As we all know, the Coronavirus has recently snatched headlines around the world. More and more cases are reported each day and the virus itself seems to know very few limits geographically. The virus is believed to have traveled to the United States through multiple different people, most of whom, had contact in an area where the Coronavirus was rampant. This, in turn, spread to others within the United States. The continuous spread of the virus has led multiple states encouraging the practice of self-quarantine to its inhabitants and California for one, has declared a state of emergency within its borders. But just how dangerous is this disease truly? To most of the mainstream media, this disease is the end all be all of humankind. However, when we take a look at how the virus measures up to other diseases, the Coronavirus doesn’t look to be all that intimidating.
At first glance, COVID-19 is one of many strands of Coronaviruses that have been present in both humans as well as animals throughout our history. The symptoms of Coronaviruses include mild to moderate respiratory illnesses with fevers and coughs. While COVID-19, the new strand, has mild to severe respiratory illnesses with fevers and coughs. The virus is thought to spread mainly from person to person but more and more is being learned about the virus each day, and though human interaction allows for the spread of the virus, there are also some sources that believe the virus began by spreading from animal-to-human in Wuhan China. Unfortunately, there isn’t much solid evidence on the origins and contagiousness of the virus due to the fact that the virus itself is so new. This is part of the reason why the mainstream media has been making COVID-19 seem so horrible. After all, the less you know about an “attacker” the scarier they seem to be.
Next, let’s compare this respiratory illness to another that we all know and despise, Influenza. Influenza, much like the Coronavirus, is also a respiratory illness that comes with fevers and coughs. Furthermore, both viruses are highly contagious and are known to spread fairly easily, all it would take is a few moments of contact with some “infected” object or person and it can spread to you and others around you. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to bow towards chaos and fear when new illnesses arise in our society. In fact, when looking at the history of illnesses and diseases, COVID-19 is rather unimpressive in comparison to other major viruses such as SARS or Ebola. Just looking at the statistics will show you that the recovery rate for the Coronavirus far exceeds that of Ebola itself. As stated in the previous paragraph, humans tend to overdramatize the unknown, by making a bad thing seem horrendous. Yes, the Coronavirus is bad and it is a rapidly spreading disease that causes mild-to-severe symptoms.
However, when looking at the facts, we can see that by proper care, the virus’s effects can be lowered and in some cases, eradicated.
Taking all of that into consideration, we must remember that COVID-19 is a viral infection that spreads from person to person incredibly fast and that taking precautions to avoid this disease is heavily advised. Due to the fact that we have yet to produce a proper vaccine and/or medication to combat COVID-19, we ought to treat this viral infection with the attention it deserves. In fact, perhaps we ought to treat this with the same behavior as we would with another Influenza outbreak, with proper sanitization, thoroughly washed hands, and simply being overly hygienic.
