Coronavirus causes disease in mammals and birds. If humans contract it, it causes respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to severe, leading to lethal diseases like SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.
Coronavirus name is derived from Latin corona meaning ‘crown’. Its appearance is that of a bulbous surface with projections that create an image of a crown.
It was in December 2019, an outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China which was traced to novel Coronavirus. According to WHO, there are 2,94,110 confirmed cases worldwide and 12,944 confirmed deaths. In India, there are as of 341 cases and rising day by day.
WHO had instructed protective measures against the virus, like washing your hands frequently and using alcohol-based sanitizers as it would kill the viruses on the hands, avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth as our hands touch many surfaces and can transfer the virus to eyes, nose or mouth from where it can enter the body and make you sick, covering mouth and nose while coughing or sneezing, staying home if there’s fever, coughing or breathing difficulty and seeking medical assistance. Of them, another important measure was maintaining social distance which is by at least putting 1-meter distance between yourself and anyone who coughs or sneezes. If someone coughs or sneezes, they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which might contain the virus. If inhaled, one could contract the virus.
As per a study by Robert A.J. Signer, when a person is infected with coronavirus, s/he can be asymptomatic for an average of five days and if they don’t take any preventive measures, they can spread it to 2.5 people Those 2.5 people can transmit to another 2.5 people and so on within a time frame of 30 days, 406 people would be infected.
Imagine if so many get sick at the same time, the hospitals would be overwhelmed and patients would die without proper attention and treatment. However, if everyone avoids stepping outside, it would curb the spread to a large extent which would help the hospital to serve their patients better.
In China and South Korea, the measure to contain the outbreak took more than two months which lead to a large number of cases. To minimize the cases, on March 22, 2020, the Prime Minister of India called for a Janta curfew to keep people off the streets and avoid any interactions. He asked the people to applause for the medical heroes at 5 p.m. India witnessed a clamorous evening of plates and spoons clanging, blowing of conches and prayers and bells. But amongst these applauses, one could hear crackers bursting and see people gathering and walking out of their homes in some kind of celebration.
This defied the whole purpose of curfew and social distancing. The streets were filled with people carrying around drums and singing and dancing in joy and after 9 p.m at many places, there was traffic on road. If this is how we ignore the preventive measures and take the matter lightly, the cases will soon soar up. We are already in Stage II and III of the coronavirus spread.
Already there have been many cases in Lucknow, Kolkata and Ahmedabad and other places as well, where the people concerned were asked to self-quarantine themselves at home, but instead went ahead and met other people and developed symptoms later.
What needs to be realized is that one can be a carrier of the virus whatever the age may be. The symptoms might break out after five days and one can still infect others on day one without the symptoms, especially people with lower immunity who’ll be affected. Sometimes there are chances that you might not develop any symptoms and still pass on the virus to a person in your immediate environment.
Let’s just contribute by staying indoor while the medical heroes fight out the virus outside.
