OPINION: Be alert but stay calm . . . Best approach to dealing with Coronavirus

(Barbados Today) The world is on full alert. We have never before seen this type of global response to a virus or disease, as we do with the coronavirus disease (CO-VID19) outbreak. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the coronavirus started in Wuhan, China on December 31, 2019.

The coronavirus has since then spread to all continents except for Antarctica. The virus has infected over 90,000 people thus far and has killed more than 2,500 worldwide. In the midst of the heightened awareness of this deadly virus, the average person is caught in a bit of confusion regarding whether the coronavirus is still an epidemic or has moved on to be a pandemic. The World Health Organization defines a pandemic as the worldwide spread of a new disease. Many believe that the coronavirus meets this definition of a pandemic. “Coronavirus” is often prefaced with the word novel, because that is precisely what it is: a new strain in a family of viruses we have not seen before.

WebMD states that coronaviruses were first identified in the 1960s, but we do not know where they originate from. They get their name from their crown-like shape. Most coronaviruses spread the same way other cold-causing viruses do: through infected people coughing and sneezing, by touching an infected person’s hands or face, or by touching things such as door knobs that infected people have touched.

According to the WHO, coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that range from the common cold to much more serious diseases. These diseases can infect both humans and animals.

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Source: CARICOM TODAY