Coronavirus / Pandemic / COVID-19
Everyone on Earth now knows what it is and what it can do to their lives.
As of today, few places on Earth are COVED-19 free. People who do not yet have it are taking extreme measures to keep from getting it. Social Distancing and outright isolation are about the only effective methods of avoiding it. The number of people who have it, whether diagnosed or un-diagnosed, is in the millions. Deaths from it are 200,000 and are expected to continue, possibly into millions unless the stay-at-home and no-close-contact programs work. It would help to have a vaccine to cure it and prevent people from getting it. Scientists world over are working on it.
So, when did it start? "It's hard to say exactly," but the Center for Disease Control (CDC) states in their Situation Summary that:
On March 11, the COVID-19 outbreak was characterized as a pandemic by the WHO
Today's date is April 22nd - only 42 days after the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic, we are, to coin a phrase, treating it like 'The Plague.'
Remember that from your history lessons:
The Black Death, also known as the Pestilence and the Plague, was the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, resulting in the deaths of up to 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.
As we huddle in our homes, distance ourselves from others, even relatives in their final moments, we all know and accept the fact that we are not safe from this menace.
Even as I write this yet another bit of bad news associated with COVID-19. It has been reported in the Washington Post that
"A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients"
And even when it is finally controlled, the world we return to will be very different from the one we made for ourselves before the power of nature reminded us that we humans cannot control everything.
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