What is Coronavirus?
Coronavirus comes from a huge group of viruses caused by a normal cold or by severe ailments like Middle East Respiratory Syndrome known as MERS-CoV and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome known as SARS-CoV. COVID-19, short for Coronavirus disease 2019, cases have been recently seen in humans. It is a community spread virus.
Coronavirus is zoonotic in nature as it infects the animals and humans both. Reports have verified that the SARS-CoV was transferred from civet cats and MERS-CoV was transferred from camels to humans.
What was the origin of COVID-19?
Chinese health experts are still looking for the origin of this outbreak, which they state it originated from one of the seafood markets in Wuhan, where there was illegal trading done. Chinese scientists have said that the virus was transferred from an infected animal species to the citizens of Wuhan due to illegally dealing with pangolins, which are used for food and medicine in Asia.
What are the symptoms of this infection?
Some common symptoms of the coronavirus start from respiratory infection then converting to temperature and coughing, it comes out in the form of breathing difficulties. It may cause pneumonia, serious respiratory problems, kidney issues, and even demise. To avoid the spread of this viral infection includes regularly washing your hands, covering your mouth and nose with a mask during sneezing and coughing, taking the vitamins properly, avoiding public interaction, and maintaining distance from people having the least symptoms of coughing, sneezing or respiratory problems.
What is the number of cases received?
In the past few months, the COVID -19 outbreak, in Wuhan, China, at the start of December 2019, has turned into a serious condition for humanity, as a declared pandemic by the World Health Organization. According to the recent statistics of the cases, there are a total of 137,000 confirmed cases suffering this virus and 5088 deaths have occurred. With this 69,000 cases have been recovered from this virus infection. The rate of new cases has been reduced in China but there are new cases received in other countries like Iran, Italy, the US, and South Korea
How to prepare for COVID-19?
This virus spreads when an infected person’s droplets are breathed in by a healthy person, so try maximum to avoid people’s interaction as it also spreads by any physical touch on a surface from an infected person. The virus remains on a surface for a few milliseconds and when a normal person touches that surface it is transmitted. Increase your social distance and contact people to avoid the minimum of getting this infection. As the touch is the basic medium of transfer, so avoid touching your face, nose, and mouth with your hands. Cover your mouth while sneezing and keep a distance from the person coughing or sneezing. Wash your hands with hand sanitizer frequently.
Is there any vaccine available for COVID-19?
There is no vaccine available till now, approximately 35 companies, scientists and academic organizations are testing for a vaccine to cure coronavirus. According to a rough estimation, it would take a time of a minimum of one year for a vaccine to work.
How dreadful is COVID-19?
A total of 7,800 deaths are recorded due to this outbreak, the number of fatalities from this outbreak has exceeded the cost of the previous 2002-2003 SARS epidemic, which was started in China. SARS nearly killed 9% of the infected people with approximately 800 people all over the world and more than 300 people in China were dead because of SARS. However, MERS was more fatal as it killed one-third of the infected people having a greater death rate. With this coronavirus outbreak, the death rate remains low with 3.4 % according to the reports of the World Health Organization.
Conclusion
To sum the above discussion, it has become a dire need of self-isolation or self-quarantine to prevent COVID-19. Specialists have advised the infected people to remain in quarantine for almost 14 days. After further decisions from the physicians, this period can be extended or halted. By taking the above mentioned preventive measures, the risk of getting this viral infection can be reduced to a lower limit. Scientists are putting extreme efforts to reduce the infections caused by COVID-19. Doctors all over the world are testing large numbers of therapeutics in different experiments to create a vaccine for this virus. However, to battle this outbreak the mentioned precautions are extremely helpful and the prescribed medicines for the infected patients go hand in hand.