When’s the last time you were expected to save the world?

With all of us finding a lot more time on our hands nowadays, I’ve been spending a lot of time online and no matter where you go, you can’t seem to escape the ongoing commentary on coronavirus. I am really getting annoyed at all the people down playing the severity of Coronavirus. I’m also losing patience with all the doomsday prophets. We need to find a happy medium between ignorance and arrogance and just plain self-absorption and the complete disregard for others, with the overreacting, the shopping hoarders and the fear mongering.

The COVID-19 coronavirus strain and influenza are both respiratory illnesses that spread from person to person, primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or can be transmitted by touching surfaces that an infected person has touched, i.e. someone coughs and then uses the ATM or opens a door and you touch that key pad or door handle.

Because coronavirus is spread much in the same way as influenza, causing some of the same symptoms, it’s no surprise that there have been a lot of comparisons between the two and conjecture as to the flu being more dangerous and causing more deaths than coronavirus, so what’s all the fuss about?

The problem with jumping to conclusions as to the severity of the situation at the outset, is that we don’t have nearly enough information and statistics on which to base an informed, much less definitive estimation the severity of a newly introduced viral strain that the world has never seen in humans.

What’s important to note is that the median incubation time of influenza is 3 days, and that of covid-19 is 5-6 days. This means that the coronavirus spreads faster than influenza. The WHO released a Situational Report on March 8^th issuing a statement that the number of secondary infections generated from one infected individual for COVID-19 virus, is higher than for influenza. They go on to say that not only does it spread faster than influenza, the percentage of severe and critical cases of coronavirus are higher.

Coronavirus is most definitely something that needs to be taken seriously. When was the last time you heard of air travel being disrupted, villages, cities and whole countries on total lockdown for influenza in your lifetime?  Ignorance is the only way to describe the dismissive attitude of those that have decided it’s no big deal – the flu is worse. It’s not, by a long shot. As updated numbers of cases continue to be diagnosed, and more people succumb to covid-19, we will start to see the true impact of coronavirus.

So, it’s the end of the world? Not yet. On one hand, you need to understand we are in the midst of a global pandemic. But at the same time, everyone needs to keep calm and be smart about this. The most important thing to do is to minimize the spread. This is something that is up to all of us, as individuals, to do. It’s not the hospitals, it’s not the governments, it’s not the health care workers that will stop this. They are there to manage the epidemic. Only we can minimize its spread.

Yes testing capacity is important, accurate diagnosis is important, but all secondary to our responsibility to take control and stop the spread of this virus. When’s the last time you were expected to save the world? You can by doing just a few simple things….

• Stay at home
• maintain social distancing
• wash your hands with soap and water

Who’d have thought it could be that easy?

Let’s stop the conjecture, the debating, the arguing, the finger pointing and come together and support each other to do our very important part to get coronavirus under control.