The COVID-19 in UK or more casually known as the Coronavirus has been in the United Kingdom for about 3 months now and over 1.3 Million
cases have been recorded for people testing positive to it and over 50000 people have died from this. This number is rising day by day and the number of casualties is increasing rapidly.
What is it and its Origin?
In Wuhan, a city in Eastern China with a population of over 11 million, China office heard the first reports of a previously unknown virus behind a series of pneumonia cases.
The Chinese government reacted to the initial outbreak by putting Wuhan and neighboring cities in the province of Hubei under a de-facto quarantine that included about 50 million people.
This quarantine is now being lifted gradually, as the authorities are waiting to see whether cases will come up again. The US is now the latest epicenter of the COVID-19 OutBreak becoming the first country to exceed total reported cases in China.
The nation has 502994 confirmed infections as of April 6 and 35,137 deaths. In Italy, where the death toll exceeded China’s on March 19, the government took the unusual step of extending a lockout across the world, shutting down cinemas, theatres, gyms, discotheques, and pubs.
COVID-19 Rise in the UK:
In light of this situation, the government started out by raising awareness about the virus among the people. They asked schools and colleges to run
special tutorials and ran awareness campaigns and featured them on TV so that the citizens of the UK could keep themselves safe from what’s coming.
These tutorials told people to wash their hands often, use sanitizer, keep their distance and self-isolate themselves if they show any flu-kind symptoms. This however raised a lot of panic among the people. They lost their brains and ran to
the supermarkets and stores to get their hand on any hygiene product they could. This led to them over stocking themselves at their homes, meaning fewer products were available for the people that were actually in need of things.
The Lockdown Imposed:
To cope with this dreadful situation the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson initiated what is called ‘lockdown’ starting from March 23rd. This lockdown implies that you must stay at home but there are three exceptions:
- Going out for shopping the groceries
- To exercise once a day
- For medical needs or to support others
- From and to work (if you can’t work from home)
People currently living alone are recommended to self-isolate for seven days if they develop a fever or recurrent dry cough – the two most common Coronavirus symptoms. For families and other individuals living together,
the recommendation is that if any individual experiences any of those symptoms, the whole family will self-isolate. The tactic forms part of the government’s ‘slow process’ program to flatten the virus peak and reduce the NHS burden.
Although this lockdown has been in a place quite out of time according to the people. This should have been initiative should be taken in the early days of March whereas Boris has implied it at the end of it. This could have reduced a high
number of deaths, this could have result in fewer new cases and coping up with the virus and the situation would have been much easier and fewer deaths would have occurred.
While the prime minister said this shielding would last as long as 12 weeks to ensure the outbreak peak has passed. Imperial College London’s analysis indicates that such steps will have to be in effect for as long as 18 months.
Despite these measures, others were critical of the government’s approach not going far enough. Both Italy and Spain have massive lockdowns in place. While South Korea has carried out incredibly rigorous checks for many of its citizens.
Isolation’s effect:
This lockdown has caused a devasted situation throughout the county. People are running out of resources and supermarkets are running out of stock. This has caused people to panic. And most people not having jobs or work to do and
running out of funds and are asking the government’s support. Children are trapped inside their homes and can not go out to get some fresh
air and meet around with their friends. This has caused a serious stir in people’s method of living and no one is happy from the current scenario. May the person be an introvert or an extrovert. But desperate times do call for desperate measures
Symptoms:
COVID-19 shares many of its symptoms with flu or the common cold, but some of the symptoms common to flu and colds are not generally seen in COVID-19. For example, people with reported COVID-19 cases rarely have a runny nose.
Other symptoms of COVID—19 are Less Common. Just under 40% of people with the disease feel fatigued, and a number of people cough up sputum – a thick lung mucus. Many less common signs include shortness of breath,
chest pain, sore throats, headaches or chills, odor or taste loss. Symptoms appear to turn up between five and six days after infection, according to the WHO.
Vaccine Progress:
A COVID-19 vaccine isn’t around the corner. The marketing of vaccines is a notoriously slow process, and any new vaccine would have to go through several phases of protection and efficacy testing. So once we know that a vaccine is effective,
we’ll still need to manufacture it at a rate that’s large enough to be used worldwide. Each vaccination is possibly about 18 months away.
That being said, much work is being done to create a COVID-19 vaccine. Sanofi, a pharmaceutical company, is seeking to improve on its already
licensed flu vaccine to convert it into something appropriate for COVID-19 diagnosis. Many methods – such as one being trialed by the University of Oxford – concentrate on the COVID-19 virus as a way to target vaccines on the external spike proteins.
But it will require money to accelerate those efforts. The Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness has called for $2 billion in funding to support new coronavirus vaccines in production.
What happens in the future?
WHO Leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that “narrowing” is the window of opportunity to produce COVID-19 Recent
outbreaks in Italy and Iran, which so far have no direct connexion with China, pose a major challenge for health authorities seeking to stop the virus spread.
The WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on 11 March after initially delaying the announcement. As reasons behind the recommendation,
the agency cited the rapid growth of cases outside of China and the global spread of the disease. In January it also deemed the outbreak to be a “World public Health Emergency” – the highest alert level for an epidemic of infectious disease.
By…!
Adnan Maqsood…!
Studnet of Business Management In UK….!
