Infectious Diseases Booklet

COVID-19
Some may say that it's a life changer, obviously they don't mean that in a positive way. It's not a good experience living through this, but there is a lesson to be learned from this. Similar things have happened in the past, for the same reasons… so why are they happening again?
Huanan seafood wholesale market, Wuhan, China
This market is one of many so called „wet markets“ in China. A place where animals are kept in small cages, stacked on one another. A place where they are slaughtered in front of people who buy them because they want their food to be as fresh as possible. Some animals that we all know about and consume are kept there like chickens and fish, but there are also some exotic animals. They come from different parts of this world, they are all kept close to each other, it's not like it should be in nature. All those animals are different, have different lifestyles, they adapt to the wilderness differently. They are stressed out, they are all put in this small space. Something is bound to happen. Is this where coronavirus was born?

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1842104/why-wild-animals-are-a-key-ingredient-in-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak; 22/04/2020

December 31st
At this time, I think all our lives were normal. We were keeping up with our routines. New Year’s Eve. We were all waiting for the New Year to come. For some that meant a new start and maybe for others a night where they could party and spend time with their loved ones. In China the doctors were treating a lot of new cases of pneumonia of an unknown cause. Just days later a new virus was identified, but there was no evidence that it was so easily spread by humans.
First known victim
A regular customer at the Wuhan market, like most of the people who came down with the virus. The victim was a 61-year-old man. His health status wasn't the best. He had tumors and chronic liver disease.

Spring festival – China's biggest holiday
This is a time when people travel across the country and visit other states. Hundreds of millions of people travel. It's estimated that Chinese passengers will take 3 billion trips in a period of 5 weeks. It's the perfect condition for the virus to spread, don't you think?
January 23rd, 10am, Wuhan, China
A lockdown in Wuhan, the epicenter city of the virus. On the first day of lock down there were 495 patients. There was a lack of medical workers and beds for the patients. On the second day of lockdown a new hospital started being built. It was built in less than 2 weeks and started taking in patients. But that hospital wasn't enough.

Li Wenliang
He was a doctor. Back in late December he was alerting friends about a disease similar to SARS. A patient that was quarantined at Li's hospital had a coronavirus. After he sent the message, Wuhan health officials tracked him down and started questioning him about the information he was sharing. Instead of him being proclaimed a hero for discovering the disease this early on, he was contacted by the Wuhan police. He had to sign a document about how he was sharing rumors online and disrupted the social order. Days later the government was saying that there is no evidence of human to human transmission and they claimed that the outbreak was preventable and controllable. So, people in Wuhan just carried on living their lives as they always did. But it didn’t last for long… the number of infections started growing rapidly. Li wasn’t the only “whistle blower”. Several of them were silenced by the police. If somebody had listened to them maybe the virus would have been easier to contain.

Sadly, Li was also a victim of the virus. He died February 7th at the age of 34. Many people online gave him tremendous support and called him a hero. They wanted freedom of speech… but some of those online posts that were trending on China’s social media have been censored. Ironic. Why didn’t the government want to listen, were they scared of the people knowing, were they scared of the “rumor” spreading to different countries.

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Wuhan-Public-Security-Bureau-apologises-to-Li-Wenliang%27s-family-over-inappropriate-reprimand-49616.html; 22/04/2020

Meet the virus
Coronaviruses are actually a group of related viruses. They cause diseases in birds and mammals. In humans, they cause respiratory tract infections. The incubation period can last up to 14 days from the day of being infected. Some symptoms include cough, shortness of breath, and fever. But the severity of the virus depends on the person that has been infected. People over 65 are 20 times more likely to die from the virus than the younger population. Chronic patients also don’t have great odds of surviving. On February 11th the disease was officially named COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). It doesn’t have any references to people, places or animals to avoid stigma. Prof. Gabriel Leung who led the fight against SARS back in 2002. estimated that about 60% of the world population could be infected and that 45 million people could die.