Reimagining India's Health System: Technology Levers for Universal Health Care.

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the inadequacies of our current health systems and rekindled the debate around universal health care, the Lancet Citizens' Commission on Reimagining India's Health System was launched in late 2020. As a part of the commission, we articulated how technology can enable universal health care. We begin by stating the foundational values-a set of normative statements-that should underpin the use of technology in our health systems. Then, after summarising the paradigm shifts necessary to achieve citizen-centred universal health care, we articulate five 'technology levers' to enable those shifts. Finally, we describe the intersections and synergies between technology and the other pillars of health systems, namely, human resources, financing, governance and citizens' engagement.

Key preferences of tourists during COVID-19 pandemic in luxury hotels: Evidence from qualitative data

There is a decline in revenue and occupancy rates in the hotels during the pandemic. For the sustainable and long-term recovery of the hotel industry, the guests need to be analyzed for their stay preferences. This study attempts to find the preferred attributes of the travelers visiting the Indian luxury hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research investigated the post-visit experiences from the online reviews published by tourists on TripAdvisor.com. Thematic salience valence analysis and lexical salience valence analysis was used to identify the vital attributes of the hotel industry. The study revealed staff, location, food, hygiene, and rooms as the preferred hotel attributes, in which the coastal locations were highly considered for location based marketing of luxury hotels, and non-compliance of COVID-19 standards and complaints for upgradations in the rooms were the non-recommenders for the luxury hotels. The dashboard-based salience valence zone analysis was used to provide suggestions to the hotel authorities by revealing the significant and critical hotel attributes simultaneously for prompt handling of the issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Phase III, Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo controlled trial of Efficacy, Safety and Tolerability of Antiviral drug Umifenovir vs Standard care of therapy in non-severe COVID-19 patients.

OBJECTIVE: To test efficacy, safety and tolerability of Umifenovir in non-severe COVID-19 adult patients. METHODS: We carried out randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter, phase III trials involving adult (18-75 years), non-severe COVID19 patients, randomized 1:1 on placebo or Umifenovir (800 mg BID, maximum 14 days) respectively along with standard-of-care. The primary endpoint for Asymptotic-mild patients was time to nasopharyngeal swab RT-PCR test negativity. For Moderate patients, the average change in the ordinal scale from the baseline scores on the eight-point WHO ordinal scale was assessed. RESULTS: 132 patients were recruited between 3rd October to 28th April 2021, of which 9 discontinued due to various reasons. In Mild-asymptomatic patients (n=82), we found that 73% patients in the Umifenovir arm were RT-PCR negative, while 40% patients in the placebo arm were negative (P=0.004) on day 5. However, in the moderate group (n=41), the WHO scores for the Umifenovir arm was not statistically significant (P=0.125 on day 3), while it was statistically significant in the Mild-asymptomatic group (P=0.019 on day 5). CONCLUSION: Umifenovir meets the primary and secondary endpoint criteria and exhibits statistically significant efficacy for Mild-asymptomatic patients. It is efficacious, safe and well-tolerated at the tested dosage of 800mg BID, maximum 14 days.