Dr.W.Ian Lipkin message to those afraid of coronavirus
Dr.
W. Ian Lipkin " master virus hunter" who helped
fight the SARS outbreak, was invited by the Chinese government to study the
coronavirus and to help them tackle the outbreak.
Who
is Dr. W. Ian
Lipkin?
W. Ian Lipkin (born 1952) is the John Snow Professor
of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and Professor of Neurology and Pathology at
the College of Physicians and Surgeons at
Columbia University. Lipkin is also Director of the Center for Infection and
Immunity, an academic laboratory for microbe hunting in acute and chronic
diseases.
He
was asked " What do you tell people who are freaked out about
coronavirus?
"
He
said, " Fortunately, we have been spared just like we were spared with
SARS.
We
have a few cases here, but it isn't like what we have seen in China. What we
haven't seen yet are these sort of new epicenters like occurred with SARS. For
example, Toronto was hit very hard with this and obviously we are doing
everything we can through isolation to try to ensure that this thing doesn't
move forward because we don't have much to offer, so people are working 24/7 as
they are on our team to try to figure out ways in which we contain this virus,
develop vaccines, develop drugs, approach it in a sort of a shotgun way so that
we can cover the whole waterfront.
To allay some of the fears that people have at present , we have lost something like 16000 people to this virus ( that's awful) but when you compare that with influenza, where we typically lose 400,000 to 650,000 people in a year.
To influenza, you know it's a much different
kind of a situation so we tend at times look at the mortality rates of the
viruses, so MERS had like a 35% mortality rate , SARS was 10% , this is
currently estimated 3% but I think it's actually going to be much lower as we
find all these asymptomatic or mild cases, the number of people who become infected
versus the number of people who have sever disease is going to change
dramatically.
Read also: 4 available Drugs that can beat the coronavirus The mortality rate for anybody below 40 is 0.2 per cent, before a steady increase. 50-59 year-olds was 1.3 per cent, 60-69 year-olds was 3.6 per cent, 70-79 year olds was 8 per cent, and 80+ was 14.8 per cent. So providing you aren’t elderly or suffering from an existing illness, you needn’t panic.
We don't really know how fearful Americans are. There is no systematic research, as far as I know, so I can only answer based on my own observations and experience with other health pandemics which I had an opportunity to work on. The major difference between seasonal flu and coronavirus, or other pandemics is that we understand seasonal flu very well.
Read also: 4 available Drugs that can beat the coronavirus The mortality rate for anybody below 40 is 0.2 per cent, before a steady increase. 50-59 year-olds was 1.3 per cent, 60-69 year-olds was 3.6 per cent, 70-79 year olds was 8 per cent, and 80+ was 14.8 per cent. So providing you aren’t elderly or suffering from an existing illness, you needn’t panic.
We don't really know how fearful Americans are. There is no systematic research, as far as I know, so I can only answer based on my own observations and experience with other health pandemics which I had an opportunity to work on. The major difference between seasonal flu and coronavirus, or other pandemics is that we understand seasonal flu very well.
What is the virus causing illness in Wuhan?
It is a novel coronavirus – a member of the coronavirus family never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals.
Treatment
Most people with common human coronavirus illness will recover on their own.
There are no specific treatments for illnesses caused by human coronaviruses.
However, you can do some things to relieve your symptoms:
-Take pain and fever medications (Caution: do not give Aspirin to
children)
-Use a room humidifier or take a hot shower to help ease a sore
throat and cough.
If you don’t live in China and are an adult
without any pre-existing medical condition, odds are you’ll be able to fight
off the infection in the unlikely chance that you do contract it.
-Coronaviruses are winter viruses, “When the
weather is warm and moist, these viruses don’t spread as well as when the
weather is cold and dry.”
Read also Don't worry about coronavirus.
Healthy habits to help prevent it :
- Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available.
Read also Don't worry about coronavirus.
Healthy habits to help prevent it :
- Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available.
- Everyone should make sure the mouth and the throat are always moist. Drink some water every 15 minutes. Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other fluids will help wash it down the esophagus into stomach. When the virus is in the stomach, the hydrochloric acid in your stomach will kill the germs.
Always wash hands and drink enough water regularly