Let's Talk about COVID-19

You must be living under a rock, if you do not know what is Coronavirus aka COVID-19, however, let’s talk about the virus to revisit what we are against.

Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases, its family also includes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).

Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Humans and animals such as mammals and birds can be affected by the disease.

The family gained a new member, novel coronavirus (nCoV), which is was never identified in humans.

The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning "crown" or "halo".

On February 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the official name for the disease caused by the new coronavirus is Covid-19, taken from the words "corona", "virus" and "disease".

Discovery 

The first Coronaviruse was first discovered in the 1960s, SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019.

Infection

Human to human transmission of coronaviruses is primarily thought to occur among close contacts via respiratory droplets generated by sneezing and coughing.

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

In December 2019, an outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China. On 31 December 2019, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of coronavirus, which was given the interim name 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization (WHO), it was later renamed SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses.

Some researchers have suggested that the Huanan Seafood Market may not be the original source of viral transmission to humans.

Death

As of 13 March 2020, there have been at least 4,720 confirmed deaths and more than 128,343, confirmed cases in the coronavirus pneumonia outbreak.

Infected-Confirmed COVID-19 Cases

These countries were reported by WHO in their COVID-19 situation report, which goes as follows:

Africa:

Algeria

Burkina Faso

Cameroon

Democratic Republic of Congo

Nigeria

Senegal

South Africa

Togo

Americas:

Argentina

Bolivia

Brazil

Canada

Chile

Colombia

Costa Rica

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

French Guiana

Guadalupe

Honduras

Jamaica

Martinique

Mexico

Panama

Paraguay

Peru

United States

Eastern Mediterranean:

Afghanistan

Bahrain

Egypt

Iran

Iraq

Jordan

Kuwait

Lebanon

Morocco

Oman

Pakistan

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Tunisia

United Arab Emirates

Europe:

Albania

Andorra

Armenia

Austria

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Belgium

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Croatia

Cyprus

Czechia

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Georgia

Germany

Gibraltar

Greece

Holy See (Vatican City)

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland

Israel

Italy

Latvia

Liechtenstein

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta

Moldova

Monaco

Netherlands

North Macedonia

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Russia

San Marino

Serbia

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

Ukraine

United Kingdom

South-East Asia:

Bangladesh

Bhutan

India

Indonesia

Malpes

Nepal

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Western Pacific:

Australia

Brunei Darussalam

Cambodia

China

Hong Kong

Japan

Macau

Malaysia

New Zealand

Philippines

Republic of Korea

Singapore

Taiwan

Vietnam

Famous people

Everyone can be infected by the virus, here are famous inpiduals who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

•  Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian President
• Tom Hanks, and his wife, Rita Wilson.
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau
• Fabio Wajngarten, public official in Brazil
• Daniele Rugani, Italian national soccer team star
• Mikel Arteta, Arsenal's head coach
•  Ishaq Jahangiri, Iran's Vice President
• Hussein Sheikholeslam, Former Advisor to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif

Pandemic

On March 11, 2020, WHO declared the new coronavirus, which is spreading around the world, a “global pandemic; However it announced the novel COVID-19 is still “controllable”.

“We are very concerned to achieve the alarming levels of the outbreak and its severity, as well as the alarming levels of inaction,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Geneva.

“Now, COVID-19 can be categorized as a pandemic… we have never seen a pandemic spread due to the coronavirus,” Adhanom added.

“Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change the assessment of the threat posed by the Coronavirus,” the WHO director-general stressed.

Travel ban

The pandemic has resulted in serious restrictions over travel. Many countries had issued a travel ban during the outbreak, such as the United States 30-day travel ban on Europe, Egypt suspension its flights, Saudi Arabia halting all flights.

A strict restriction on free movement has been in place in Italy and other northern Italian provinces since Sunday, initially until April 3rd.

Israel: From Thursday evening tourists are no longer allowed to enter the country unless they can prove that they can stay in quarantine conditions for 14 days. This measure will initially be in place for two weeks.

Czech Republic: The Czech government declared a 30-day state of emergency, closing the borders for people from 15 "risk countries".

Moreover, India, Cyprus, Russia, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Malpes, Uganda, Jordan, China had also taken action due to the outbreak.

Education

Many renowned education institutes had halted studying and opt to study online, while, some were closed.

UC San Diego, San Jose State University, San Francisco State, Santa Clara University and University of San Francisco’s School of Law joined UC Berkeley and Stanford University in moving to online-only instruction.

Most University of California campuses have announced plans to suspend in-person courses, including, UC Berkeley.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced closed all educational institutions, including nurseries, middle schools, high schools, and universities, starting Monday until further notice.

No Umrah

On February 26, 2020, Saudi Arabia suspended travel to the country for Umrah, due to concerns over the rapid spread of Coronavirus.

The Riyadh government had ban Umrah pilgrimage to holy cities of Medina And Mecca for Saudi citizens and residents living in the kingdom, after the first case of Coronavirus was discovered in KSA, on March 4.

Postponed

The outbreak had also caused many artistic, cultural events to be canceled or postponed worldwide, including:

• Premier League
• NBA season
• World Cup Qualifiers
• European soccer suspended
• Movies
• Broadway Shows
• Coachella
• Stagecoach
• Concerts and Tours
• Fashion Industry
• Tourist attractions

However, rest assured that China is trying with all its might to confront the effects resulting from the outbreak of the new Coronavirus via a series of strong and effective measures that seek to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by this deadly virus.