COVID-19 in India: Are Biological and Environmental Factors Helping to Stem the Incidence and Severity?

Chakrabarti, Sankha Shubhra; Kaur, Upinder; Banerjee, Anindita; Ganguly, Upasana; Banerjee, Tuhina; Saha, Sarama; Parashar, Gaurav; Prasad, Suvarna; Chakrabarti, Suddhachitta; Mittal, Amit; Agrawal, Bimal Kumar; Rawal, Ravindra Kumar; Zhao, Robert Chunhua; Gambhir, Indrajeet Singh; Khanna, Rahul; Shetty, Ashok K; Jin, Kunlin; Chakrabarti, Sasanka

The ongoing Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic has witnessed global political responses of unimaginable proportions. Many nations have implemented lockdowns that involve mandating citizens not to leave their residences for non-essential work. The Indian government has taken appropriate and commendable steps to curtail the community spread of COVID-19. While this may be extremely beneficial, this perspective discusses the other reasons why COVID-19 may have a lesser impact on India. We analyze the current pattern of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, testing, and mortality in India with an emphasis on the importance of mortality as a marker of the clinical relevance of COVID-19 disease. We also analyze the environmental and biological factors which may lessen the impact of COVID-19 in India. The importance of cross-immunity, innate immune responses, ACE polymorphism, and viral genetic mutations are discussed.