PakSword
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It all began on December 31, 2019, when WHO’s country office in China received information about pneumonia cases caused by unknown virus in Hubei province. National authorities in China reported 44 similar cases in the next 3 days.
On January 07, 2020, Chinese authorities identified a new type of coronavirus (Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV) and they were able to share the genetic sequence of this new virus by January 12, 2020.
By January 21, 2020, 282 confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV were identified worldwide of which 278 were tested positive only in China. By that time, the exposure of this virus in Chinese Hubei province was widespread due to lack of information in the initial days of this outbreak. Other countries however received ample information from Chinese authorities which were in continuous contact with WHO and keeping them informed about the progress. From that point onward, a remarkable journey of containing the virus and controlling its spread started by Chinese government that can serve as a guide for all the other countries around the globe.
Scientists initially estimated that each infected person is likely to infect 2.5 other people. Also, according to several epidemiological studies, the number of people with coronavirus infection doubles every 6 days. Number of new cases in China after January 21, 2020 showed an extremely fast rise. However, the enormous increase in the new cases cannot be attributed to the spread of disease by each infected person to more than the scientists’ estimates as the confirmed new cases merely represented those who were infected already and the disease was spreading quickly due to lack of information in the initial days. Scientists' initial estimations sent chills down the spine of authorities around the globe. It meant that without effective measures, China and the rest of the world should be ready to brace for a huge impact. With an average incubation period of 7 days, number of patients only in China could have reached millions by the end of first quarter of 2020. However, what we saw was a remarkable control of disease due to different steps taken by the Chinese government.
The situation also gave way to a learning curve, which the Chinese government fully utilized. As of today, there are very few cases being reported in China and the efforts of the Chinese government and its authorities are being appreciated by the health authorities and scientists across the world.
The number that could have reached well above 2.5 million confirmed cases was limited to a little above 100 K. The number of new infections started reducing significantly just after one and a half month of initial outbreak of this highly contagious virus. A number of measures were taken by the Chinese government that included locking down entire cities, effective travel bans to and from other provinces, school breaks, work from home policies, raising awareness among general public on personal hygiene and how to control the spread, constructing thousands of beds hospitals and isolation spaces, producing N-95 standard face masks and other gear for people who were responsible for providing primary care to the isolated patients. China has done what many developed nations could only dream of.
While China has already passed the peak (that was also very much kept under control), rest of the world still hasn't reached that point where the learning and awareness could be fully utilized to bring the disease under control. The trend is still moving in upward direction and the situation could get extremely disastrous as many of the developing nations are in the initial phase of this disease.
We can safely assume (due to Chinese population as compared to the rest of the world) that today, the rest of the world is standing at the same position where China was at the end of January 2020. Also, at this moment, most of the confirmed cases are being reported in developed countries in Europe, North America and Far East. They have all the means to apply the knowledge and procedures (similar or better than those) of China, and control the disease in their respective countries after reaching a similar peak as that of China. However, the rest of the developing world (other than China) that consists of 5.3 billion people and where literacy and healthcare services are below standard, a peak could mean hundreds of millions of infected patients and mortality in hundreds of thousands before the people in these countries start applying effective measures to control the disease. In developing countries, it can be assumed that people will not apply effective measures to curb the spread of disease until they start seeing the devastating effects by themselves and therefore, the peak can only be achieved until a significant percentage of population is infected.
Simple mathematics tells us that that till March 11, 2020, the rate of rise in confirmed cases was 206% outside of China.
Without applying appropriate similar measures as applied by China, the rest of the world (and Pakistan) are heading to a worst disaster in the history:
Of course, this is a kind of doomsday scenario, without taking into consideration measures that the respective governments including Pakistan are most likely planning to apply. However, in the developing world (including Pakistan), due to unavailability of appropriate healthcare system, the peak could mean a disaster.
As the health care system becomes saturated with cases, it will become increasingly difficult to detect, track, and contain new transmission chains. In the absence of extreme interventions like those implemented in China, this trend likely won’t slow significantly until hitting at least 1% of the population, or about 3.3 million Americans.
The U.S. has about 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people (South Korea and Japan, two countries that have seemingly thwarted the exponential case growth trajectory, have more than 12 hospital beds per 1,000 people; even China has 4.3 per 1,000). With a population of 330 million, this is about 1 million hospital beds. At any given time, about 68% of them are occupied. That leaves about 300,000 beds available nationwide.
What does Coronavirus spread mean for Pakistan
So what about Pakistan, where the hospital beds are (according to WB's 2014 estimates) are 0.6 per 1000 people, if a developed country like the US is expecting unavailability of the healthcare to coronavirus affected patients ? We can only imagine the chaos we are heading to if drastic measures like those by China are not taken. With these numbers, only preventive measures to stop the spread (or even delaying it) could give a good breathing space for Pakistani healthcare system.
If WBs estimates are correct as of today, Pakistan has 120,000 hospital beds overall. Most of the hospitals are already full of patients and do not carry extra capacity to cater for disasters or natural calamities. In addition, on average the hospitals have 5% ICU beds of the total beds.
According to different experts who monitored the situation in China, approximately 15% patients require hospitalization and 5% end up in critical care. Without effective measures (assuming all the hospitals are dedicated to coronavirus infected patients), the healthcare facilities will become unavailable for new patients requiring hospitalizations/ ICUs by mid of May 2020.
So what should Pakistan do quickly to halt the spread of disease?
1 - Now that China is getting freed up from management of this disaster like situation, as a first step, we can request help of Chinese experts on how to manage the situation in Pakistan considering the limited healthcare facilities in the country.
2 - Start preparing isolation spaces/ ICUs in all four provinces in Pakistan.
3 - Send notifications to hotels and guest houses to get ready to provide enough space for patients if necessary.
4 - Start procuring minimum stock of all the required medicine and other important stuff.
5 - Accurately report the hospitalizations and number of deaths. Hiding the truth will mean that the population will not take the threat seriously.
6 - Start an aggressive print and electronic media campaign on how to maintain personal hygiene to prevent spread of bacteria.
7 - Encourage (or make compulsory) the work from home environment.
8 - Instruct all Masajid Imams to finish the prayers (including Jumma) as soon as possible, and close the mosques right after fardh prayers so that people complete Sunnah and Nawafils at home.
9 - Prepare to lock down the cities where the cases start rising quickly. Call Pakistan Army for help to effectively lock the cities/ towns where the risk is high.
10 - Ban all non essential travel to top ten countries affected by coronavirus.
With the kind of healthcare system that we have, the only thing our government can do is to raise awareness and take preventive measures. If we do not take the steps now, it will be extremely difficult for Pakistan to stop this disease before it kills hundreds of thousands of people.
===========================================
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jccm/2014/842050/
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-answers-covid-19/
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/symptoms.html
https://www.who.int/docs/default-so...ation-reports/20200121-sitrep-1-2019-ncov.pdf
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/12/21172040/coronavirus-covid-19-virus-charts
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...coronavirus-they-may-not-work-other-countries
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#cases-growth-factor
===========================================
@Mangus Ortus Novem @Dubious @SIPRA @The Eagle @Slav Defence @StormBreaker @Ace of Spades @Starlord @Areesh @Path-Finder @Signalian @waz @Horus @WebMaster
On January 07, 2020, Chinese authorities identified a new type of coronavirus (Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV) and they were able to share the genetic sequence of this new virus by January 12, 2020.
By January 21, 2020, 282 confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV were identified worldwide of which 278 were tested positive only in China. By that time, the exposure of this virus in Chinese Hubei province was widespread due to lack of information in the initial days of this outbreak. Other countries however received ample information from Chinese authorities which were in continuous contact with WHO and keeping them informed about the progress. From that point onward, a remarkable journey of containing the virus and controlling its spread started by Chinese government that can serve as a guide for all the other countries around the globe.
Scientists initially estimated that each infected person is likely to infect 2.5 other people. Also, according to several epidemiological studies, the number of people with coronavirus infection doubles every 6 days. Number of new cases in China after January 21, 2020 showed an extremely fast rise. However, the enormous increase in the new cases cannot be attributed to the spread of disease by each infected person to more than the scientists’ estimates as the confirmed new cases merely represented those who were infected already and the disease was spreading quickly due to lack of information in the initial days. Scientists' initial estimations sent chills down the spine of authorities around the globe. It meant that without effective measures, China and the rest of the world should be ready to brace for a huge impact. With an average incubation period of 7 days, number of patients only in China could have reached millions by the end of first quarter of 2020. However, what we saw was a remarkable control of disease due to different steps taken by the Chinese government.
The situation also gave way to a learning curve, which the Chinese government fully utilized. As of today, there are very few cases being reported in China and the efforts of the Chinese government and its authorities are being appreciated by the health authorities and scientists across the world.
The number that could have reached well above 2.5 million confirmed cases was limited to a little above 100 K. The number of new infections started reducing significantly just after one and a half month of initial outbreak of this highly contagious virus. A number of measures were taken by the Chinese government that included locking down entire cities, effective travel bans to and from other provinces, school breaks, work from home policies, raising awareness among general public on personal hygiene and how to control the spread, constructing thousands of beds hospitals and isolation spaces, producing N-95 standard face masks and other gear for people who were responsible for providing primary care to the isolated patients. China has done what many developed nations could only dream of.
While China has already passed the peak (that was also very much kept under control), rest of the world still hasn't reached that point where the learning and awareness could be fully utilized to bring the disease under control. The trend is still moving in upward direction and the situation could get extremely disastrous as many of the developing nations are in the initial phase of this disease.
We can safely assume (due to Chinese population as compared to the rest of the world) that today, the rest of the world is standing at the same position where China was at the end of January 2020. Also, at this moment, most of the confirmed cases are being reported in developed countries in Europe, North America and Far East. They have all the means to apply the knowledge and procedures (similar or better than those) of China, and control the disease in their respective countries after reaching a similar peak as that of China. However, the rest of the developing world (other than China) that consists of 5.3 billion people and where literacy and healthcare services are below standard, a peak could mean hundreds of millions of infected patients and mortality in hundreds of thousands before the people in these countries start applying effective measures to control the disease. In developing countries, it can be assumed that people will not apply effective measures to curb the spread of disease until they start seeing the devastating effects by themselves and therefore, the peak can only be achieved until a significant percentage of population is infected.
Simple mathematics tells us that that till March 11, 2020, the rate of rise in confirmed cases was 206% outside of China.
Without applying appropriate similar measures as applied by China, the rest of the world (and Pakistan) are heading to a worst disaster in the history:
Of course, this is a kind of doomsday scenario, without taking into consideration measures that the respective governments including Pakistan are most likely planning to apply. However, in the developing world (including Pakistan), due to unavailability of appropriate healthcare system, the peak could mean a disaster.
As the health care system becomes saturated with cases, it will become increasingly difficult to detect, track, and contain new transmission chains. In the absence of extreme interventions like those implemented in China, this trend likely won’t slow significantly until hitting at least 1% of the population, or about 3.3 million Americans.
The U.S. has about 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people (South Korea and Japan, two countries that have seemingly thwarted the exponential case growth trajectory, have more than 12 hospital beds per 1,000 people; even China has 4.3 per 1,000). With a population of 330 million, this is about 1 million hospital beds. At any given time, about 68% of them are occupied. That leaves about 300,000 beds available nationwide.
What does Coronavirus spread mean for Pakistan
So what about Pakistan, where the hospital beds are (according to WB's 2014 estimates) are 0.6 per 1000 people, if a developed country like the US is expecting unavailability of the healthcare to coronavirus affected patients ? We can only imagine the chaos we are heading to if drastic measures like those by China are not taken. With these numbers, only preventive measures to stop the spread (or even delaying it) could give a good breathing space for Pakistani healthcare system.
If WBs estimates are correct as of today, Pakistan has 120,000 hospital beds overall. Most of the hospitals are already full of patients and do not carry extra capacity to cater for disasters or natural calamities. In addition, on average the hospitals have 5% ICU beds of the total beds.
According to different experts who monitored the situation in China, approximately 15% patients require hospitalization and 5% end up in critical care. Without effective measures (assuming all the hospitals are dedicated to coronavirus infected patients), the healthcare facilities will become unavailable for new patients requiring hospitalizations/ ICUs by mid of May 2020.
So what should Pakistan do quickly to halt the spread of disease?
1 - Now that China is getting freed up from management of this disaster like situation, as a first step, we can request help of Chinese experts on how to manage the situation in Pakistan considering the limited healthcare facilities in the country.
2 - Start preparing isolation spaces/ ICUs in all four provinces in Pakistan.
3 - Send notifications to hotels and guest houses to get ready to provide enough space for patients if necessary.
4 - Start procuring minimum stock of all the required medicine and other important stuff.
5 - Accurately report the hospitalizations and number of deaths. Hiding the truth will mean that the population will not take the threat seriously.
6 - Start an aggressive print and electronic media campaign on how to maintain personal hygiene to prevent spread of bacteria.
7 - Encourage (or make compulsory) the work from home environment.
8 - Instruct all Masajid Imams to finish the prayers (including Jumma) as soon as possible, and close the mosques right after fardh prayers so that people complete Sunnah and Nawafils at home.
9 - Prepare to lock down the cities where the cases start rising quickly. Call Pakistan Army for help to effectively lock the cities/ towns where the risk is high.
10 - Ban all non essential travel to top ten countries affected by coronavirus.
With the kind of healthcare system that we have, the only thing our government can do is to raise awareness and take preventive measures. If we do not take the steps now, it will be extremely difficult for Pakistan to stop this disease before it kills hundreds of thousands of people.
===========================================
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jccm/2014/842050/
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/simple-math-alarming-answers-covid-19/
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/symptoms.html
https://www.who.int/docs/default-so...ation-reports/20200121-sitrep-1-2019-ncov.pdf
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/12/21172040/coronavirus-covid-19-virus-charts
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...coronavirus-they-may-not-work-other-countries
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#cases-growth-factor
===========================================
@Mangus Ortus Novem @Dubious @SIPRA @The Eagle @Slav Defence @StormBreaker @Ace of Spades @Starlord @Areesh @Path-Finder @Signalian @waz @Horus @WebMaster
