COVID - 19 Information

We stand faced with an invisible enemy the likes of which no human being in a life-time has seen. The novel (new) Caronavirus COVID- 19 is spreading around the world. The World Health Organization has labeled the outbreak a Pandemic. Humanity has no experience with this virus and we know nothing about how to combat it. The virus began in Wuhan, China in the province's wet markets in November of 2019.

A wet market is an open air market where wild and exotic animals are butchered on site and sold to those willing to pay. They are called wet markets because of the blood that is spilled from the dead butchered animals. It is believed that the virus came from bats that are sold, being in the wet market it jumped species.

The virus is spread through the breath of the infected. This is very dangerous because of the speed at which it is spread from person to person doubling after each infected person. If you have one person that has it and spreads it to two more people those two people will each infect two more so that now seven people are infected and so on. The rate becomes exponential.

Symptoms of the virus are very much like the standard Influenza virus making identifying the virus difficult.

• Dry cough
• Fever
• Malaise
• Respiratory Issues
• Pneumonia

The pneumonia is different then normal pneumonia in that the lining of the lungs are inflamed and restrict breathing even further than the fluid which is expelled into the lungs from the virus attaching itself to the cells that line the lungs. This causes extreme difficulty exchanging carbon dioxide and oxygen. So taking in oxygen becomes impossible without a ventilator. After the recovery of the person there is life long damage to their respiratory system. And those with health conditions are likely to suffer severe pneumonia which can result in death.

Those most susceptible to the virus are people over seventy years old, pregnant women, and those with preexisting health issues such as heart disease and diabetes. Most of the infected will have little more than a flu with discomfort but they will recover. This has made many people in the public to not take the warnings from the governments and health authorities seriously. Because of this fact people are being wreckless and ignoring what we are being told. This is spreading the disease.

The global medical community is working tirelessly to find a vaccine but they are months away from creating one as of March 2020 when this article was written. The World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control have been telling the public to socially distance themselves from other people. This has resulted in businesses shutting their doors and laying off of millions of people. The financial markets have tanked threatening to throw the world into a depression.

Many places around the world have implemented draconian measures to lock down the public and forcefully quarantine them. People are being told to shelter in place by the authorities and to stay out of places where people gather in groups and to limit excursions to only get supplies and life saving medications. People can travel to work if they cannot work from home and to doctors appointments. Schools and Colleges are all closed leaving millions of children at home with their parents which also impedes their ability to work and make money to survive. And the children are not receiving an education. The only way slow the infection rate is to isolate from people and let the virus burn itself out until a cure can be found or the population develops an immunity to the virus.

At this time there is little we can do to stop the virus. The main things we can do are...

• Stay Home
• Wash Your Hands
• Do Not Touch Your Face
• Avoid Crowds