the spread of Corona Virus

Corona Virus has spread in more than 100 countries across the world
According to the latest information, if you contract it,
then what will be your symptoms? How are these symptoms different from the common cough and cold

How easily does it spread and how fatal can it be for you?

How are the governments and countries across the world reacting to it?

How is the Indian government reacting?

Why is the coming week going to be critical for India?

What are the DO's and the DON'Ts?

In February,  the virus was limited in China There had been around 25,000 cases and around 500 casualties Today, there have been more than 275,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths worldwide There have been more than 90,000 recoveries too

When I had made a video earlier, the virus had yet not been named. It was being called as the Novel Corona Virus Now, the scientists have named it as SARS-CoV--2 Because this virus is very similar to the SARS virus that had spread in 2003
and hence it is being referred to as SARS-CoV--2 and the disease caused by this virus has been named COVID-19

At the rate at which this virus is spreading, cities worldwide have been locked down to contain its spread Schools, restaurants, shops, cinemas, gyms, air travel- all have been shut down
and what is the exact reasoning behind this will be explained later in this video as to why it is so important

First, let us talk about the symptoms- All the cases in China
have been analyzed by doctors and researchers to find out the exact symptoms of COVID-19
and how is it different from common cold and flu
their analysis revealed that in 88% of the cases fever is mandatorily seen in the cases of COVID-19
There is dry cough in 68% of the cases
There is fatigue in 38% of the cases and shortness of breath in 18% of them

Looking at this, you can surmise that if you have a fever or dry cough then
the chances of you having COVID-19 are quite high
Observe what are the differences with the common cold
If you have a common cold, then the biggest symptom is a runny nose
But the factor of runny nose in COVID-19 has only been seen in 5% of the cases
So, if you have a runny nose, then you can relax
It means that there is a high chance that you might just have a common cold and not COVID-19

When compared with flu, shortness of breath is a huge difference
If you are having difficulty breathing
then it is a symptom of COVID-19. It is not a symptom of common cold or influenza
You can look at exactly what symptoms are different in this chart
amongst COVID-19, common cold and flu

Another important thing regarding the symptoms that has been said by the World Health Organization
are that only mild symptoms are visible in 80% of the COVID-19 cases
That is, 80% of the people who have contracted the COVID-19,
will not experience a lot of pain. Their bodies will recover on their own without doing anything
Severe symptoms are visible in 14% of the COVID-19 cases
And 4.7% of the cases will require critical care and they will need to go to the hospital

In the rest of the cases, there might be fatalities
Generally, on average, it can take 5-6 days for symptoms to show up in your body But you are contagious in 5-6 days You've contracted the infection while you assume yourself to be  healthy and fit and you have no disease but then too, you can spread the infection to other people This is what makes COVID-19 extremely dangerous

The symptoms are not visible in the people and they go out and interact with other people and they spread the disease If we divide the total number of deaths by the total number of cases worldwide, now this number would emerge to be around 4% But experts still believe that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is only around 2% because there are a lot of cases that are not being reported

There are a lot of countries that are asking people to come for tests only when symptoms are visible But we have seen that only mild symptoms are visible in a lot of cases and a lot of people are being rejected for testing as sufficient testing is not available In the case of China, it has been seen that there have been deaths in 15% of the cases if age is 80 plus You can look at this chart here: There is this age group of 10-39 years in which there have been deaths in only 0.2% of the cases So now it is clear that COVID-19 is more deadly for the elderly The same graph can be seen for various health issues You can see that there were deaths in 10% of the cases with cardiovascular disease

The people already having diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer have higher chances of dying due to COVID-19 A few more interesting conclusions surface while examining the mortality rate country by country

For example, in Germany, where 16,000 cases have been seen, there have been only 44 deaths Its death rate is merely 0.27% If we observe the same thing in the UK, the death rate there comes out to be 4.4% In Italy, the death rates have come out to be 8.3% So, you can see how many people have actually been dying out of the cases reported There is a huge difference in this country by country It's difficult to ascertain the exact reason behind this but experts have given their opinion on why this is happening

Three main reasons have been put forward in the case of Germany

• The first reason is that 70% of the Corona Virus cases is in the young people in Germany which is the 20-50 years age group and these are those people that had gone to spend their vacations skiing in Italy So these were the first people to bring the infection to Germany and so the majority of the cases are in the young people and since young people have a better chance of survival, their fatality/mortality rate is low

• The second reason given by a German virologist was- Test, Test and only Test. Germany took testing very seriously and has been conducting tests on a very large scale of the common people and the third reason has been said to be the good healthcare system of Germany

The hospital bed availability in Germany is far better in comparison with the other countries When you look at the hospital beds in the European countries per hundred thousand population, then Germany emerges at number 1 with 823 hospital beds and Italy comes way below with 331 beds South Korea is another example which has been very successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 The same reasons have been told behind this

There are a sufficient number of hospital beds in that country
Testing of people was conducted on a large scale. The infected people were kept isolated
and the country reacted very quickly
So great has South Korea's example been that the number of daily cases there have been declining

The graph has been declining in South Korea
If you look at the graph of the total number of COVID-19 tests by each country, then South Korea is at number 1

Germany is at number 2
So it is quite clear that if we want to restrict the spread of this virus, then testing needs to be increased
in our country too


Due to this virus, talks of social distancing are being done today
that is, avoid getting out of your homes
and when you do get out of your houses, then maintain distance from the other people

Maintain a distance of approximately 6-7 feet
so that you do not come into close contact with them and the infection does not spread a lot
You might think that you are healthy and how does it affect you so much?
I am anyways so young, so my chances of dying from this virus are very less
so I will go out -it does not affect me

I would like to show you an example
If everyone practices social distancing how much of an effect it would have on the spread of the virus
This is a very interesting simulation made by the Washington Post newspaper
Consider every dot on it as a person
a Blue dot means a healthy person

A brown dot represents an infected person and a pink dot stands for a person who has recovered
In the graph that you can see above, the x-axis represents the time
whereas the y-axis represents the total number of infected people
So you can see, as the people interact with one another, how the virus keeps spreading

The number of infected people increases
You will see that over time all the elderly people got infected and later, they recovered
Now look at the same example if everyone practices social distancing from one another
that is, if they do not come out of their houses, then the dot is not going to move- it is going to remain stable You would notice that these dots are interacting lesser with one another

They are coming in less contact with one another and so, over time,
the graph is rising slowly- the number of infected people is rising slowly
and the time is spread out

Now compare both the graphs
One graph resembles a mountain and the other resembles a small hill
If you look at the peak points of these graphs,
observe the number of infected people at that point of time

There are far more infected people (in the graph ) without social distancing
and at that point of time, the number of hospital beds in our cities and countries are restricted
So we can draw a line in between that refers to the capacity of our healthcare system
At any given point of time, if more than that number of people want to come to the hospital,
then our healthcare system will not be able to keep them
There will be a scarcity of both hospital and hospital beds
So this is what is going to happen without social distancing

A point of time will come when so many infected people will come in
and not enough hospital beds will be available for them
So the people that can be saved will not get saved
This is called flattening the curve
and this is the exact reason why COVID-19 became such a huge crisis in Italy
The  government there was not prepared
The number of infected people rose so drastically that there was a dearth of space in hospitals
there weren't enough Hospital beds
Today, the situation is so pathetic that the doctors have to decide which patient to treat first

while there is only one hospital bed
I can only care for one
I will have to prioritize. I should take up this person because the other has more chances of fatality

These are preventable deaths
This is the reason why the other countries took the example of Italy and learnt from it
And now the countries across the world have been taking more action towards social distancing

Public places are being shut down
People are being told to stay indoors
New hospitals are being constructed. Stadiums are being converted into hospitals

so that there is sufficient availability of hospital beds
And this is the reason why today our government has announced a "Janta curfew"
As a first step, this is a great decision to tell people to not step out of their homes

and to self-quarantine themselves
But this is just the first step- it will not be enough
I have read a lot of Whatsapp forwards claiming that this is a masterstroke

People have been told to not step out of their houses for 14 hours
and this virus can survive for only 12 hours and so
this virus will vanish completely after these 14 hours

That is not true
The virus is not going to go away by quarantining for 14 hours
We will have to do this for the next 2-3 weeks

Reduce going out of your houses as much as possible
Adopt as many social distancing measures as possible
Police in France and Italy have been fining people for stepping out of their homes
without a proper reason

Colombia is a country in South America that has declared a 19-day quarantine for the entire country
even when there hasn't been a single death due to coronavirus
It is very good that they are preparing beforehand
Looking at these countries, we too, need to take stricter measures

One day will not make a difference
It will be required to do this for the next 2-3 weeks
But at the same time, there is nothing to panic about or to get worried about
Some people have been fearing so much that they have been picking up all the stock from the markets as if some apocalypse is about to break loose

It is making no difference upon the supply of food Videos have come up where people can be seen stocking up on toilet paper This is sheer stupidity

As WHO have said, the quarantine measures and social distancing measures are being undertaken so that our health care system is able to sustain the infected number of people so that care is available to all those who need it at the proper time It might take a year for the COVID 19 vaccine to arrive So until then, efforts are on to control its spread

Angela Merkel, the head of the state of Germany has stated that around 40-70% of the population of Germany can get infected by this virus if they do not undertake any measures
Even though the mortality rate is so low, if such a huge amount of the population gets infected,
the deaths that we see could be around g=hundreds of thousands or even in millions

This is why it is so essential to slow it down
Some people state that the spread of the virus will be contained due to the heat with the onset of summers but WHO maintains that we should not rest false hopes on this

Although some research has shown that with every rise in temperature of 1 degree,
some percentage of the spread of this virus is reduced
Due to the virus directly and due to the lockdown of the cities, as well as shut down of public places
the people have been unable to work

This will have such an economic impact on the world economy
which hasn't been seen in centuries
Some governments have already declared they will pay salary to the  people who are unable to go to work

The governments will save the companies from being bankrupt and shutting down
In a lot of European countries, in New Zealand, in the UK and even in the US
it has been declared that government funds worth billions of dollars are being brought in
to save the people from its economic impact

A separate video can be made on the entire situation as to how the COVID 19 virus is impacting the economy

do not forget to 

• wash your hands
• because hand washing is one of the most important preventive measures
• which you can take up to protect yourself from COVID 19
• wash your hands in the proper manner
• wash your hands for 30 seconds