【热点追踪】各国应对疫情政策整理及解读

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What is a coronavirus? Know your enemy

Coronavirus(CoV)belongs to the large virus family of Coronaviridae and consists of a singled stranded helical RNA. CoV is responsible for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(MERS-CoV),Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome(SARS-CoV),and the novel Wuhan coronavirus breakout(2019-nCoV).

Research showed that coronaviruses are zoonotic (transmission between animals and people). The 2002 SARS outbreak was transmitted from civet cats, the 2012 MERS outbreak was transmitted from dromedary camels, and the current Wuhan outbreak was transmitted from bats.在线咨询

These are the three known coronaviruses that infected humans.Many other circulating coronaviruses on wild animals did not affect humans yet.

Is the Wuhan 2019-nCoV pandemic?

*Definition of pandemic: a widespread of an infectious disease over multiple continents or even worldwide at a short span of time.The fast spread of 2019-nCoV is due to a list of reasons:

1.Common signs of initial infection highly resemble that of a flu virus or cold, which includes fever, dry cough, and breathing difficulties. Especially in winter season where many are sick from the weather, these light symptoms could easily be ignored. However, the symptoms could quickly escalate into pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure leading to death.

2.It has been observed that the incubation period for 2019-nCov is much longer than SARS and MERS. Infected patient could show no symptom up to 14 days.Note:Virus must depend on the host cell to reproduce and infect many other host cells with its reproductions. In other words, virus cannot survive outside of a host. From a virus’ perspective, a longer incubation period is beneficial. It can reproduce without host cell noticing. When a host shows symptoms, the host’s immune system is fighting off of the invading agent. The purpose of a virus is to self-reproduce, not tokill the host.

3.Outbreak happened during the ultimate peak travel time of Chinese New Year! Chinese New Year is the biggest/longest holiday every year in China. Cross-containmation was inevitable when 1.38 billion people was on every possible trains and flights.FACT: Even though the fast spreading of 2019-nCoV sounds scary. The WHO has officially announced that 2019-nCoV is an epidemic in multiple locations. Thus, currently it is NOT a pandemic.

Quick overview of the world’s response to the 2019-nCoV outbreak

The virus infection that stemmed from the illegal selling of wild animals quickly spread through the city of Wuhan. The Chinese government quaranteed the city of Wuhan as soon as they realized the serverity. However, due to the long incubation period of the coronavirus, unknown amount of virus carriers traveled away. Those infected travelers showed symptoms only after they reached their destinations.

Countries colored in red are locations with confirmed 2019-nCoV cases (graphed February 4th2020).Specifically the countries in red are: China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, The Republic of Korea, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.In just about 2 months, the Wuhan 2019-nCoV is now in 28 countries.在线咨询The Chinese government quarantined the entire province of Hubei, but the number of confirmed cases in foreign countries continues to appear.

2002SARS-CoV outbreak is still fresh in many people’s mind. In order to avoid the history from repeating itself,many countries acted quickly against this outbreak.Let’s look at several countries’ tactics against 2019-nCoV.Indonesia

1.The picture shown above is an Indonesia flight that just arrived from Wuhan, China to Batam, Indonesia.As you can see, airport employees have taken the precaution to wear yellow hazmat suits.The passengers are sprayed with alcohol mists to disinfect as they exited the plane.These passengers were transported to Natuna Island’s military base until 14 days of incubation period is over.

2.Due to the short-noticed travel ban from Indonesia, about 5000 Chinese tourists are stuck in Bali without direct flights back to China. In response to the circumstance, Indonesia’s government agreed to extend the travel visa until the travel ban is removed. Free Bali vacation?Although tourists have the option to travel through a third country that still allows entrance.

Thailand1.This coronavirus is not a joke to Thailand. Besides of China, Thailand currently has the most confirmed cases in Southeast Asia. With such a sudden outbreak, researchers around the world have not yet found a cure for this disease.

In an effort to find a cure, Thailand employed a cocktail of antiviral drugs and appeared effective on a severely infected 2019-nCoV patient.

The antiviral drugs cocktail contains the HIV medicines lopinavir and ritonavir, along with the anti-flu medicine oseltamivir.

The success on the Thai patient is hope, but does not imply anything beyond the surface. HIV, flu, and coronavirus are all viruses and must share certain similarity for this antiviral concoction to work on this patient. The Thai doctors are administrating further research into the benefit of these antiviral medications.Although still in the early stages of research, this could be the first glance into the cure.