Coronavirus, aka Covid-19, is on the list of infectious diseases. However, this is a new form of the virus and it has been discovered recently. The majority of people who get this virus suffer from mild or moderately severe symptoms. The good thing is that most of the patients recover from the illness without any treatment. In this article, we are going to talk about the symptoms and preventive measures that can help you stay safe.

According to research studies that have been done so far, older individuals and those who already have underlying medical conditions, such as cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes are more likely to suffer from severe symptoms of the diseases.

As far as prevention is concerned, the best way is to be informed, which means you need to take proper precautions to avoid catching the virus. For this, you need to understand what causes the diseases and how it spreads from one person to another.

The first and most important preventive measure is to wash your hands often using a sanitizer, such as alcohol and avoid touching your nose, hair, lips or other parts of your face.

Now, the million dollar question is, how does this virus spread? According to the most recent research studies, the coronavirus tends to spread when an infected person sneezes or coughs. The tiny droplets of the discharge from the mouse or nose of the person enter another person’s body through their noise or mouth. Therefore, it’s important to follow proper respiratory etiquette.

Currently, we don’t have any treatments or vaccines for coronavirus. But clinical trials are still in progress in order to evaluate potential treatments and their efficacy. You can get updated information from the WHO website.

Prevention

Fortunately, there are some proven ways to prevent infection and slow down the pace it spreads at. Given below are some tips that can help you save yourself from the infection and slow down the spread.

• Make it a habit to wash your hands with soapy water. It’s better to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds as this is the amount of time the soapy water takes to kill the virus.
• If someone’s is sneezing or coughing, make sure you stand at least one meter away from them.
• As much as possible, try to keep from touching your face
• If you have to sneeze or cough, cover your nose and mouth to keep the droplets from infecting others or things in front of you.
• If you think that you are infected with the virus, don’t get out and stay inside your room.
• Don’t smoke or take part in activities that can cause your lungs to get weaker.
• Practice social distancing and don’t travel unless you really have to.

Symptoms

First of all, it’s important to note that the coronavirus doesn’t affect everyone the same way. Since Covid-19 spreads respiratory diseases, most people suffer from mild to moderate symptoms. This means most of sufferers can recover from the illness without getting any special treatment. All they need to do is keep themselves away from everyone and practice the tips given above.

However, people with underlying conditions are at a higher risk of suffering from severe symptoms. Some of them may even die from the virus. Similarly, people over the age of 60 are also at a higher risk of severe symptoms. Therefore, these people should be more careful than others.

Common Symptoms:

Given below are some common symptoms of the virus. They are mild symptoms and can go away between 7 and 14 days.

• Dry cough
• Tiredness
• Fever

Other Symptoms:

• Sore throat
• Pains and aches
• Shortness of breath
• Few people may suffer from a runny nose and diarrhea

If you have mild symptoms or you are observing self-isolation, you may get in touch with your health care provider for advice on how you can get tested for the virus. This is important if you want to save yourself and your family from the infection. Your life and the life of your family are in your hands.

If you have cough, fever or you find it difficult to breathe, you may want to contact your nearby doctor right away without wasting time.

So, this was basic information about the Covid-19 and the steps you can take to save yourself from the infection.

Have you been looking for ways to earn money from home during the COVID-19 pandemic? Then, your search ends here. After reading this article, you don’t need to look for the best methods to earn money. With a massive number of employees getting laid off worldwide, making money should be your priority during these tough times. As situations continue to worsen day by day, going outside to work is not a good idea. We will give you the top 5 ways to earn money from your home’s comforts during this pandemic.

1)Tutor Students

If you love teaching and have command over a particular subject or subjects, then that’s all you need to start earning money right now. With online platforms like Chegg, you can easily make money by tutoring students.

From Mathematics, Science, Engineering to computer science, Programming to even History, you can choose from a large number of subjects to teach. Also, if you have fluency in a language like English, you can get paid for teaching it online to students from all over the world.

2)Graphic Designing

Are you a canvas expert? Have you been creating awesome designs with Adobe Creative Cloud? You can get paid for that, join Upwork or other freelancing websites, create your portfolio, and get started. Freelancing websites connect you to clients from all over the world, who are looking for individual talents.

If you can easily handle great graphic design projects, no one can stop you from getting that first client and begin your freelancing journey during the COVID-19 pandemic. Market yourself over professional social media platforms such as LinkedIn.

3)Start A Podcast

Nowadays, podcasting is a brand new way of earning money comfortably from home. You might be wondering how you can make money through podcasting; then, you should note that you get paid through sponsorship or Ads.

Another great way of earning through your podcasts is affiliate marketing.

Well, starting a podcast can be quite easy and straightforward, so choose your topic or field of interest and get started, such as digital marketing service and the Internet of Things.

All you need is a recording app, microphone, dedication, and creativity. The anchor is one of the best platforms to get started with podcasting and monetizing it.

4)Blogging

Do you have a passion for writing and also want to make money? Then, blogging is a good idea.

Now, if you think that you can start earning money through your blogs overnight, then that is not possible.

To become a successful blogger, you require effort, dedication, and passion for

learning digital marketing.

You need to have a thorough understanding of SEO(search engine marketing) to create blogs that will be successful.

Some of the ways of earning money via blogging are Ads, affiliate marketing, etc.

So, start creating a blog or a website and start your journey of becoming a successful affiliate. Explore the online marketing trends to pocket a handsome amount of money.

5)Testing Out Websites

Many businesses or agencies need people who can test their websites. In simple words, they want to know if their websites are user-friendly. You need to understand that more than the opinions of the development or marketing experts, what matters the most for businesses is the feedback of their audience. If making even the smallest changes can generate more sales, that will be a win-win situation for both companies and you. You will get paid for testing out their websites.

You just need to give your most honest feedback.

There are various sites that you can start with, such as Try My UI, User Testing, Userfeel, etc.

6)Transcription

This is one of the most popular ways of earning money from the comforts of your home. Starting at $20 per audio hour, you can get paid for audio transcription. In today’s digital world, the demand for transcription services is increasing day by day.

With the use of text to speech software, competition has increased, but the effort from your side can still be helpful.There are various sites such as Transcribe Me from where you can start earning money through transcription.

So, we have reached the end of the article. We hope that you enjoyed reading, and it was an insightful article for you. We’ll love to hear your feedback. Stay Tuned.

COMPLACENCY

America did not take covid-19 seriously enough but they were not the only ones. The Brazil president described it as a little flu. There was no organised plan for dealing with the pandemic. It was as though the disease will just fade away with time and everything will return to normal in a few weeks. In April (2020) President Trump said “I want everyone back to work by Easter.”

It wasn’t just the president who underrated coronavirus. The American people did as so many of the completely ignored social distancing and mask wearing rules.

ARROGANCE

America’s response to covid-19 can be put down to arrogance. It is an unwillingness to learn from the experience of other countries such as Italy, Spain, and France. President Trump did say, “Europe is the epicentre of coronavirus,” but none of the state’s governors responded with any urgency. It is as though no one can teach them anything. Don’t you know we (America) is the greatest country in the world. How dare anyone tell us what we should do. This is not entirely President Trump’s fault; it is part of American DNA. The US certainly did not just become that way since Trump took office. It seems to be a part of their DNA.

PRIDE

Pride sees what is happening to other countries and says, “That will not happen to us.” Once again, it is the inability of American politicians from learning from the experiences of other countries. Compare this to countries such as New Zealand and Australia that have seen how other countries have dealt with covid-19 and learned from their experiences.

SELFISHNESS

Selfishness is the main reason why America’s death toll from covid-19 is the highest in the world. When New York was the epicentre of the American outbreak one of their neighbouring states talked about closing the border but the response was, “We will take legal action.” It seems a lot of Americans are unwilling to make any sacrifice in order to save lives. In the Black LIves Matter protests, people went against health advice to participate in the protests and ignored social distancing rules.

APATHY

Apathy explains a person’s attitude to anything. Apathy means, “You do not care about anything.” The lack of social distance in America during the Black Lives Matter protests and the fourth of July celebrations shows how little so many cared about the risk of catching or passing on covid-19. So many have paid the ultimate price for America’s apathy in responding to the covid-19 crisis that the finger should not be pointed at any one person in particular, especially the President.

INDIFFERENCE

Indifference is basically the same as apathy. The difference says, “If you are indifferent to something you have no interest in it.” People who are indifferent about covid-19 think that it is other people who are making all the sacrifices. Just as long as their own lives are not being inconvenienced by the steps their government is taking to combat the spread of covid-19 they are happy.

Change does not come easily in America; those who have fought to bring about positive changes in society have experienced this. Often, changes in American society have been brought in as a result of changes in other countries. New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote, then other countries followed suit. It was the same with slavery. Other countries outlawed this practice long before America did.

Change does not come easily to America; take racial inequality for example, even in 2020 it is still a big issue which has not been addressed. It is the same with Justice reform and gun reform. There is still a reluctance to change things for the better.

Where To Look for the Best Money-Making Deals

I understand this is a sensitive time and a sensitive topic. There are people all over the world suffering, and I am about to write an article on how us as investors can benefit. I want to start by saying that I truly feel compassion for everyone severely impacted by this pandemic, and by no means want to discount that. Having gone through two prior market downturns, I know what kind of pressure this can cause. Although I wish this was not occurring, I don’t want to close my eyes to the fact that it could create opportunities for those who are prepared. I have thought about writing this article for weeks but have not been able to really piece something together. The reason for my struggle is I am primarily a residential real estate investor, and I honestly do not see an influx of opportunity coming in that product type. With that said, I do think we will see some opportunities in other product types, and possibly residential down the road. Here is what I believe could happen as we claw through this crisis.

OFFICE:

Office is likely to be the hardest hit asset class in real estate. With the recent lock-downs, most companies who occupy office space sent their staff home to quarantine. I don’t have the statistics, but there is a high percentage of people who can work from home who are working from home. Offices are pretty much vacant in most cities. So why would a company continue to pay rent when they are not using the office? Well… many are not. Companies all over the country have stopped paying rent on their office space, and most loans for office buildings are owned by business banks with little flexibility on payment deferrals. There are moratoriums on foreclosures spread across this country which could be playing a role, but we are yet to see a wave of foreclosures. That could easily change. As we work through the government stimulus, which is helping office owners, and employers decide to reduce or eliminate office space, more and more office owners will face financial hardship. Compile this with the reduction in property values, and it is going to become challenging for owners to stay current or refinance debt. Personally, I am going to stay away from office, but I do believe there will be some amazing value in the near future.

APARTMENTS:

Because this is going to be the most similar to residential it is an asset class I understand much better. Behind office I believe we will see this area hit the hardest. I know I will get push back on this, and many investors believe neighborhood retail is in trouble, but before you stop reading let me explain. First, I am limiting this argument to class C apartments. Class C would be the lower income buildings. The reason I think this is going to be hit the hardest is because of unemployment numbers. If you dig into the numbers, there is a sad discrepancy. The American’s not working is hardest hit in hospitality and the minimum wage worker. As of today, most of them are making more money on unemployment than they did working, so we have not seen a big drop off in rents paid. That will change at the end of July when the federal piece of the unemployment stops unless the new stimulus plan passes and extends this deadline. The federal piece is $600 per week for everyone on unemployment regardless of how much they were making before they lost their job. When that expires, unemployment payments will decrease to closer to 50% of prior income, which is not enough to support this demographic. Over time, companies will come back and people will regain confidence to leave their home and spend money, but as we wait for that, unemployment will remain a problem and paying rent on this class of apartments will be an issue. Two other areas that will be impacted include small retail that has small restaurants as tenants and self-storage. I think small retail could see a fairly large impact as their tenants struggle to get back in business (many won’t survive), but storage will do better. It is common during hard times to see consolidation of families, so I think it is possible to see smaller vacancy rates and higher rents with storage.

On the residential side, I do not think we will see much change. I believe it is business as usual, at least in the short term. I have written about my opinion on the impact of COVID-19 on housing and have posted videos to our channel, so I won’t go into too much detail here. If you have not yet subscribed to our channel, please do. We are hoping to increase subscribers, and you can help. Although I don’t expect much impact, there is a chance we see an increase in foreclosures in 18 to 24 months. The majority of non-jumbo loans are owned or guaranteed by the government. All loans in this category qualify for automatic forbearance, which I discussed last month. Those agreements expire 12 months after they start and then it will take some time to determine which borrowers can get back on track and which ones cannot. My guess is loan servicers will be much faster with their foreclosures than they were in 2008, so I would expect the problem loans to work their way through the process quickly. Although this is a real possibility, I do not think it is likely. Servicers are given great latitude to work with their borrowers after the forbearance expires, which should prevent many foreclosures. I also believe our economy will be mostly recovered in this time and unemployment will be back to a manageable level. If I am right, it will be business as usual for residential investors. Although I am optimistic, my eyes are open to what is possible.

OWNER FINANCE:

I hear a lot about the coming opportunities with subject to investing or other owner carry transactions. Although I do think these opportunities are coming, I believe it is much further down the road. I will discuss this in more detail next month.

For the last two months, the whole SEO community has been talking about the latest COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and its impact on organic traffic and performance. It has been seen that there has been a significant dip in the organic performance of websites across different verticals. And at the same time, there are also many verticals where a notable rise in organic traffic is observed. There are various new Search Engines Results Page (SERP) features that one can see emerging on different search engines such as Google.

With the rising nervousness and uncertainties in the economy due to the COVID-19, there have been drastic effects on different businesses and industries. Many industry experts stated that significant changes in the organic traffic, as well as revenues, were seen from 12th to 16th March 2020.

One of the interesting developments of the pandemic has been that the result page of Google has started stimulating many new panels related to ‘coronavirus’. These panels provide users with information and data related to the disease. The content is generally taken from the website of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the Centre for Disease Control, and many other local government bodies.

Google has also started displaying an ‘SOS Alert’ panel to indicate a state of emergency across the globe. This is one of the most effective ways to address the COVID-19 emergency online and create a sense of urgency among the users. Another interesting SERP feature is when a user searches for something related to ‘coronavirus’ the safety tips that need to be followed during this crisis is displayed on Google. These tips showcase a video that instructs the searchers on how to wash hands properly or how to sanitise them along with other tips taken from the WHO website.

Additionally, an ‘Affected Area’ panel is also displayed, which shows the areas that have been affected by this pandemic on a world map. One can easily see on this map how the pandemic is spreading across the world and its density in different regions of the globe.

Moreover, before other organic results related to the search are displayed, Google also shows a ‘symptoms’ panel where one can quickly check out the common symptoms of COVID-19. This list of symptoms is also pulled from the WHO website.

How Will Coronavirus Affect The Trends Long-Term?

COVID-19 is being termed as one of the biggest trends in Google’s search history. People are not only searching for information related to coronavirus, but national leaders such as Narendra Modi and Donald Trump are also looking at the information related to the stock market.

Long-tail keywords have also started gaining much importance. For instance, Pandemic vs epidemic, are there any test centres in my area, best movies/series to watch in quarantine, is there any shop open, and much more like that!

Such types of searches can put the marketers under a lot of pressure as one needs to be careful and thoughtful while finding the correct target keyword and creating a proper and effective strategy.

It is also possible that search queries related to COVID-19 would continue for a long time along with combination searches such as future banking, how will travelling reopens, future of schools post COVID-19, and much more like that!

How Should Businesses and SEOs Respond at this time?

As the number of people working from home has increased more than ever, a daily commute to work is no longer a necessity. Businesses and SEOs also have more time now to formulate and execute their digital marketing strategies. Whether it is creating content for a sanitiser and mask brand or an SEO marketing plan for a global media agency, here is enough time to plan and develop digital marketing strategies.

According to various experts, businesses and websites should stay ahead of the curve and apply different ideas and techniques to keep the website updated as well as optimised.

Since the level of competition after this pandemic is expected to rise, it is the right time for businesses to partner with best digital marketing agencies in India such as Arm Worldwide to be prepared with their digital marketing strategies in order to rank business websites higher than the competitors.

Covid-19 is a scary, unpredictable global pandemic. Some people recover, and some people – it fatally destroys the lungs. We have seen it is not just seniors and those with pre-existing medical conditions that succumb to the virus. Is there a possibility for this horrifying pandemic and for future global viral attacks – can we do more to protect ourselves? Let’s take a look at immune function.

Our immune system is divided into 2 categories:

Our innate immunity is the immune system we are born with, and functions to keep foreign threats out – bacteria, viruses, toxins…

Our adaptive immunity, the body identifies a threat, and we create antibodies specifically designed to that threat. The threat is neutralized, and the adaptive immune system “remembers” it, so hopefully future responses to the same threat are also neutralized.

We often hear people talk about “strengthening our immune system”. There is a truly obscene amount of supplements that claim to do that.

What we really need is a balanced immune system. When out of balance, the immune system not only fails to protect us, but it can even turn against us, mistaking our own cells for invading pathogens (nasties), resulting in debilitating chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases. Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, allergies are all examples of autoimmune responses.

Now let’s take a look at Covid-19:

COVID-19 is an illness caused by a coronavirus. Human coronaviruses are common and are typically associated with mild illnesses, similar to the common cold.

According to the Mayo Clinic:

“The virus is called ‘novel’ because it started with an animal population, was transmitted to a human and now can go from human to human. Our immune systems have never seen this particular strain of virus before, so we haven’t developed immunity. It is likely more contagious than the viruses that cause influenza and common cold because it is new to humans. Humans have no way to prepare for it, and their immunity is not ready to fight it. This results in the virus causing more cellular damage and producing more inflammatory cells.”

I have published many articles here on ezines about oxidative stress and inflammation. Please refer to those for more background here.

Yes, Covid-19 is new to us. Research is showing us

many of the people dying in the novel coronavirus pandemic appear to be harmed more by their own immune system than by the virus itself. It is the inflammatory response of the immune system that presents grave danger.

Research form the University of Melbourne is showing us “a robust immune response across different cell types was associated with clinical recovery”. Balanced immune response seems to be the key in people who recover.

Science now refers to something called a cytokine storm. Albeit still under a great debate, a cytokine storm is an over active immune response and inflammatory responses out of control. An uncontrolled release of proinflammatory cytokines.

Doctors and researchers are increasingly convinced that in at least some cases of Covid-19, the body’s own immune system is overreacting to the virus with a cytokine storm. The immune system has an extreme response that causes more damage than the virus itself. Some doctors are now using powerful anti-inflammatory drugs to fight the virus.

There are a thousands of articles, featuring hundreds of studies on the diseases linked to chronic inflammation. It seems, that our survival of Covid-19, or our demise, is linked as other diseases to immune response and chronic inflammation.

Research on Covid-19 is very recent. The entire world has put other research on hold, scrambling to save lives. There is so much we do not know, however, we do not have the luxury of time. We all have to do our very best to protect ourselves, and we all have a social responsibility to do our utmost to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

Again, many of us think we are choosing a healthy lifestyle, but we are actually increasing our levels of oxidative stress, which can lead to chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation and those cytokine storms, are linked with chronic diseases, and death as research deepens. The research is indicating Covid-19 is no exception.

Covid-19 is an acronym of coronavirus disease 2019. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common throughout the world. They can cause respiratory illness in people and animals. This particular one originated in China at the end of 2019 in the city of Wuhan. In the past two decades, coronavirus outbreaks have caused global concern, including one in 2003 with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and more recently in 2012 with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

Covid-19 is a disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 that can trigger what doctors call a respiratory tract infection. It can affect the upper respiratory tract, viz. sinuses, nose, and throat or lower respiratory tract, viz. windpipe, and lungs. Severe cases can lead to serious respiratory disease, and even pneumonia.

On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global health emergency. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared it a global pandemic.

Risk factors –

The following are the risk factors that are likely to predispose the people to Covid-19 infection –

Age 65 years and older –

People, who are 65 years and older, are at a higher risk of Covid-19 infection due to their decreased immunity. They are more likely to have some associated co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Also, the course of disease tends to be more severe in them resulting in higher mortality. However, its transmission among the elderly population can be reduced by taking appropriate preventive measures.

Chronic lung disease and asthma –

People with asthma are more likely to catch Covid-19. The hospital data shows that respiratory patients are more likely to experience severe complications. As there is still no cure for it, the best action that people can take is to protect themselves from infection. The same is the case with other chronic lung diseases.

Serious heart conditions –

Covid-19 causes direct damage to the lungs and triggers an inflammatory response, which places stress on the cardiovascular system in two ways, viz. by infecting the lungs the blood oxygen levels drop and the inflammatory effects of the virus itself cause the blood pressure to drop as well. In such cases, the heart must beat faster and harder to supply oxygen to major organs.

According to the European Society of Cardiology, individuals with heart conditions such as heart failure, dilated cardiomyopathy, advanced forms of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, and patients with congenital cyanotic heart disease are at the highest risk.

Severe obesity –

There are increasing number of reports that have linked obesity to more severe Covid-19 infection and death. Obesity reduces the protective cardio-respiratory reserves and weakens the immune regulation that appears likely to help the progression to critical stage of the disease.

Researchers found that among individuals with Covid-19 aged less than 60 years in New York City, those with a BMI between 30-34 Kg/m2 and greater than 35 Kg/m2 were 1.8 times and 3.6 times more likely to be admitted to critical care respectively than individuals with a BMI lesser than 30 Kg/m2.

A new study published in 2020 in Diabetes Care concluded that patients with Covid-19 are two and a half times more likely to have severe pneumonia if they are obese than if they are not. Obesity brings with itself a chronic inflammatory state. Whether obesity is an independent risk factor for susceptibility to infection requires further research.

Diabetes –

Diabetes is a risk factor for hospitalization and mortality of the Covid-19 infection. Diabetics have impaired immune response to infection concerning cytokine profile and changes in immune-responses including T-cell and macrophage activation. Poor glycemic control impairs several aspects of the immune response to viral infection and also to the potential bacterial secondary infection in the lungs. Poor glycemic control is a risk factor for Covid-19 infection and its adverse outcomes. Hence the importance of tight glycemic control in diabetics cannot be overlooked.

Chronic kidney disease –

People with chronic kidney disease are at an increased risk of the infection. People on dialysis can have weaker immune systems, making it harder to fight infections. Nonetheless, the kidney patients need to continue with their regularly scheduled dialysis treatments and to take necessary precautions as recommended by their healthcare provider.

People with a kidney transplant need to take anti-rejection medicines, also known as immunosuppressive medicines, which keep the immune system less active.

Liver disease –

All patients with liver disease are at risk of adverse outcomes from the virus. Also, some people with certain liver conditions are extremely vulnerable. They include people on immune-suppression for a liver transplant or for autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and people with liver cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy.

Immune-compromised people –

A person of any age group can become immune-compromised. The conditions that can cause a person to be immune-compromised include cancer treatment, smoking, bone marrow or organ transplantation, immune deficiencies, poorly controlled AIDS, and prolonged use of corticosteroids and other immune weakening medications.

There are reports that, in some Covid-19 patients, death has occurred probably due to a cytokine storm, when the immune system goes into overdrive, thereby damaging even healthy tissue that may lead to multiple organ failure, sepsis, and even death.

Conclusion –

Certain people are at high risk for a severe infection if they catch Covid-19. Everyone needs to take steps to protect themselves and others from catching or spreading it. But people belonging to a high risk category must take all the necessary precautions to protect themselves.

When the new strain of the Coronavirus struck China at the end of 2019 and later, in early next year, started spreading to other countries at a very fast rate the world hardly knew anything about the virus and watched helplessly as COVID-19 created havoc all around, posing the worst ever crisis faced by humanity. As the months rolled by scientists, researchers and medical fraternity the world over joined hands in studying, analyzing the virus and started coming up with life-saving repurposed drugs and development of effective vaccines. Till now, there has been no proven cure for the virus, but the repurposed drugs and the improvements in healthcare infrastructure have significantly contributed towards reducing the fatality rate, enabling patients to recover in increasing numbers and containing the disease in various worst affected countries. We will discuss here some positive developments that really are pointers to a possible conquest by humankind over the killer virus.

With the total number of Coronavirus infected people of the globe crossing 15 million, over 9 million has recovered thus registering a recovery rate of over 60 percent. In some countries or regions, the recovery rates have crossed the 70% mark. With this the fatality rates are coming down all around: a vast majority of the countries have succeeded in keeping the rates below 5%; the worst affected countries, mostly in Europe, that showed fatality rates in excess of 10% or even 15% have by now more or less controlled the spread of the virus and accordingly have successfully neutralized the death rate; in USA, the topmost country in terms of total infections, the alarming fatality rate of over 5% has come down now to 3.7% now, even though the country seems to have a second wave with large numbers of new cases every day; the second country in terms of total number of infections, Brazil, a similar trend is visible, and in the third worst affected country, India, the fatality rate has come down from over 3% to 2.43% at the moment with recovered patients touching nearly 65%. The only country to show a death rate above a shocking 25% is Yemen; however, at the moment new cases are not rising exponentially there. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Jamaica, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Nepal, Puerto Rico, Singapore and Russia among others have registered very low fatality rates ranging from less than 1% to 2%. Most significantly for Planet Earth the global death rate is now 4.19% which, hopefully, would reduce further in near future.

Some researchers point out a difference between the actual number of infections and the reported or confirmed ones by which they want to say the number of deaths reported could be underestimated. In many countries like in the United Kingdom and also in China, in fact, fatality figures had been revised upwardly. This issue had been politicized in several states of India with respective political opposition alleging under-reporting in the numbers of deaths, and in most of the states the state government too had revised the figures upwardly. Besides, the factor of co-morbidity has also created anomalies in reported deaths. In any case, this has not significantly contributed to a rising fatality rate in the concerned nations or regions.

Factors contributing to a reducing fatality rate and an increasing recovery rate are, as we mentioned earlier, thanks to the repurposed life-saving drugs like Favipiravir, Dexamethasone, Remdesivir, Tocilizumab etc. and a most effective method called Plasma Therapy, tried successfully in India and other countries mostly on severe under-ventilation patients. And then, the positive developments on the vaccine front.

The results of Phase-1 and Phase-2 human trials of a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford have been declared, and these are very positive: the vaccine appears to be safe and its injection into over a thousand human volunteers displays an immune response in them. Buoyed by this success the government of United Kingdom has already ordered 1 million doses to be produced and supplied. In India, Covaxin, being developed by Bharat Biotech, has entered human trials with more than 300 human volunteers for the Phase-1. The Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi, has announced that 100 volunteers for the trials are being arranged from AIIMS, Delhi, and that the results of Phase-1 and Phase-2 human trials of Covaxin are expected in three months. This is to mention here that there are more than 100 vaccine candidates globally in various stages of development.

All indications, therefore, point to a period in near future when Planed Earth will be able to conquer the Coronavirus effectively, and hopefully, permanently. However, all these developments should never make us complacent and careless. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been pointing out repeatedly that COVID-19 is a very smart and dangerous virus, and it can outmaneuver human efforts by mutating itself which is a common feature of any virus that mutates periodically or even annually. Therefore, we must go on adapting to a new normal life, wearing masks all the time outside of home and observing other norms like social or physical distancing. In both India and the US, we have already seen the cost in terms of spread and fatalities thanks to the free-spirited citizens not agreeing to being locked-down and wearing masks or similar kinds of norms that they call ‘bondage’ or ‘agenda’ on the part of the authorities. And most importantly, although fatality rates are reducing, people are still succumbing to the virus on a daily basis which cannot be acceptable for humanity. For the final victory over COVID-19 not only the governments the world over must put in their best, but primarily the world citizens who must join in their cooperation and a united might.