Hisham Sarwar
In February, a 60-year-old lady in Daegu, now knows as “Patient 31” is held responsible for causing the majority of South Korea’s Coronavirus — Covid-19 infection. She was sick, she knew it, she still preferred to go to church for heavy socializing and ended up infecting thousands of people.
This incident alone shows how contagious the coronavirus is. One person can spread the infection to many people and this is why social distancing, lockdown, and quarantine is so important to protect yourself and the people around you.
Coronavirus is about 3 times as infectious as the normal flu. If one patient who is infected passes the infection to three people, the multiplier effect for about ten cycles will probably end up infecting almost 59,000 people.
This calculation was done by an intensive-care specialist who has broken down how infectious this new coronavirus is and how it could infect the majority of people in the world.
“If you are irresponsible enough to think that you don’t mind if you get the flu, remember it’s not about you – it’s about everybody else.”
Intensive care specialist Professor Hugh Montgomery explains why this coronavirus is different from the ordinary flu. pic.twitter.com/h9sQorHQUv
— Channel 4 Dispatches (@C4Dispatches) March 22, 2020
All countries are now exercising stay at home, self-isolation to stop the spread of coronavirus from multiplying its rapid-paced momentum.
However, after the Patient 31’s incident, South Korea significantly slowed down the spread of the virus by implementing lockdown and isolation in the country.
South Korea’s extensive testing is a very valuable tool to both control the virus and understand and measure the effectiveness of the responses that are taking place,” says Michael Mina, assistant professor at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard University.
South Korea implemented the world’s most aggressive coronavirus test program. The country has tested one out of every 200 citizens. South Korea has implemented a drive-through clinic to test patients for Covid-19. The drive-through clinics take the patient’s temperature, take the flu sample by inserting an earbud type object in the nose of a person.
The drive-through test is free, designed to get people in and out of the process with no physical contact and all the workers taking tests, wear a proper kit in order to protect themselves from getting infected.
Everybody receives the result of their test in text messages. If a patient report comes out positive, they are admitted to isolated clinics tor coronavirus treatment. The Government of South Korea has so far implemented over 500 testing sites in the country.
After Soth Korea’s drive-through test success, many countries including Germany, Belgium, England, Australia, and some U.S states are going for drive-through tests too.
