Nowadays, whenever the term 'coronavirus' is typed in a search engine box, 'Flatten the curve' is generated.
Do you agree?
The only solution to prevent the spread of the notorious COVID19 is appearing in bold and capital urging each one of us to participate actively to accelerate the fight against the virus. Not only search engines, even social media like Twitter, Facebook are full with graphical representations explaining the following facts,
1. What is meant by flattening the curve?
2. How to flatten the curve?
3. Raise the line of hospital capacity and what are the measures to be taken.
What is meant by 'Flatten the curve'?
Known as the best currently available strategy to curb the spread of COVID19 infection. It depicts the containment needs of the virus.
The pandemic curve is used to visualize when and at what pace the new infected cases are recorded in the world.
Understanding the curve -
X-axis : The height of the curve represents the potential infected cases (will vary country-wise)
Y-axis : The time duration.
The line cutting across the middle shows the healthcare system capacity (will vary country-wise).
A rapid spread of COVID-19 will lead to a spike of the new cases hence an exponential growth of the curve will be observed.
Healthcare system capacity - The faster the infection curve rises, the faster the healthcare system will be overloaded beyond its capacity to treat people thereby raising a serious concern. ICU beds are limited everywhere hence an overload of cases will force the patients to go without the facility. Emergency rooms (ERs) in hospitals already operate close to capacity, without coronavirus cases. Adding a sharp spike in the cases will add on to the difficulty in proper patient management.
Flatten the curve means to minimize the surge of the new cases and making it easier and possible for the healthcare to manage and treat patients.
Help the world flatten the curve.
A flatter curve signifies the following factors :
- Same number is getting infected but for a longer duration.
- Slower infection rate and less stress on the healthcare system.
What are the interventions undertaken worldwide?
As vaccines are yet to come in another 18 months and proven medicines are not available, containment measures becomes a mandate. These include social distancing, self-quarantine, community lockdown, stop attending social gatherings, work from home, online classes for children and stay at home. Avoid partying around, swimming pools, gyms, malls, and restaurants.
On an individual level, washing hands for 20 seconds with soap and water, sanitizing the external contact points regularly, going on a self-quarantine for 14 days on arriving from abroad and other possible ways of keeping yourself isolated to reduce the speed of transmission have to be followed judiciously.
Now its time to raise the dotted line (save our bravehearts) -
Keep the coronavirus from infecting the healthcare workers who are the true bravehearts.
Remember, they are at the greatest risk of exposure. We do not want our countries to run out of doctors and nurses. They stand right behind us as the line of defense. How do we keep them seeing patients rather than becoming patients?
- Firstly, help them by staying at home.
- An adequate supply of full-body protective gear including goggles, complete head coverings, N95 particle-filtering masks or surgical masks and hazmat-style suits is a must.
- Mobilizing our industrial capacity to meet the needs of our healthcare workers like masks, ventilators, PPEs , CPAP oxygen tent for the patients and many more.
This is really a critical pandemic which has totally put the world on a strike.
For the sake of humanity, we need to act vigilantly on both flattening the curve and raising the line.
Stay home. Stay safe.
For other posts on the origin of new virus and how to spend a quality time at home during self-quarantine phase click on the following links:
From where do new viruses originate?
The phase of self-quarantine: How to face the stay home challenge?
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