How can you stop the spread of the virus?

Since the first reports of the new coronary appeared, the list of known symptoms has changed, as has our understanding of what the virus does to our body. Health advice, both for governments and individuals, has also evolved. And although some countries claim to have eliminated the virus, others are only now seeing increase in cases, while some are seeing what a second “ <x1nd wave of infections looks like. What can we learn from places that did the right thing and the wrong ones?

Quick move

A large gasp made at the beginning of the pandemic was the false assumption that the virus is the same as the flu. Many countries already had a plan to cope with an pandemic flu. This damaged their ability to think about how to respond to another virus,” says Jennifer Nozzo at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

Coronavius called for a different response, says Michael Baker at the University of Ottag in Wellington, who advised the New Zealand government of response to the divider-19. The flu usually has a period of incubation between the moment someone gets infected and the moment he shows symptoms from one to two days. This makes it extremely difficult to trace the contact of an infected person before he gets sick himself.

Coronavirus, on the other hand, seems to have an incubation period of about five to six days but potentially weeks. “means it's a slower wave and there's more likely to use the tracking of contacts, isolation and quarantine,” says Baker.

In addition, while the flu “can spread to an entire population within weeks”, he says, the coronary can stay around for a much longer time and can have longer health effects for survivors of the user-19. This is one reason why the idea of waiting to achieve the flock's immunity, instead of the action company to limit the influence of the virus, a strategy considered originally by the governments of Great Britain and Sweden, was widely rejected by the scientific community.

Today, the United Kingdom has the largest number of recorded cases of choreography in Western Europe, perhaps partly because of the United Kingdom government's delayed response to the explosion. One factor that unites states that have done better work on limiting case numbers is a quick initial reaction. “In countries such as China, South Korea, Japan, the initial reaction was quite rapid, so the braking phase worked really well for them,” says Rajiv Chooser at Cambridge University. By quickly identifying their new cases and backgrounds, these countries had a much better chance of breaking the virus's continued transmission, he says.

Timely Isolations

Another strategy that seems to have been successful was the application of isolation: the establishment of restrictions in motion to curb the spread of the disease. The lack of such restrictions in Sweden is widely blamed for the number of cases, which far exceeds that of neighboring countries.

When you just let things happen and don't apply any measure of control... I think we've seen that results can be devastating,” says Susy Hota at the University Health Network in Canada.

The rules of isolation have changed widely around the world, but the implementation of restrictions has worked well for many countries, including China and New Zealand.

New Zealand's isolation was particularly strict: schools, universities and almost all businesses were closed and people could leave their homes, only for basic reasons. Such measures were successful in reducing R's number ' average number of people who would infect a person with a virus from about 2 to about 0.5 within five weeks, Baker says.

Built models have suggested that implementing isolation just a week earlier in the United Kingdom could have avoided 20,000 deaths. But the impasses do not necessarily function in the same way as in low- and medium-income countries, where it may be much harder for people living in low-quality housing, in densely populated areas, to stay at home and lose their income, says Chobeki. Because such states may be able to maintain only short-term isolation, the timing of implementing these restrictions is essential, he says.

Chowegiy points out that many countries in South Asia and Central and South America established jams similar to European ones. At that point, the cases were on the rise in Europe, while there were very little in many low - income countries. In theory, it makes sense to establish isolation, while the cases are still low, says Cho humburdiy. But because of difficulties in implementing restrictions, the number of cases continued to rise.

The cases are now growing in many countries where governments have eased restrictions that have become economically unaffordable. This is a trend that I see in many countries in Latin America, South-East Asia and Africa,” says Chodirecty.

These and other regions are rapidly becoming the next hot spots of the coronary. For example, many people in Bangladesh found it difficult to enforce restrictions, with nearly three quarters of those living in urban areas losing their main source of income. In Brazil mixed messages from the government weakened the impact of isolation. The virus is currently spreading significantly to both countries.

Alternative pills can function best in some countries, Chodirectey says. The World Health Organisation (OBSH) has recommended that Pakistan, which has also experienced an increase in cases, set a deadlock two weeks yes, two weeks not. More localised isolation can also be effective. This approach has already been adopted in a number of other countries, including in the town of Leicester of Great Britain.

Limitations of Travels

Isolation alone isn't enough. Since the beginning of the explosion, the value of testing people, tracking their contacts and encouraging them to isolate themselves has become clear.

“has proved to be important, not only to help cut transmission... but also to us to better understand where the transmission is going. We should have some fun efforts to protect people in those environments,” says Nozzo.

Part of New Zealand's success was, for example, due to strengthening testing and tracking skills. The new “Zeland was not the world leader in this thing,” says Baker. We learned from Asian experience”. In particular, Baker and his colleagues followed what had worked in countries like Taiwan, which has reported less than 10 deaths so far.

Both New Zealand and Taiwan established border controls early in the explosion, restricting the arrival of travelers who could bring the virus. The travel restrictions also worked well for Nepal and Sri Lanka, says Chobeki.

Some countries that do not impose such restrictions seem to have suffered. This has been a major factor, in the speed with which the local epidemic was converted into pandemic in Bangladesh,” says Chooser. As the explosions hit Europe and the Middle East, Bangladeshan subjects traveled to their homeland. The “People were scared and wanted to go to their country, and they were bringing along a large part of it”, says Chooser.

It was impossible for the local government to control so many people, so suddenly and, as a result, they lost control of”.

The first bombings in the United Kingdom are thought to have been caused by those returning from ski holidays in Italy and Austria, and the cases also came from China, says Patricia Schlagenhauf at Zurich University in Switzerland. It is clear that travel greatly contributes to the spread of the virus,”, it says.

Anyway, at the beginning of pandemic, O BSH did not recommend that international travelers be controlled for infections or that travel be limited in any way. “later, they cautioned against unnecessary trips”, Schlagenhauf says.

But restrictions and travel bans are difficult to implement and people can always find ways to bypass, says Hota. Such restrictions are not always the best possible use of resources, especially for the larger states and those not islands, where the challenge is much greater, Nuzzo says. It underlines US experiences that prevented most non-residents from arriving from China in February. But there are many people traveling from China to the United States because they are citizens of the US”, Nuzzo says.

Public health sources dedicated to managing this small group could have been better implemented elsewhere, Nuzzo says. I had a colleague in a major city health department who said they had two passengers returning from China who had to be quarantined,” recalls. “They had 33 staff persons dedicated to finding a hotel for them, monitoring them, providing security and making sure they wouldn't leave,” says.

This exhausted all resources to do things such as expanding hospital capacities and protecting senior nursing homes, or expanding laboratory tests,” says Nuzzo. There were many things the U.S. was supposed to do in January, February and early Mars, which he just didn't do”.

Blocking trips from China did not help places like New York. The large spread in the city is thought to have been caused by travelers bringing the virus from Europe, Nuzzo says.

Masks

A better understanding of how the virus spreads is changing the way we try to deal with its spread. We've learned, for example, that people without symptoms can spread the virus. This seems to be true, both for those who later continue and feel bad, as well as those who show no symptoms.

And while we still do not know exactly how important this way of broadcasting for the overall spread of the choreography, the discovery has helped change the advice on wearing masks for the public. In April, WHO cautioned that people with symptoms should wear a facial cover, but that there was no evidence to support the massive deployment of the mask to the wider community.

The organisation changed its position in June, and currently recommends that people over 60 and those with other diseases wear a medical mask in environments where they are unable to keep their distance from others. Non-medical masks are also recommended for anyone visiting closed public facilities, such as shops, schools and public transportation, as well as those living in overcrowding conditions, or spending time in areas where there is widespread transmission or where physical distance is impossible.

Even now, there is no hard and controlled evidence that wearing a mask in the community slows the transmission of the virus. Skeptics say that rag masks vary in their ability to limit the spread of infectious particles, and no mask completely prevents transmission. There are also concerns that, outside clinical facilities, masks are often used inappropriately. Many users continue to touch their faces while using masks, keep them under their noses or don't wash them from one use to another, making them much less effective.

However, the scientific consensus has changed in recent months. Scientists now argue that while the use of masks is supported by few poor studies and that there is no harm at all, it is worth using, at least in places where it is difficult to stay away from others. There is no reason not to use”, Nuzzo says.

Despite lessons learned, many countries are still far from eliminating the virus, and a mixture of strategies will be needed. I think the objective is to keep the number of cases as low as possible, until we have a” vaccine, Nuzzo says. / The world.al