226
providers, cinemas, shops, and hotels were severely affected. Many companies continued expenditure including employees’ pay without revenue. The manufacturing
units selling goods from China were affected as buyers became unwilling to buy
from China.
The international retailers stopped operations in China beside many overseas
airlines stopping flights to China (Andrew 2020).
As on February 15, 2020, globally 50,580 cases were laboratory-confirmed to be
infected by 2019-nCOV in 25 countries with 50,054 reported from China alone
resulting in 1524 deaths in China and 2 death outside China (WHO 2020a).
A dozen towns in Italy were quarantined on February 22, 2020 after two people
died due to infection with the coronavirus from China. Furthermore, all schools,
businesses, and restaurants in Lombardy and Veneto towns were closed apart from
cancelling sporting events as well as religious services (The guardian 2020).
The WHO announced a name for the new coronavirus disease on February 11,
2020, as COVID-19 (WHO 2020b) and the virus responsible for this disease was
named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
(WHO 2020c).
Numerous studies projected global economic impact of SARS at US$30–100
billion, or about US$3–10 million per case (Chou et al. 2004; Fan 2003; Hanna and
Huang 2004; Lee and McKibbin 2004; Smith and Sommers 2003; Wen et al. 2004)
distributed across a range of sectors. Considering 8098 SARS infections resulting in
$40 billion in economic losses, economic loss due to coronavirus was projected for
$2.7 trillion (Messamore 2020).
On 9 March 2020, Italy placed its 60 million residents under lockdown. In less
than a month, the country went from having only three cases of the coronavirus to
the highest number of cases as well as deaths outside of China (Mélissa 2020).
As on 12 March 2020, globally 125,048 cases (80,981 from China) confirmed
with 4613 deaths (3173 from China) (WHO 2020d).
Pandemics can be fast or slow. In the fast scenario many people get sick at same
time and with rapid progress of infection spread, health-care system becomes unable
to handle it and there will not be sufficient medical resources—medical staff, equipment, medicine, and people will die unattended. As more health-care personnel get
sick themselves the capacity of the health-care system falls even further that leads
to scenarios where decision has to be taken on who get to live and who do not.
Hence, all the people need to change the scenario into slow pandemic in the early
phase. So, everyone who is sick can get treatment and there is no crunch point.
Since there is no vaccine for COVID-19 virus yet as of March 2020—we have
socially engineered our behavior to act like a social vaccine. This means two
things—not getting infected and not infecting others. Next thing is the social distancing that is not a nice experience but extremely important to do. Quarantines are
not nice to experience too and certainly not popular. At larger level there are quarantine facilities which include travel restrictions and order to stay at home. But they
buy us and researchers working on researches to invent specific vaccines and medicine. The question of how pandemics end depends on how they start.
6 Public Health
providers, cinemas, shops, and hotels were severely affected. Many companies continued expenditure including employees’ pay without revenue. The manufacturing
units selling goods from China were affected as buyers became unwilling to buy
from China.
The international retailers stopped operations in China beside many overseas
airlines stopping flights to China (Andrew 2020).
As on February 15, 2020, globally 50,580 cases were laboratory-confirmed to be
infected by 2019-nCOV in 25 countries with 50,054 reported from China alone
resulting in 1524 deaths in China and 2 death outside China (WHO 2020a).
A dozen towns in Italy were quarantined on February 22, 2020 after two people
died due to infection with the coronavirus from China. Furthermore, all schools,
businesses, and restaurants in Lombardy and Veneto towns were closed apart from
cancelling sporting events as well as religious services (The guardian 2020).
The WHO announced a name for the new coronavirus disease on February 11,
2020, as COVID-19 (WHO 2020b) and the virus responsible for this disease was
named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
(WHO 2020c).
Numerous studies projected global economic impact of SARS at US$30–100
billion, or about US$3–10 million per case (Chou et al. 2004; Fan 2003; Hanna and
Huang 2004; Lee and McKibbin 2004; Smith and Sommers 2003; Wen et al. 2004)
distributed across a range of sectors. Considering 8098 SARS infections resulting in
$40 billion in economic losses, economic loss due to coronavirus was projected for
$2.7 trillion (Messamore 2020).
On 9 March 2020, Italy placed its 60 million residents under lockdown. In less
than a month, the country went from having only three cases of the coronavirus to
the highest number of cases as well as deaths outside of China (Mélissa 2020).
As on 12 March 2020, globally 125,048 cases (80,981 from China) confirmed
with 4613 deaths (3173 from China) (WHO 2020d).
Pandemics can be fast or slow. In the fast scenario many people get sick at same
time and with rapid progress of infection spread, health-care system becomes unable
to handle it and there will not be sufficient medical resources—medical staff, equipment, medicine, and people will die unattended. As more health-care personnel get
sick themselves the capacity of the health-care system falls even further that leads
to scenarios where decision has to be taken on who get to live and who do not.
Hence, all the people need to change the scenario into slow pandemic in the early
phase. So, everyone who is sick can get treatment and there is no crunch point.
Since there is no vaccine for COVID-19 virus yet as of March 2020—we have
socially engineered our behavior to act like a social vaccine. This means two
things—not getting infected and not infecting others. Next thing is the social distancing that is not a nice experience but extremely important to do. Quarantines are
not nice to experience too and certainly not popular. At larger level there are quarantine facilities which include travel restrictions and order to stay at home. But they
buy us and researchers working on researches to invent specific vaccines and medicine. The question of how pandemics end depends on how they start.
6 Public Health