influenza A and B virus. This is because along with coronavirus testing, flu testing was also simultaneously carried out. Thus one can see that despite the high rate of testing, flu cases reported were less. This flu testing lessened in the last quarter of 2020 since doctors were asking for lesser flu tests since they realized that the cases were less. CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich stated:

“The public health labs test for more surveillance purposes rather than patient care reasons and are therefore a better measure of influenza burden each season than clinical labs,”

Dr Susan Rehm, vice-chair at the Cleveland Clinic’s department of infectious diseases also feels that prior vaccinations and infections of flu also helped to keep the flu incidence low this season:

“COVID is a novel infection caused by the SARS coronavirus, and no one has any innate immunity to it. So the population is probably overall more susceptible to it than maybe to influenza.”

More flu vaccines were taken this year because people were warned that a ‘twindemic’ of flu with covid-19 may come in 2020. Covid has taught the world that respiratory virus can be extremely bad and should not be taken lightly.

Flu and covid-19 [Source: ASM]



Also, read Emotional exhaustion of covid-19 and how to avoid it? 

What does all this mean?

Public health experts are happy about the covid-19 safety measures helping in the control of flu. But covid-19 per se was still high. This implies that covid is much more contagious and fatal than flu. Dr. David Hooper, chief of the infection control unit at Massachusetts General Hospital says:

“It says that it’s more contagious and that it’s less forgiving of any lapses of these types of prevention measures,”

David feels that besides being more contagious, the spread with coronavirus was more because there are people who are shedding the virus and have no symptoms (Asymptomatic carriers). Besides those who do develop coronavirus symptoms may be shedding the virus for many days before they develop the symptoms. During this time of them shedding, they are not picked up and continue to spread the virus. This is the dangerous part of coronavirus infection from the public health point of view. Studies of models developed by CDC researchers have shown that 59% of the coronavirus transmissions were from such pre-symptomatic stages of the virus. 35% of these were from pre-symptomatic people and 24% from totally asymptomatic people. And in the case of flu, the viral shedding is only for a day before the symptoms start. Hence there are fewer chances of unknowing spread of flu virus. But Susan adds:

“Just because it’s been low so far doesn’t prove that it’s going to be low going forward, and getting vaccinated is the best thing you can do to prevent influenza. It’s not too late to get vaccinated for influenza."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morton's toe: Everything you need to know about your longer second toe

-
Image
 Often, one notices that the second toe of some people is longer than the great toe. People say different things for it. Many of them say that it implies that the owner of such a longer second toe is a dominant, creative, energetic person in real life and very ambitious and peace and happiness-loving. But no one has tried to understand the reason, science, medicine and problems of having such a toe. It is called as Morton’s toe or Greek foot.  What is a Greek foot? Many people in the world have a longer second toe of the foot. Such feature may be on one side or in both the feet. It is called Morton’s toe or Greek foot. The other names for it are Morton’s foot or royal toe. But the reason is not the second toe is longer but the fact is that the first metatarsal below the great toe is shorter. Thus it is not due to the faulty phalanges but due to the difference in height of the metatarsals. Since the second metatarsal is relatively longer than the first metatarsal, the joint at ...
Read more

There can be no universal forgiveness! It never exists!

-
Image
Forgiveness or pardon means clearing off the feelings of resentment or revenge towards the offender. In most contexts it implies giving up any expectation of justice. People justify this act of forgiveness from a religious point of view and psychologists justify it as an act that would bring peace to the victim. But my experience tells me that both religion as well as psychologists are absolutely wrong in asking a victim to forgive the evil person. This act is bad from a society point of view and would lead to a rise in crimes and unhappiness. Let me explain in depth with examples. 1. I have a friend in the UK. She is originally from Nigeria. She has two siblings who are married with children and she herself is single and childless. In the year 2009, she had gone to her hometown. There her siblings tortured her physically and mentally and put her under house arrest. They did not want to give her any ancestral property and assets. She managed to free herself with the help of a friend an...
Read more

Voluntary childlessness is on the rise in the world! What are the reasons for it?

-
Image
 The decision of couples to have no children by choice seems tough but is increasing in the modern world. Though society looks down at such couples, the availability of effective and safe contraception and old age support from non-family agencies has made things a bit easier for such decisions to be made.  Reasons for voluntary childlessness 1. Personal reasons such as not wanting responsibilities of a child.  2. The emphasis on career rather than reproduction 3. The lack of desire to forward one's family genes or line due to child abuse.  4. Anguish against existence in general. 5. Non-readiness to give up one's freetime and social time for children rearing 6. Happier to help others raise kids 7. Preferring a pet over a child 8. Not wanting to give up personal space and sharing it with a child.  9. Not happy with child-rearing things such as cleaning up mess, disturbing one's sleep etc. 10. Not particularly fond of children behavior. 11. In some situations, one...
Read more