I must admit that I have always been interested in medical emergencies and outbreaks. This 'love' started way back in the 90's, when I was still a student in medical lab technology and it was mainly kick started after reading The Hot Zone, which is a non-fiction, true story on Ebola (a must read in my opinion!).
This sparked my interest since working and studying at the lab, we were faced with pathogens every day and taking steps and precautions to avoid issue was the norm and was the protocol we had to follow. But when reading how easy such outbreaks can occur and mainly realizing how much, us human beings, facilitated these outbreaks by providing the perfect conditions for a pathogen to grow, multiply and worse of all mutate was incredible.
Through the years we have seen loads of movies which deal with the 'Pandemic' theme and we always have the hero or the heroine, who manages to get the vaccine in the nick of time. But what if it becomes reality?
Fast forward to today and we are living in one of those movies, with the difference that it is so very real and the movie heroes and heroines are in quarantine or in lock-down like the rest of us and they will not be venturing out to grab a test tube of fluorescent liquid and save the world anytime soon!
I feel that, we humans (or at least a big chunk of them), have lost the sense of mortality in a way. Progress, technology, social media, easy access foods & drinks & comfort in general, made us loose touch with the reality that the world and nature, with all its goodness, resources and beauty, is also a hostile place and it will kill you if you are not careful. We tend to forget this, or simply brush it off, as we are used to the notion that, "help is always near". But what happens when no one can help or if the help is limited? People who do extreme sports, mountaineering, deep sea diving etc., understand this and they also understand that they can loose their lives at the blink of an eye - but we 'normal' human beings try to avoid even thinking about that notion.
Were there any warning signs that something like COVID-19 would happen? You Bet!
Scientists and expert have been predicting an outbreak like this for ages and they always referred to it happening as "When it will happen" not "If it will happen". Well that WHEN is NOW. Simply referring to Bill Gate's TED Talk in March 2015, it should have been an eye opener - which was in a way already "late" since this was after the SARS outbreak between 2002 and 2004 and in between the MERS outbreak in 2018, which was another close call. Did we do anything? I let you answer that.
What we are seeing now with this new Virus, is an unprecedented spread, infection rate & death rate, which is now not confined to Asia, but its a global issue. When this thing hit the news in January 2020 (ironically at the same time that Netflix launch its new series Pandemic), I felt that people were not taking it seriously enough, then when it came to light that it had been around since November 2019, I had reasons to believe that we were actually, kind of 'screwed'. Still until mid February, with cases dotting the global map and showing a signs of 'growth' all over, traveling was practically untouched, people were still going out, partying, meeting other and it was business as usual.
Italy's devastating situation by the end of February, I guess was the 'eye opener' to many. The death toll was high, very high and whilst writing this its unfortunately still rising (just yesterday the 18th of March 2020, Italy reported 475 deaths in one day).
Italy, for Malta, is one of our closest neighbors, so this hit home quite fast and fear could be felt here too. Currently we are not in total lock-down, but I feel we are getting there and it will be a matter of days in my humble opinion, for this to happen. Currently, the island is in 'containment' mode and it seems that the infection rate is thankfully not alarmingly fast, but this week we have seen an increase in inter community transmission, which I think should be a bit of a red flag, that there are still people carrying the disease, who are 'roaming' around, either because they do not have symptoms and thus don't have a clue they have the virus, or because they brush the symptoms off as just a common cold and continue as usual.
I will updated on the situation here in Malta as we go along and will try to touch on some main aspects, like employment & economy and not just the virus itself.
We are in very different and abnormal times and our lives will change. Our world will change & it is already changing (just look at the pollution levels!), but hopefully we will change for the better and when we go back to 'normality', we don't go back to feeling that we are gods, but understand that Nature can stop us, when she wants, with the tiniest of its invisible allies.
This sparked my interest since working and studying at the lab, we were faced with pathogens every day and taking steps and precautions to avoid issue was the norm and was the protocol we had to follow. But when reading how easy such outbreaks can occur and mainly realizing how much, us human beings, facilitated these outbreaks by providing the perfect conditions for a pathogen to grow, multiply and worse of all mutate was incredible.
Through the years we have seen loads of movies which deal with the 'Pandemic' theme and we always have the hero or the heroine, who manages to get the vaccine in the nick of time. But what if it becomes reality?
Fast forward to today and we are living in one of those movies, with the difference that it is so very real and the movie heroes and heroines are in quarantine or in lock-down like the rest of us and they will not be venturing out to grab a test tube of fluorescent liquid and save the world anytime soon!
I feel that, we humans (or at least a big chunk of them), have lost the sense of mortality in a way. Progress, technology, social media, easy access foods & drinks & comfort in general, made us loose touch with the reality that the world and nature, with all its goodness, resources and beauty, is also a hostile place and it will kill you if you are not careful. We tend to forget this, or simply brush it off, as we are used to the notion that, "help is always near". But what happens when no one can help or if the help is limited? People who do extreme sports, mountaineering, deep sea diving etc., understand this and they also understand that they can loose their lives at the blink of an eye - but we 'normal' human beings try to avoid even thinking about that notion.
Were there any warning signs that something like COVID-19 would happen? You Bet!
Scientists and expert have been predicting an outbreak like this for ages and they always referred to it happening as "When it will happen" not "If it will happen". Well that WHEN is NOW. Simply referring to Bill Gate's TED Talk in March 2015, it should have been an eye opener - which was in a way already "late" since this was after the SARS outbreak between 2002 and 2004 and in between the MERS outbreak in 2018, which was another close call. Did we do anything? I let you answer that.
What we are seeing now with this new Virus, is an unprecedented spread, infection rate & death rate, which is now not confined to Asia, but its a global issue. When this thing hit the news in January 2020 (ironically at the same time that Netflix launch its new series Pandemic), I felt that people were not taking it seriously enough, then when it came to light that it had been around since November 2019, I had reasons to believe that we were actually, kind of 'screwed'. Still until mid February, with cases dotting the global map and showing a signs of 'growth' all over, traveling was practically untouched, people were still going out, partying, meeting other and it was business as usual.
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| Corona Virus Spread Map : https://www.trackcorona.live/map |
Italy's devastating situation by the end of February, I guess was the 'eye opener' to many. The death toll was high, very high and whilst writing this its unfortunately still rising (just yesterday the 18th of March 2020, Italy reported 475 deaths in one day).
Italy, for Malta, is one of our closest neighbors, so this hit home quite fast and fear could be felt here too. Currently we are not in total lock-down, but I feel we are getting there and it will be a matter of days in my humble opinion, for this to happen. Currently, the island is in 'containment' mode and it seems that the infection rate is thankfully not alarmingly fast, but this week we have seen an increase in inter community transmission, which I think should be a bit of a red flag, that there are still people carrying the disease, who are 'roaming' around, either because they do not have symptoms and thus don't have a clue they have the virus, or because they brush the symptoms off as just a common cold and continue as usual.
I will updated on the situation here in Malta as we go along and will try to touch on some main aspects, like employment & economy and not just the virus itself.
We are in very different and abnormal times and our lives will change. Our world will change & it is already changing (just look at the pollution levels!), but hopefully we will change for the better and when we go back to 'normality', we don't go back to feeling that we are gods, but understand that Nature can stop us, when she wants, with the tiniest of its invisible allies.
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