Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past month everybody should know by now what Coronavirus (COVID-19) is. COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most of the people infected with COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness (source: WHO)
The virus can be transmitted between people who are in close with one another (about 6 feet). Here is the underestimated fact; people can spread the virus before they show symptoms on their own, before they even know they are infected (source: cdc)
Besides many ongoing clinical trials, there are no specific vaccines or treatments for COVID-19 at this time (source: WHO).
The case distribution image above outlines the average registered number of new cases for the last seven days (March 18, 2020). According to current data of the Johns Hopkins university China has 81,394 confirmed cases, followed by Italy 53,578 and the US with 26,747 cases (March 22, 2020, source: Johns Hopkins)
How is the world reacting?
Worldwide deaths have reached 13,059 now (March 22, 2020) and governments around the world started reacting. Most governments implement a stay-home rule and close their borders, some of them kindly ask their population to only leave the house when necessary, others enforce the rule by law (source: Independent).
The objective of the stay-home policy is clear. We can flatten the curve of new infections. The curve can take on two possible shapes as shown above, it could be steep, in which the virus spreads exponentially (that is, case counts keep doubling at a consistent rate), and the total number of cases skyrockets to its peak within a few weeks. A flatter curve, on the other hand, assumes the same number of people ultimately get infected, but over a longer period of time. A slower infection rate means a less stressed health care system, fewer hospital visits on any given day and fewer sick people being turned away (source: livescience). Flattening the curve means delaying the infections, while researchers can meanwhile work on vaccines.
How can you help?
This is the most important part of the article and my motivation to write it; STAY AT HOME, avoid social contact for now. There are still reports of public concerts among the top five infected countries and even politicans have to use the hashtag #staythef***athome showing how serious they are. I often fall into arguments with friends telling me they still go outside, but they just meet with people that are not sick and since they are young the virus won’t affect them. We are talking about exponentially growing infections that might only show symptoms after 14 days. At this point it is not possible to know who is infected.
Only leave the house if absolutely necessary and avoid groups.
To drive the point home, let’s consider the chart above. Above you can see what happens if you go out and socialize since Corona might not be as dangerous to you. You get affected, you go home, you affect others that will affect others as well. You might visit your parents or grandparents and suddenly you infected people that are within the most dangered risk group of the virus. And since you did not show any symptoms yet you won’t even realize the harm you are spreading. I am not a big fan of governments forcing citizens to stay at home, but it seems appropriate currently. In some countries people can be fined up to €600,000 euros and face prison time (source: Independent). Even if you live in a country that does not enforce you to stay at home, please do. Only leave the house if absolutely necessary and avoid groups.
The vast majority of the people who are defying calls for social distancing are not doing so because they don’t care about other people. Rather, they are doing so because they don’t realize the influence their actions will have on others. They are trapped in their own heads, looking out at what is going on in the world around them, and failing to recognize their own role in it (source: TheHill).
While this might be true, I hope this article helps some people to realize the influence of their actions.
