COVID-19: Pandemic?!

In order to help the public better understand the virus, I would like to keep the scientific terminology and the vocabulary simple. I am not a doctor or a scientist.

None of the contents below can be used as medical advice. Please consult your doctor before taking any steps. Please visit CDC.GOV for accurate information on the COVID-19 virus.

In the early days of November 2019, a flu like disease hit the streets of Wuhan and a few months later, entire world is in the middle of a pandemic. You might have heard the word pandemic a lot. For those of you who don't understand this term properly, here is something -

Usually, when you get a cold or a fever, you go to a doctor and get some medicine. This cold may or may not spread to a family member. Not bad right? it's just a cold. But imagine when your doctor's medicine can't stop it. In two days all of your family members catch it and next thing you know is that the entire city and state is sick. Still not bad right, it's still a cold. It shall pass. But imagine your cold turns deadly and some people are now dead. Now you have entered an epidemic. What if one of your family members had to leave the country and they took the disease with them to another country. They go to a resturant, bank and several other public places. Numbers multiply, now new countries spot the disease and bingo you have entered a pandemic.

You might ask why can't doctors find any vaccines or medication. After all they are doing some research for so many years. Sounds pretty frustrating right? But we do have to understand that it is not so simple. So I decided to make this a separate post.

What is this thing? Why is it multiplying?

The disease causing agent here is called a virus. A virus a weird organism. It can only be considered a living organism when it is inside someone (humans or animals). It is small enough that you can't see it but strong enough to destroy the living being(ex: human) it enters. So how does it enter? Virus, depending on the type, can enter through nose, mouth and other openings. The coronavirus specifically can enter your body through your nose or mouth. Hence it is very important to cover your nose and mouth to make sure you don't get the virus.

Once this enters our body, it has to start functioning. But how? It does not carry any instruments to be alive except the DNA/RNA. Hold on, what is DNA/RNA. Let's take a step back to understand this. Our body is made up of tiny cells. Each cell is a unit and you need a manager who knows the information to perform tasks in each cell. This manager is DNA, who will have all the information as codes and it will be used for functioning of the cell. However, it needs employees to do all the work and some machines. But our virus here will only have a manager and no workers or machines. In order to make sure it survives, it goes and attaches to our cell. Deceives our own manager, attaches to our manager and makes it's own workers. Once done, it kills the cell. Usually we have guards in our body to catch them. But, some of these viruses are very smart and they will fool those guards and kill them. And like this, the virus starts a war against our body.

In the next post, I will write some more about the virus and vaccines!

Until then, stay safe and stay home

Source for pandemic vs epidemic comparison:

What’s the difference between a pandemic, an epidemic, endemic, and an outbreak?intermountainhealthcare.org