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- Hit and run virus and will disappear in six months
- Join the flu on the roster of the world’s winter illnesses — a bug that will be routinely vaccinated against.
- Might become a global pandemic, killing millions of people.
Chandigarh, February 11,2020 :
Hit and run virus
Unprecedented travel restrictions and quarantine in Hubei province and elsewhere that most closely resemble martial law enacted over tens of millions of people began two weeks ago. Coronavirus is thought to have an incubation period of up to 14 days.
As per WHO cases are continuing in Hubei province but we are not seeing the same acceleration in provinces outside Hubei or in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Deadly outbreak is tamped down by quarantines and hospitalization.
Looks that asymptomatic infections are “not the driver of the outbreak,” based on other coronaviruses. There are four common coronaviruses already endemic in people, thought to cause about 10% to 30% of colds, and pneumonia, as well as the more dangerous MERS and SARS, the latter the closest genetic match to 2019-nCoV.
Will become endemic like another seasonal flu
It could turn out to have seasonal behavior, flaring up in winter like the flu. That pattern has been seen in at least two of the common coronaviruses that affect people.
On the downside, that means it would just come back next winter. That happened with the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that hit the world in two seasonal waves.
The extra time will allow clinical trials to test the effectiveness of antiviral drugs including remdesevir and development of a new vaccine.
Deadly global pandemic: Unlikely
The relatively few cases popping up in dozens of countries flare up worldwide in the coming months with deadly consequences. It happened in 1957, when a flu pandemic killed 1.1 million people worldwide, and again in 1968, when another flu strain killed about 1 million people.
WHO says it has not seen an outbreak in doctors and nurses outside of Wuhan. The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 had a death rate of 2.5% and preyed on the young.
Most likely, the new coronavirus mortality rate is much lower than 2%, because of unreported milder cases. A Chinese National Health Commission official said on Monday that the death rate in provinces other than Hubei was 0.16%. That’s still much higher than influenza, which has about a 0.03% death rate. 82% of 2019-nCoV cases are mild, 15% are severe, and 3% are critical.
Author : Dr KK Aggarwal, President CMAAO, HCFI and Past nation al President IMA
