Coronavirus: What do we know about it till the end of May.

Viruses are here before us.

We have been living with viruses for tens of thousands of years. They can cause deadly things like encephalitis, jaundice, diarrhoea, fever with rashes or simply common cold.

Truth be told, we are yet to develop a Brahmastra to kill them. We have no perfect anti virals like we have the penicillins against bacteria.

Vaccines:

Despite all our advances, we have been able to develop vaccines against only a handful of viruses like measles, poliovirus and hepatitis.

For some viruses like influenza our vaccines are not much effective. And we are helpless against those 200 odd viruses that can cause the most common cold and running nose.
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So we don’t have any effective weapon against millions of them. Yet mankind has survived them for million years. How ?

Take the example of Measles. It is 10 times more dangerous than these Coronaviruses in whatever criteria you may choose ie. Mortality rate, Infectivity rate. Yet we are not afraid. Why ?

An average Indian gets exposed to measles or rotavirus by 5 years of life and develops adequate antibody against them. Vaccines are also available against them. No wonder, we don’t bother about measles these days. Though we get breakthrough attacks of measles off and on, we survive them. ( An attack of measles in adults do occur and if it does it will be much more dangerous than Covid 19.)

Immunity:
So our only kabacha against viruses are our body’s own natural immunity.
Our immunity are of two kind.
 • Inborn (innate) that is mounted whenever any threat arises.
 • We also develop specific immunity against any single virus once infected.
 • Lastly we can induce immunity artificially by a vaccine.

Here is the catch: This Cov2 is a novel virus. We don’t have past experience, neither do we have a vaccine against it.
We also don’t know how long and how strong immunity one infection of covid confers on the patient.

Vaccine:
Same thing with vaccine. How long and how strong protection a vaccine can give us will be an enigma.
As far as respiratory viruses are concerned like common cold or influenza, vaccines are seldom 💯% effective.
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Present Knowledge.

Our knowledge about this novelty is evolving everyday. CDC ( US) and ICMR have been updating their directives almost every day.

Surfaces:
Now we know that we should not be MORTALLY afraid of surfaces like door knobs, lifts and staircases as advised earlier. Those observations were made by detecting viruses on surfaces. But today we know that our PCR tests pickup viral gene material very efficiently, but they cannot say whether it is a live virus or dead virus. The mere presence of virus on hard surfaces and plastics do not predict infectivity.
So are all those Retest positives that are now thought to be non living fragmented viruses.
CDC guidelines now states,” You may not pick up these virus EASILY from the surfaces.

Route of infection:
As on date, you can get the virus if someone infected, sits in front of you and coughs, sings or speaks loudly.
The virus can only enter you if it gets into your nose, mouth or the white of your eye.
This virus definitely can not enter your skin. What if you have a wound in your hand and someone sneezes on it.
Virus is not blood borne so it should not pose a risk. Even if it enters along with a needle, it may not infect you.

Swimming Pool:
The virus may not spread by water. So drinking potable water is coronasafe. So also swimming should be. Coronavirus is quickly killed by the chlorine in the pool.
Flowing water and running breeze are safer.

Indoors vs outdoors:
Outdoors are safer than indoors.
Indoors that have frequent air changes should be safer. That way flights which maintain good air changes should be safe.

Returnees vs Migrant workers.
What about people coming from other states?
I cannot understand why someone should be more infective unless he comes from a containment zone.

The migrant workers coming from the mills of Surat are different. Their hand hygiene, living conditions can encourage spread of the virus.

But a conscious returnee who has been able to maintain social distancing and has travelled by his own car should not be more infective than your neighbour who does not practice such etiquettes.

A migrant is like an uncharted river, whose status you don’t know. But a few hours travel in a car or a plane per se should not raise the risk more than a few hours in your local market.

If we go by the prevalence rate of 2.8%, 14 out of 500 of your office co workers are already infected. Except that you don’t know which colleague.

Drugs:
Arsenicum is as dubious as Hydrochloroquine. Only time will test them. Vaccines when it will come to market may or may not be 100% protective. Though they are going to unleash a marketing strategy that may not have been seen.

So what is the best strategy ?
Eat healthy, eat on time, eat little less (as lesser activity)
Take good protein supplements .
Vit C 500 mg is good.
Zinc 50 mg raises your surface immunity
Vit D daily 60000 for 3 days and then once a week for the same reason.
Ensure minimum 8 hours sleep.
Yoga,Pranayam,Exercise.

Avoid oily, spicy food, fast foods, cold drinks, icecream which make you vulnerable for sore throat.
Avoid alcohol. Each drink increases your chances of getting infection 6 times.

SMS
For thousands of years, we have been surviving respiratory viruses by using SMS.
Soap, Mask, Safe distancing.

Inspite of all the changes, these three pillars of defence have held firm.
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Finally,
If you get the virus, ( you are going to get it some days this year) 80 times you will not be knowing it. Another 15 times you will develop such a mild sore throat or fever with loose motions that you are not going to consult any Doctors.
But yes, rarely 5 time it may be serious and in less than one occasion it can be life threatening.

That depends on your health conditions, previous risks, and sheer bad luck.
After all the safest driver may encounter the worst accident. That doesn’t prohibit us from riding a vehicle.

The last line : Safe distance, Mask and Sanitizer

Stay safe, Stay without fear.