Dangerous Zoonotic Outbreak: Covid 19, Coronavirus Desease
The auspicious year beginning of the Rat was turned into the inauspicious outbreak when China was hard hit with a newly-found type of virus-novel coronavirus named as Covid-19 (Coronavirus Disease). This new type of virus from the family of Coronavirus has taken more than thousands of lives and affected more than 25,000 people as of the 5th of February,2020. Shockingly, this novel virus has reported 1000 deaths, overtaking the SARs toll of 774.
Covid-19 is so new that even scientists didn’t get the needed time to name it, resulting in naming Covid-19. The world health organization has declared this zoonotic epidemic as a global emergency as it has been spreading outside, affecting more than 20 countries. Is this virus is really life-threatening? Is this virus really dangerous for us?
What are coronavirus and its origin?
One interesting fact about this coronavirus is it isn’t a single virus, but a group of viruses. If you suffer from a common cold, it is a kind of coronavirus. SARS coronavirus is also a type of coronavirus and it was thought to a virus transmitted perhaps from bats to a human being. In 2002, the first case was reported in the province of Guangdong in Southern China. Twenty-six countries have been affected by this virus, resulting in more than 8000 cases just in 2003.
However, this very new type of coronavirus was reported its first case from the city of Wuhan in the province of Hubei on 31 December 2019.
Normally the origin of a coronavirus is transmitted from an animal to human and it breaks out through the human-to-human contacts at jet-propelled scale.The original sources of this virus are still not known. However, a couple of scientists is suspecting that the original source of this outbreak maybe snakes and other scientists suspect it was transmitted from the bats because there are more than 90 percentage similarities that have been found when a virus transmits from a bat.
One more fact says that due to the rapid urbanization, humans and animals coexist in very close proximity, resulting in spreading this outbreak at an unprecedented level. This closeness through the wet-market of Wuhan makes the perfect petri dish for the origination of this epidemic.
Potential Symptoms of Covid-19
It is very difficult to find out whether you are affected by normal seasonal flu or a novel coronavirus. A cough, runny nose, fever, sore throats are the symptoms of both these diseases. The incubation period of infecting with the 2019-nCoV is 2-11 days to detect whether you are really suffering from this virus. However, relax!! If you haven’t visited China recently or haven’t been in touch with a Chinese, you are not suffering from this 2019-nCoV but from normal seasonal flu. If the Covid-19 deteriorates, it can lead to pneumonia. A laboratory test is required to assess if you are suffering from the novel coronavirus.
Is it Curable or Incurable?
To get know of how dangerous or life-threatening this virus is, let’s sail through a couple of facts and figures. There are more than twenty-four thousand confirmed novel coronavirus cases, out of which almost five hundred died, whereas almost one thousand people have recovered. This brought the mortality rate of around 2% (mortality rate is the number of deaths by an illness). This fact also tells us that there are 98 percent chances that you recover from this novel virus if you are affected. A study performed over the death cases by this novel virus tells us that those who died because of this virus had weak immune system. This weak immune system is because of already existed illnesses such as asthma, heart disease etc.
Ramifications of This Virus
After cutting off around 45 million people in Wuhan province to curb and control this outbreak, Beijing has relaxed more the Chinese New Year holidays. Apart from this, they also put on hold the opening of the stock market. But when it opened, it crumbled down. To stabilize the domestic market and to keep the banking system operational, Beijing has given the financial injection of 1.2 trillion yuan (USD 171 Billion).
It is not only the share market that crashed, but Chinese consumption has also crashed down because of this outbreak. New Year celebration events are rescinded, including the shutdown of tourist destinations and cinemas as a result of this epidemic. More than 2,000 Starbucks outlets, numerous outlets of McDonald’s and more than 100 Ikea stores are closed down, resulting in the incalculable level of economic woes. In an interconnected world, the travel industry have also suffered from huge losses. Several countries including India, have issued travel warnings to China, apart from the suspension of Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines until February 29,2020.
Many experts are of the belief that it is early to measure the extent of economic loss during this ongoing global health emergency as China is at an utter standoff.