What Should You Know About The Coronavirus?
With the coronavirus outbreak in news all over the world, here is everything you need to know, including some important steps to protect yourself.
What is the coronavirus?
Coronavirus is a family of viruses that cause different types of illnesses. In the current outbreak, there is a new strain of this virus called the “2019-nCov” that causes cold and fever-like symptoms.
How does it spread?
This virus can spread from contact with infected people or by touching objects used by infected people and then touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.
Where did the current outbreak start?
The current outbreak started in the Wuhan city of China in December 2019.
Why is social distancing important?
As this virus is extremely contagious it can transmit from person to person at a great speed. Therefore, to protect yourself from catching the virus, it is important to practice social distancing. Social distancing involves, staying indoors at home and avoiding public places where many people can gather together.
If you do have to go outside the house to buy essential items like food or milk, it is important to maintain a distance of at least 6 feet from other people.
What can you do to protect yourself against the virus?
In addition to social distancing, here are some important things you can do to protect yourself:
When should you wear a mask?
Wear a mask if you are sneezing, coughing, taking care of someone who is infected with the coronavirus, or if you are going out of your house to buy essential items like food and medicines. If possible wear gloves too while going outdoors.
What is a lockdown?
A lockdown is a measure taken by the government that prevents people from leaving an area. To fight the coronavirus, the Indian Government issued a nation-wide lockdown on 24th March 2020 onwards. In fact, India was one of the first countries in the world to put a nation-wide lockdown in place to fight against coronavirus.
During this time, important essential services that help people like food and medicine shops, banks, police stations and hospitals continue to work and be open. The movement of people, however, is restricted to stop the spread of the virus.
The extent to which the movement of people is restricted depends on if their locality falls in a red, orange or green zone.
Red zones are areas with a high number of COVID-19 cases and the number of cases is doubling quickly.
Orange zones are areas with only a few COVID-19 cases.
Green zones are areas with no COVID-19 cases for 21 days.
As of the middle of May, 1.4 million people across the world have recovered from a COVID-19 infection and in India, approximately 24,300 people have recovered!
Science is a great tool in our hands to help improve health and well-being around the world. Whenever we’re faced with a virus outbreak like this, it is important to stay calm and exercise precautionary measures diligently!