What on earth is this anyway?
The simplest google search can tell you the answer but I'll just repeat here, it's just not one bad virus. It's just a family of viruses usually abiding in animals. They just happened to pass on to humans and now the virus strain is having a joyride across the world. COVID-19 is just the name given to denote COronaVIrus Disease - 2019.
How did the virus emerge now? Well, here's the news buddy, these viruses have been around since the 1960's. Yes, you heard me, the sixties. They've been jumping from animal to animal and in some cases, they've been passed on to human, mostly from improper hygiene, bad methods of food intake etc. I mean, I've got to have my meat extra extra ra(w)re. Seriously...
How are the animals walking around happily, you might ask. Many animals are actually extremely resilient towards pathogens, especially bats, mice, horses etc. They could be full of viruses and bacteria and still live normally while those same little germs would turn the guts of a human inside out.
Okay spare me the lecture. How much more toilet roll armour do I need?
Sure, the virus spreads scarily fast but it's nowhere near dangerous as its naughty predecessors. The SARS in 2003 killed one in ten people. The MERS killed around one in two people between 2012 and 2015. On the contrary, this newbie is killing approximately one person in twenty seven people. Yes, that one death sure is bad, God rest that soul.
But... Nobody breathes a word about all those twenty six who recover! Wait, am I telling you to laugh at the virus? Hell, no! By all means, please be safe, be cautious and practise good hygiene but seriously, most of this panic is media driven.
Okay let the media drive that panic, the point I want to drive home is that, yes this is a bad virus, it is a lethal virus but this is a NORMAL VIRAL FEVER which is totally capable of killing people whose immune systems are ALREADY COMPROMISED, like old people, young children, obese people, people with other diseases etc. Avoid being a nuisance with bad personal hygiene, eat healthy (for the love of all that's holy, eat healthy!) and you should be totally fine.
If you do get infected, get symptomatic treatment (only thing available for now). In most of the cases, people are having only mild fevers, after which the infection goes away on its own after a week. The fatal cases are the ones that are unable to fend off the virus and develop pneumonia due to weakened immunity. So, while I'm not asking anyone to just whistle on the streets jogging, there's no point in hoarding sanitation products (which is actually feeding business people of course), locking yourself in a dark room or something.
It's gonna take it's toll, sure but as harsh as it is, it's simply no more dangerous than tripping over your shoes while rushing to work and falling face first onto a pile of cat poop on the doorway.
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