Social distancing the only remedy of covid 19..article in about 200 to 250 words English
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Even in less challenging times, many of us try to avoid close contact with someone who is sneezing, coughing, or running a fever to avoid getting sick ourselves. Our attention to such issues has now been dramatically heightened by the emergence of a novel coronavirus causing a pandemic of an illness known as COVID-19.
Many have wondered if we couldn’t simply protect ourselves by avoiding people with symptoms of respiratory illness. Unfortunately, the answer is no. A new study shows that simply avoiding symptomatic people will not go far enough to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s because researchers have discovered that many individuals can carry the novel coronavirus without showing any of the typical symptoms of COVID-19: fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath. But these asymptomatic or only mildly ill individuals can still shed virus and infect others.
This conclusion adds further weight to the recent guidance from U.S. public health experts: what we need most right now to slow the stealthy spread of this new coronavirus is a full implementation of social distancing. What exactly does social distancing mean? Well, for starters, it is recommended that people stay at home as much as possible, going out only for critical needs like groceries and medicines, or to exercise and enjoy the outdoors in wide open spaces. Other recommendations include avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people, no handshakes, regular handwashing, and, when encountering someone outside of your immediate household, trying to remain at least 6 feet apart.
These may sound like extreme measures. But the new study by NIH-funded researchers, published in the journal Science, documents why social distancing may be our best hope to slow the spread of COVID-19 [1]. Here are a few highlights of the paper, which looks back to January 2020 and mathematically models the spread of the coronavirus within China:
• For every confirmed case of COVID-19, there are likely another five to 10 people with undetected infections.
• Although they are thought to be only about half as infectious as individuals with confirmed COVID-19, individuals with undetected infections were so prevalent in China that they apparently were the infection source for 86 percent of confirmed cases.
• After China established travel restrictions and social distancing, the spread of COVID-19 slowed considerably.
The findings come from a small international research team that included NIH grantee Jeffrey Shaman, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York. The team developed a computer model that enabled researchers to simulate the time and place of infections in a grid of 375 Chinese cities. The researchers did so by combining existing data on the spread of COVID-19 in China with mobility information collected by a location-based service during the country’s popular 40-day Spring Festival, when travel is widespread.
As these new findings clearly demonstrate, each of us must take social distancing seriously in our daily lives. Social distancing helped blunt the pandemic in China, and it will work in other nations, including the United States. While many Americans will likely spend weeks working and studying from home and practicing other social distancing measures, the stakes remain high. If this pandemic isn’t contained, this novel coronavirus could well circulate around the globe for years to come, at great peril to us and our loved ones.
As we commit ourselves to spending more time at home, progress continues to be made in using the power of biomedical research to combat this novel coronavirus. A notable step this week was the launch of an early-stage human clinical trial of an investigational vaccine, called mRNA-1273, to protect against COVID-19 [2]. The vaccine candidate was developed by researchers at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and their collaborators at the biotechnology company Moderna, Inc., Cambridge, MA.
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The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic last week. Given the current spread of the disease, advisories have been issued to stay at home and do not step out unless absolutely necessary.
Social distancing is an effort to stop the transmission of coronavirus in large crowds in meetings, movie halls, weddings and pubic transport. To enforce the importance of social distancing, schools, colleges, malls and movie halls are now closed across states. People are being advised to work remotely and reduce interaction with other people to a minimum.However, with the current situation, people have a lot of questions about the intricacies of social distancing. When should you start social distancing? Can you step out of the house to go to the gym? Are we adding to the panic and fear by enforcing social distancing?
As advised by the WHO, a six-foot distance is ideal to stop the spread of the disease. Here are a few important points to remember during the coronavirus outbreak.
Should you head out if you are healthy?
There are questions whether healthy people should also stay at home and maintain the advised distance. People who are healthy wish to continue with their lives. However, it is important to understand the magnitude of the spread of the disease. It can only be contained when social distancing is followed by all the people. Therefore, if you are healthy or not, you should follow the advisednorms of social distancing until the outbreak can be contained. Even if you are healthy and not vulnerable to the disease, you can transmit it to a person who is more likely to catch the disease.
The different levels of social distancing
It is important for people to have a certain level of social interaction for good mental health. Therefore, according to the spread of the disease, different levels of social distancing can be followed. As per advisories, it is safe to have up to 10 people in a closed environment (but again it entirely depends on whether anyone in that gathering has a travel history or has been in contact with someone with a travel history to affected areas. If yes, it is best to avoid). It is important to remember to maintain a six-foot distance between you and others to contain the spread of the disease.Safety rules to follow if you must go out
The coronavirus is not airborne. It is spread via respiratory droplets that might end up on your hands if they are coughed on or you touch surfaces that have been coughed on. If stepping out is inevitable, it is important to follow certain safety precautions. Washing your hands before you step out and after the work is done is very important. Washing your hands before ensures you do not transfer the infection to a surface that is then touched by other people. It is equally important to wash your hands after to make sure nothing is left on your hands that can make you susceptible to the disease.
Can we still use delivery services?
Using delivery services is a good way to maintain a safe social distance. Other than the distance between people, the amount of time two people are in close contact also matters. The time it takes to take delivery is short, and you can also ask the delivery agents to leave the packet on your doorstep, reducing social contact even further. However, it is also important to maintain the same hygiene rules to make sure the delivery agents and you do not contract an infection from each other.
Is it safe to go eat at a restaurant?
There is no scientific proof that the coronavirus can be transmitted through food. You, however, should make the choice of restaurant wisely where you can maintain a six-foot distance from other people in the restaurant. You need to be careful of the surfaces you touch, like the table, mats and bottles that are touched by the others. It is advisable to wash your hands and use hand sanitizer to maintain the advised standard of hygiene.