The Corona Virus isn’t that fatal. But these numbers will scare you. Is recovery possible?
Are you tired of seeing news and articles and videos all about the same notorious and excessively social virus, the coronavirus, officially named SARS-CoV-2? The rate at which the news about COVID-19 is being pumped is slower than the rate at which the virus itself is jumping from one person to another. And I think we are better off with more Coronavirus news than cases.
We are in dire times. The rise of this virus has caused global panic, but the virus isn’t fatal. It causes a mild respiratory disease that can be managed by the immune system of our bodies. So why are people panicking? The reason is that in this case, it is the people who pose a greater threat to humanity. I’ll explain this later, but first, let me introduce you to the Coronavirus family.
Meet the Coronas.
In the family of three, we have a shy but stern mother, which causes MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome). The father, resilient but somewhat occasionally social, causes SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). And then the newest addition to the family, the overly enthusiastic and highly social child, which causes COVID-19.
The family of three go very well together and love to live inside the lungs of humans. Their hobby? They want to take your breath away. For some reason, they hate antibodies. Let’s have a look at their achievement. I’ll be using the name of the disease to refer to the virus.
MERS, which is very stern has a death rate of 35%. The mother is the most dangerous one.
SARS is a resilient one and has a death rate of 10%. Not that dangerous, but it can become an issue.
The child which causes COVID-19 has a death rate of just 2%. Kid’s learning.
By looking at these numbers and percentages, you must think that surely the kids got some potential, but it isn’t that dangerous. Right? Let’s look at another set of numbers.
COVID-19 is a social butterfly.
2% death rate of COVID is clearly not as bad as MERS’ 35% death rate. But COVID likes to go out and socialize and that puts another figure into the spotlight. Here is another comparison.
It took MERS about 913 days to infect 1000 people.
It took SARS about 130 days to infect the same number of people.
But when it comes to COVID, it took only 48 days to infect 1000 people. This changes some perspective. And what about death rate? Let’s see what happens when our little COVID grows up.
Adjusting the Death rate.
I have taken into account that the infection rate stays stable (which isn’t the case). MERS with a death rate of 35% infect 1000 people in about 913 days. That means in 913 days, it will kill 350 people. Now COVID has a mere 2% death rate. But since it infects 1000 people in just 48 days, in 913 days, it can kill 380 people. This is more than MERS or SARS.
As you can see how different numbers can paint a completely different picture and sadly, most people are looking at the 2% death rate. And things are getting out of control.
Why you should practice all precautions at your disposal.
The point that we have reached today is just because no one took this situation seriously. This is the paradox of pandemic. Think about it, Italy, which is the worst affected country in the world, reported 627 deaths in just one day. Here is another number. Italy has 63,578 cases and 6,078 deaths while I write this article.
These are scary numbers. If you aren’t practicing every precaution, you should. We are at the point when there is no such thing as “too precautious.” You know the drill, to avoid getting infected. Keep yourself in isolation. Go out only if it is absolutely necessary. Always wash your hands (I’d say wash your hands every hour). These simple steps can save your locality, your country and then the whole world.
The Problem and Paradox of Pandemic.
The cases of COVID-19 is rising at an exponential rate. No wonder how quickly this endemic has turned into an ugly pandemic. There is one huge problem with pandemics and this has nothing to do with the threat of the virus. And there is a hopeful part about it too.
The COVID-19 (which stands for Coronavirus Disease and the 19 means it started in 2019) started in Wuhan, China. Things were fine for most of the world. People reading the news and seeing a new virus has come into existence. Fast forward to three months and the worst suffering country is Italy which is nowhere near the epicenter of the disease. This is the problem of pandemic. It is so difficult to control and track the movement of the disease.
The paradox of pandemic is the sudden burst of the number of cases. One day you hear about a disease originating in some part of the world and 20 days later you are witnessing people hoarding supplies as if it’s an episode of The Walking Dead (let’s hope the pandemic ends, unlike the show.) In exponential growth, the number of cases multiples by a number. In the case of COVID, it is 1.4 anti seems to be growing exponentially.
Think about it. When something grows exponentially, you get a rate like 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024…Notice how in just 10 steps, the number reached from 2 to a thousand. Another thing to pay attention to is how the numbers change. While in the beginning it is just 2,4,8…the last two numbers show how large increments can happen.
But what’s the hopeful part about it?
Since it is hard to determine the line of transfer of disease in a pandemic, your efforts to break the chain becomes substantial. Say you refuse to go out of your house. Since you don’t know the possible trajectory of the disease, you may have just prevented the spread of the disease in your locality.
If everyone starts doing the same, we can save a lot of lives and a lot of cases of infection, eventually stopping coronavirus. Total isolation is very difficult, but it has become necessary. Taking a look at the history, the Spanish Flu of 1918 infected and killed about 50 to 100 million people. In just 24 weeks, the Spanish Flu had killed more than HIV has killed in 24 years. Should we let history repeat? No, we must flatten the curve.
Flattening the Curve.
You must have seen this graph in recent days if you are following the news about COVID-19. It’s an important graph to understand as it differentiates something manageable from something disastrous. The steeper curve that you see? That is not good and we are currently on that trajectory. The possibility of creating medicines or vaccines or any form of direct treatment is not possible. But to stop the transmission of this virus, there is one thing that we can do. We must try and reduce the deaths due to this infection.
The white line that you see is a country’s ability to manage a disease outbreak. This includes doctors, healthcare workers, the number of beds, ventilators, etc. In both curves, the number of infections remains the same. But in the steeper curve, more deaths occur as more infections occur at a shorter period of time. The number of people seeking medical attention is far greater than the medical profession available. The flatter curve means the same number of infections, but they occur slowly and everyone gets medical assistance. This reduces the mortality rate.
We need to flatten the curve. This is currently our only option to prevent this pandemic and get back to normal life. Some ways to flatten the curve are by the complete lockdown of cities, restricting people to their homes and curing the already infected people. The complete lockdown of cities might seem too aggressive. But is it an overreaction? Is a complete lockdown really necessary? The upcoming charts might help you see the reason.
Humans are the threat, not the virus.
COVID-19 may not be a deadly disease, but it kills in a different way. If other major diseases were like a brute, loud killer, COVID-19 is a silent assassin. You may have seen, in the early section of the article, a peculiar way of introducing the Coronavirus group. I put in them a lot of human-like qualities. But the virus doesn’t have any human emotions or behavior. So how come they are acting like one?
These viruses use humans like puppets. And this is how they multiply their numbers. If a person chooses to stay indoors and put themselves in isolation, the virus cannot infect him/her. But let’s say there’s a social butterfly who wants to travel the world. He/she has more chances of contracting the virus and spreading it. And these people are spreading the virus. The virus survives off of these people. Here is a graphical representation of how many people different pandemics have killed. I have included the big four; Swine Flu, Ebola, Cholera, and COVID-19.
Here’s how dangerously contagious COVID is; on Day 20, Cholera killed 499 people. Swine flu and Ebola are below 200, but COVID-19 is just at a mere 4 deaths.
But on Day 70, COVID crossed all other diseases with 4,298 deaths. Ten days later, it killed almost 9,000 people. Even though this disease is not as fatal as cholera or Swine flu, the speed at which it is infecting makes it so dangerous.
Here is another representation to show how fast this virus is spreading.
Final Words
This is the reason why we should worry about now. These massive jumps in the total fatalities is a dangerous sign that keeps screaming. It may seem like things have gotten out of control and in some cases, it really has. But we can bounce back from this. We can prevent this pandemic. But we must act like a single organism. One giant organism whose interest is nothing but the benefit of its entirety. Because remember, the virus is not just a threat to you or your family, but it is a threat to us, the entire human species. We will overcome this adversity.
