Corona Virus Fully Explained | Symptoms, Causes
Posted by
Bhat Aasim
As on 5th February, 2020, due to the widely spreading corona virus all over the globe, more than 24,000 people have been infected and more than 494 people have died.
- Is it really that dangerous? Do you really need to be afraid?
- Or is the media making a mountain out of a molehill and creating an atmosphere of fear?
Come let us see
The first thing you need to understand is that Corona Virus is not the name of a single virus. The name Corona Virus has been assigned to a family of viruses.
Should I tell you an interesting fact?
- The common cold- the cough and cold that you catch during winters- that too, is a type of Corona Virus.
In 2002-03, a SARS virus had become widespread, if you remember. That too, was a type of Corona Virus. And what is affecting the people right now is a new type of Corona Virus.
There's a place in China called Wuhan. It was found there on 31st December, 2019. This new strain of Corona Virus has been named N-COV - Novel Corona Virus. Novel means new.
This strain is so new that they could not even think of a name. So they named it Novel Corona Virus. The new Corona Virus looks somewhat like this.
The original source of most of the Corona Viruses is mostly some animal, which affects a human and then later through human to human contact, and through human to human transmission, these corona viruses spread amongst humans.
For example, in the case of SARS, the original source was a bat.
MERS is another similar Corona Virus which spread in the Middle East during 2012-13. The original source of that was a camel.
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The exact original source of the new Corona Virus which has not yet been discovered. Some scientists suspect that the original source might be snakes. But some scientists believe that they might be bats again, because there are 96% similarities in the new corona virus as compared to the Corona Virus that came from bats. The symptoms of all these Corona Viruses are very similar to each other.
- For example
- cough
- cold
- headache
- fever
- chills
- sore throat
All these happen to you even when you catch a cough and cold normally or when you catch a seasonal flu. And these are the symptoms of the New Corona Virus too. This is an unfortunate thing because due to this, it is very difficult to recognize, when you have contracted a normal seasonal flu and when you have contracted the New Corona Virus.
When there are extreme cases of Corona Virus, then one may contract pneumonia too. But generally, the doctors have to perform a laboratory test to recognize whether it is a normal flu or the New Corona Virus.
The incubation period of the Novel Corona Virus is between 2-11 days, that is, if you are infected, it might take 11 days for the symptoms to show up. This basically means that in the last two weeks, if you haven't been to China or haven't been in touch with a Chinese person and despite that you're showing these symptoms, then you have no cause to worry. This means that you have not contracted the Novel Corona Virus.
How dangerous is this virus, actually?
How fatal is it for you?
In order to know this, I'd like to show you some facts. The total number of infected people until now are 24,579, Out of these, around 494 people have died. And 955 people have recovered after becoming infected.
So looking at the total number infected people and the total number of deaths as a proportion, then this comes out to be approximately 2%. This 2% is the mortality rate.
Mortality rate means that incase you contract the infection or the Novel Corona Virus, then what are the chances that you are going to die because of it?
2% means that there is a 98% chance that you are not going to die because of it, but you will eventually recover.
In fact, upon studying the cases until now, it has been found out that most of the people that died due to the Novel corona Virus, already had weak immune systems due to some other reasons. Most of these people were elderly and old, or their immune system was already weak beforehand for example, a heart disease or any other problem.
An interesting thing about viruses is that the virus that spreads more easily and is more contagious, in general, its mortality rate is automatically less. And the Viruses that have a higher mortality rate are less contagious.
For example, ebola, The mortality rate of Ebola was 70%. That is if you contract Ebola, then there are 70% chances that you are going to die because of that. But only 3,000 cases were reported. So Ebola was not that contagious.
On the other hand, take the example of common cold or chicken pox. Both of them are highly contagious. Both chicken pox and common cold spread very easily. But in case you contract it, then the mortality rate of common cold is 0.01%. So all of this can be represented on a graph. The mortality rate is plotted on the Y axis and the contagiousness, that is, how easily it can spread is plotted on the x axis.
Mortality rate is measured in percentage and there is a number to measure contagiousness. This number means that one infected person will infect how many other people on an average.
For example, look at the contagiousness number of common cold- it is 6. This means that if a person contracts common cold, then on average, he will infect 6 more people. This is very high contagiousness. The contagiousness of chicken pox is even more around 8.5.
As for other examples, consider Swine flu. Its contagiousness and mortality rate both are very low. It has a contagiousness of a mere 1.5 and it has a mortality rate of a mere 0.2%.
Consider Rabies. Rabies does not spread very easily but in case you contract it, and you do not get it treated in time, then there are almost 100% chances that you might die because of this infection. The SARS of 2003 had a mortality rate of 10%.
So it is being estimated that the mortality rate of the Novel Corona Virus will amount to around 2%, but enough data is not available in order to measure how contagious it is. So we cannot exactly say where it will be placed on the graph. A range has been designated that the Novel Corona Virus will fall within it.
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So by this, we can conclude that in comparison to the SARS, Ebola and MERS, the Novel Corona Virus is less deadly because it mortality rate is lesser than all of these, but it might be more contagious than them. Because when SARS had become widespread, then it had infected around 8000 people globally within 8 months and this Novel Corona Virus has already infected 24-25,000 people- three times more people have been infected. And unfortunately, a lower mortality rate does not mean that fewer people are going to die in total.
For example, take the example of Spanish Flu
which happened in 1918-20, if you have read it in the history books. The mortality rate of this Spanish flu was merely 10%. But it became so contagious worldwide, or maybe the era that time was such that it spread so easily that 500 million people got infected because of this Spanish flu.
And since its mortality rate was 10%, upto 50 million people died because of this flu, despite its mortality rate being so low.
The infection of the Novel Corona Virus spreads the same way that cough and cold spreads amongst people. If someone coughs or sneezes, then the bodily fluids of the infected person reach the other people and they too, get infected.
So the ways of prevention are the same as that of a common cold. World Health Organization recommends washing hands at the right time and washing hands very frequently in the proper manner.
Whenever you cough or sneeze, then make use of tissue papers and handkerchiefs. If they are not available, then you can make use of your elbow like this.
So that the body droplets do not disperse wide and infect the rest of the people. This is valid for everything, by the way, not only for Corona Virus. If you have a cough or a cold or any other form of Corona Virus, then do not spread it to others.
Surprisingly, the World Health Organization has said that masks are not very effective, in protecting you from the infection.
So do not think that whenever you can go to a public place wearing a mask, then you would feel safe, It would not make much of a difference.
They say that washing hands with soap is more effective in comparison to masks. And masks should be used only by those that are infected themselves. So that they do not spread their bodily fluids to others. So if you are suspected to be infected, then it would be proper to use a mask. A lot of treatment and cures have gone viral on social media to treat the Corona Virus.
For example, a WhatsApp forward reads
- Good news! Wuhan's Corona Virus can be cured by one bowl of freshly boiled garlic water.
- Old Chinese doctor has proven its efficiency. Many patients have also proven this to be effective
- Consume garlic and treat your Corona Virus
- Some state that consuming bleach will treat the Corona Virus
- Some say that consuming organic oil will cure it
- Our own government says that the Corona Virus can get cured by homeopathy and Ayurveda
- A Hindu Mahasabha President says that consumption of Gaumutra and cowdung can cure the Corona Virus 😅😅😂😂
The truth remains that all of these people are talking rubbish. Nobody has any cure available with them.
As of now, no vaccine exists against the Corona Virus. Neither does any treatment exist. Only if your immune system is strong, then it can fight it and you can recover from it. The vaccine is currently under development. It has been estimated that it might take around an year to introduce its vaccine.
When SARS broke out in 2002-03, then it took 20 months to introduce its vaccine. The governments across the world are working towards the containing the spread of this virus. And I feel that they have been successful to a large extent, because 99% of the cases of infection that we have seen, all of them are concentrated in China. And 90% of the cases in China too, are concentrated within just one region- Wuhan. China had quarantined the entire region to prevent anyone from going in or going out. 50 million people have been put in quarantine. And the rest of the world are trying to do the same.
For example,
- Australia and Singapore have banned Chinese tourists.
- Russia, Mongolia and Nepal have sealed their borders with China.
Economically, it might have a deleterious effect not only on China but also the world economy. It has been estimated that China might face a loss of upto 60 billion dollars due to this Novel Corona Virus and the GDP growth rate might diminish by 1.5%.
The Current Cases.
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