I know everyone has been anxious and worried about Covid-19. Hope everyone has remained safe without any issues.
From a non-medical perspective, there has been a lot of panic, mainly due to lack of understanding.
Here is my take on this pandemic – (in simple non-medical terms)
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- It is caused by a virus
- Viruses are NOT living organisms – they enter our cells (thru various openings in our body) and cause damage
- Covid-19 spreads from “air droplets” – so sneezing and coughing will aerosolize the virus, allowing it to “spread”
- if you “touch” it and then wash your hands, the virus dies, and it does not cause any harm
- If you touch it and then touch your face, you will “breathe” it into your lungs and “infect you”
- If the virus is sitting on a surface (table, cell phone, door handle, etc), it will slowly “die” on its own – but it may remain infectious for a few days
- If you touch an object that has the virus on it, hand washing will kill it – so constant hand washing will help prevent infection
- Once infected, you may experience “flu like” symptoms – fever, cough, fatigue, muscle aches, etc
- If you have these symptoms, my recommendation is to NOT panic, and do NOT go to your local emergency room
- Clean everything in your house, wear a “mask” or a wrap a handkerchief around your nose / mouth
- The mask is to prevent you from spreading the virus
- Self-isolate
- Take Tylenol for fever, drink plenty of fluids, gatorade, hot soup, etc — just as you would treat the flu
- If you develop shortness of breath, then call your local primary care physician for further directions
- Currently the “death rate” is between 2%-3%
- Since the death rate is:
- # people dying / # people infected,
- and we do NOT know how many people are infected, the denominator is unrealistically low, causing the “rate” to be very high
- Since the death rate is:
- In reality, the “death rate” is probably around 0.5% … a little higher than the typical annual flu — SOOOO – do NOT panic
- After everything is said and done, I believe 80-90% of the world population will be infected, and yes, a few will die
- If you look at the converse … if 0.5% die, that means 99.5% will survive, without any issue
The Chinese department of health has published a Corona (Covid-19) Virus Guidelines handbook.
Below is a link for the latest version of these guidelines (7th edition). It is meant to be used by medical professionals, so it may not make sense to the non-medical reader. But, it is a nice reference.
http://busan.china-consulate.org/chn/zt/4/P020200310548447287942.pdf
Stay safe
- Sudhir S. Athni, MD