Paragraph : Corona Virus

As the world further shuts down in the wake of the corona virus pandemic, more cases are now being recorded outside of China, where the virus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan, than outside. As of October 2021, at least 48,39,420 people worldwide have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the corona virus. More than 23,70,49,006 people have tested positive for COVID-19 according to Johns Hopkins University. According to the WHO, corona viruses are a family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). These viruses were originally transmitted from animals to people. SARS, for instance, was transmitted from civet cats to humans while MERS moved to humans from a type of camel. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans. The name corona virus comes from the Latin word corona, meaning crown or halo. Under an electron microscope, the looks like it is surrounded by a solar corona. The novel corona virus, identified by Chinese authorities on January 7 and since named SARS-CoV-2, is a new strain that had not been previously identified in humans. Little is known about it, although human-to-human transmission has been confirmed. According to the WHO, signs of infection include fever, cough, and shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, it can lead to pneumonia, multiple organ failure and even death. Current estimates of the incubation period – the time between infection and the onset of symptoms – range from one to 14 days. Most infected people show symptoms within five to six days. However, infected patients can also be asymptomatic, meaning they do not display any symptoms despite having the virus in their systems. With more than 8,600 recorded deaths, the number of fatalities from this new corona virus has surpassed the toll of the 2002-2003 SARS outbreaks, which also originated in China. SARS killed about 9 percent of those it infected – nearly 800 people worldwide and more than 300 in China alone. MERS, which did not spread as widely, was more deadly, killing one-third of those infected. While the new corona virus is more widespread than SARS in terms of case numbers, the mortality rate remains considerably lower at approximately 3.4 percent, according to the WHO. TYhis outbreak is a global health emergency, the WHO said on January 30, raising the alarm further on March 11 when it declared the crisis a pandemic. The international health alert is a call to countries around the world to coordinate their response under the guidance of the WHO. There have been five global health emergencies since 2005 when the declaration was formalized: swine flu in 2009, polio in 2014, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016 and Ebola again in 2019.