The A-Z blogging challenge is quite straightforward, blog everyday in April, except Sundays, with subjects that follow the alphabet. It’s all a bit of fun. My subject is ‘A month in lock down’.
C is for Covid 19, the virus that is causing all this problem. Its full name is Coronavirus Disease 19 and is one of a group of viruses that affect mammals. Their corona name is because they look like crowns, from the top, when photographed using an electron microscope.
How it transferred from its original host to humans is not clear, though there is a lot of speculation that it came from bats. This could have been from contact, though more likely through urine or faeces but I don’t know.
At present there is no vaccine and so the focus of most health organisations is to slow the spread of the disease through social distancing. This in effect allows the health services to manage the most vulnerable over a longer period and so should save lives.
People are saying that the death rate from Covid 19 is relatively small and is less than the number of people who would die normally yet the number of deaths will be on top of the ‘normal’ rate and because of its potential to swamp health systems it has the potential to cause many more deaths.
Whether or not the actions taken by governments around the world will be effective is again unknown though there are signs in some countries, such as Italy, where social distancing appears to be working, while in others, such as South Korea where a much stronger testing regime appears to be effective.
Covid 19 is the only story in town and will be for several months to come.
Stay safe.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 