In early December 2019, the Coronavirus (2019-nCoV ) came to join the list of deadly viruses that made onto the pandemic list.
As of 2/8/2020, it the novel virus has killed 814 and infected 37,573 people worldwide with the majority of people who got infected of the virus are living in China – 2,769 cases recovered with medical assistance and vaccine is yet to be discovered.
My wife is expressing concern as we have scheduled to travel in the next 2 months in Southeast Asia – the entire trip was planned 8 months prior.
Below are the Stats of the 5 major viruses including the current Coronavirus in the last 50 years (businessinsider.com)
The 3 pandemics that have the largest foot prints globally are SARS, MERS and the current Coronavirus.
SARs ground zero was Quangdong, China with the mortality rate of 9.6 percents, whereas MERS first case was discovered in United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the fatality rate of 34 percents.
The current Coronavirus, began its origin from a seafood market in Wuhan, China, appeared to transmit via airborne from person to person much easier and faster than the last 2 viruses – its kill rate is hovering at 2 percents.
Statistically, the majority of the people who succumbed to the Coronavirus were old and had preexisting conditions according to China’s National Health Commission (NHC).
With that understanding, I decided not to cancel our trip and assured my wife that we are young and healthy enough to ahead with the travel plan – as long as we are exercising precautions along the way.
When it comes to worldwide pandemic, I am grateful for scientists around the world and the people with deep pocket financial resources take potential threat seriously – as the world is getting forever more populated.
While the genius scientists and the magnates who genuinely care for the well-being of the human-species work out a long term solution for now and future pandemic, we as individuals, must be responsible for our own health.
Pandemic is the negative side effect of progress!
Since the British Industrial Revolution took off in the mid 1700s, the global standard of living is progressively increasing for the last 300 years.
As the world citizens are living better in comforts and pleasures, physically and mentally, we have evolved faster than the natural evolutionary rate – to match with progress of the external environment.
When the rate of change between the natural order and humans induced are critically mismatched – pandemic is the correction.
The clean and sterile bubble!
We have inadvertently weakened our own immune system by building personal bubble that effectively isolating the defense system from the everyday challenges from the external environment.
For example, if you are a traveler from highly developed countries such as United States, Japan to Mexico or Vietnam, you will discover that your immune is not ready to combat with the local fauna of bacteria in the first few days of the visit.
As wealth is increasing along with the advancement in technologies, personal gadgets are replacing human to human interactions. Slowly and surely, children are spending less time outside with – their times are expended within the clean and sterile bubble with virtual toys.
Physically, the future adults of today children are living longer – yet they are profoundly more fragile than generations of the past.
Stress!
As the modern economies are becoming more integrated internally and internationally, competition for resources are increasing across all professional levels from blue to white collars labors – stress is inevitable.
To cope with mental stress, many turned to chemical substances ranging from tobaccos, alcohols to recreational and illicit drugs.
According to www.statista.com – below are the number of people (in thousands) who used drugs in their lifetime by 2018.
Drugs abuse worked to weaken the natural ability to fight off diseases and in turn infections.
From the macro level, when you are high on drugs and alcohols, you are unable to perform the basic tasks in the everyday living. Internally from the micro level, the process that keeps you safe and healthy is severely compromised by the same substances.
Regardless if you are using drugs and alcohols or not physical and mental stress weaken the immune system and put your overall health in jeopardy – open up opportunities for outside virulent invaders.
Inactive Lifestyle!
One out of three American is considered obese at the beginning of 2020. Heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes are common medical conditions associated with overweight.
According to hhs.gov, less than 5% of adults are considered physically active 30 minutes each day. With abundant of processed foods availability everywhere – obesity and the development of preexisting conditions toward health related diseases is inevitable.
The majority of the deaths related to the current Coronavirus pandemic were people with preexisting conditions as officially stated by China’s National Health Commission.
Wealth Disparity!
With the advent of key vaccines and hundreds of antibiotics in the last century, many deadly infectious diseases of past generations are rarely seen in highly developed countries. Unfortunately, they stayed dormant in pockets of the world where extreme poverty persisted.
Every now and then, they returned to the general population with a vengeance as mutated versions of their earlier selves.
The wars against deadly viruses seem to be elevated to the new dramatic level with novelty viruses starting with Ebola – a virus that crossed the species boundary.
According to cdc.gov, 2019-nCoV (Coronavirus) is originated in bats. The large family of Coronaviruses found hospitality in species of animals as– cats, camels, cattle, bats.
The 2019-CoV is the mutated version of the animal Coronavirus that was infected the sick animals in Wuhan, China. The variant was able to find hospitality in humans as hosts – ground zero for all pandemic.
It may be debatable if the zero patient who was infected by the muted virus from the need of eating the infected animal – a large portion of the population in this area are living in abject poverty.
Expert predicted that the current version of the Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, may eventually be accepted as the group of the common flu viruses due to its expressed symptoms and human to human mechanism of transmission – and a low dead rate.
The best protection from the current epidemic 2019-nCoV is our very own personal immune system!
The very best of scientists around the world are working hard to protect the human species from today and tomorrow pandemics – nevertheless, the first level of responsibility will always be with the individual to keep his/her body and mind healthy.
Let’s play the game of life!
