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What I Understand So Far

Series: Coronavirus | Story 133

Here’s what I understand so far about the coronavirus and COVID-19:

COVID-19 lasts longer than seasonal flu

If you are affected by the virus and acquire COVID-19, the duration of your illness is generally longer than that of the seasonal flu.

My understanding is that it lasts about two weeks, compared to three to five days for the normal flu.

Note that the virus that we are all concerned about right now is called novel coronavirus, with “Novel” meaning “new.” The disease that the coronavirus causes is called COVID-19, which is an abbreviation of COrona VIrus Disease, with the “19” representing the year it was discovered, 2019.

Re-opening must be planned

Any re-opening of businesses must happen slowly and according to an intelligent plan, if it is to be done correctly.

If done incorrectly, the coronavirus could begin spreading rapidly again, and undo all the gains we’ve made in slowing its spread by having businesses shut down and having people practice social distancing.

Mismanagement would be stupid and tragic, as it would essentially make everything that we’ve done so far meaningless, as the virus would again spread rapidly and we would find ourselves back at square one in trying to control it.

The next step: Contact tracing and quarantine

The next step in the control of the virus’s spread is that as the lockdown is eased, a new phase of monitoring and control takes over.

That next phase is called “contact tracing.” In contact tracing, anyone who tests positive for the coronavirus is placed in quarantine. Then, health officials track down anyone that the infected person had contact with over the previous two weeks. Those people are then placed in quarantine also.

This is not a new procedure. It is how pandemics have been handled for many years. It is how pandemics are handled if the public reaction is quick enough to keep the virus from spreading rapidly.

Across the planet, we did not react quickly enough to limit the rapid spread of the coronavirus. It got a foothold and we had to shut down much of our human-to-human contact to control it.

If we had our act together as humans, we would have been able to skip all the lockdown and social distancing and go right to contract tracing and quarantine.

Widespread testing essential for control

An essential part of any lifting of the lockdown is that testing must increase. Right now, there is not enough testing going on for public health officials to fully understand where the disease is hiding and where it might next spread rapidly.

This makes sense, if you think about it. We need to know where the enemy is before we can plan a strategy.

Testing should be widely available and fast, to be most effective. At its best, testing would involve something like a drive-through where you would be swabbed without getting out of your car and then drive home. Contact between you and the health care professional who administered the test would be brief and minimal.

Results would then be sent to you, your doctor and public health agencies within hours, or at most, within days. Such rapid testing, if accurate, would give public health officials a lot more information about where the virus is hiding and where it is likely to strike next. This information would allow officials to make better and more effective decisions about when to lift restrictions.

The immunity problem

There is a serious problem with acquiring immunity from the coronavirus. The normal ways that we become immune to a disease is either by contracting it and fighting it off or by getting a vaccination.

A vaccination is a way to teach our bodies to fight off a disease without the need to actually acquire the disease. While both are effective ways to acquire immunity, most people would prefer the vaccination to the contracting of the disease. A vaccination might mean a little arm soreness or joint pain for a day or two. This is clearly preferable to being sick for two weeks and risking death.

The problem is that if we do not have a vaccine, the only way to obtain immunity from the coronavirus is to contract it. Since we are working very hard not to have the disease spread, a lot of people are not going to be immune when we begin to lift restrictions.

This will mean that while we might be able to go back to work and life might return partly to pre-virus normal, many of us will still be vulnerable to getting the virus and getting sick.

This is why public officials are concerned that there could be a resurgence of the virus in the fall.

What public health officials would like to see is “herd immunity.” That term means that enough people have acquired immunity to the virus that the virus has a hard time spreading. People might acquire the virus, but their body can fight it and not spread it.

Generally, about 80 to 90 percent of a population has to have immunity for herd immunity to take effect. That means that a lot more people need to become immune before we’re “herd” protected.

 

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