Jahnavi Sarma
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Written By: Jahnavi Sarma | Published : February 13, 2020 11:24 AM IST
In all, 9,419 patients had been cured and discharged from hospital.@Shutterstock
COVID-19 or the novel coronavirus has so far killed more than a thousand people and infected more than 45,000. It is no wonder then that a fear psychosis is growing around this deadly disease. It is true that the sickness is most confined to mainland China. But it has also spread to other parts of the world. Today, cases are being reported in more than 25 countries across the world.
In the middle of all this, experts say that one glimmer of hope is that most symptoms are mild and may resemble a very bad cold. At times, it may not even require any medical intervention. This is encouraging because it means that coronavirus fatalities may not be as much as most people fear.
But, at the same time, it is dangerous too. Some people may be moving around passing the virus on to other thinking that they just have a cold. Health professionals may also not suspect anything. They may, in fact, be giving a clean chit to infected people because of lack of severe symptoms.
The coronavirus was first detected in December 2019. In just six weeks, it is clear that the elderly are at greater risk. So are people with any underlying health conditions like heart diseases, diabetes or any other health issues. Most people who succumbed to the disease fall in these two categories. They usually suffer from a severe form of pneumonia after contracting the infection that led to organ failure. Healthy and young adults have a better chance of surviving this disease and very few fatalities are seen in children. The World Health Organisation, meanwhile, also said that 8,204 of the Chinese cases are severe. This means that the rest of the cases mild.
Meanwhile, keeping in mind the many concerns of people, researchers from the University of Washington have developed an interactive map of the novel coronavirus spread. This map will let users see the number of cases worldwide, as well as recoveries and deaths. And the best thing is that all these trends are available in real time. Updates are given every few hours with data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organisation (WHO), China and other government agencies, including those in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
