Incidents of coronavirus have quadrupled in South Korea as 144 people from a religious sect have been tested positive. Clusters of infection have been traced in Singapore at a health shop, a hotel business meeting and two churches. Iran, Lebanon, and Canada are also not untouched from the deadly virus; there have been many new cases. Experts have started to fear that the disease will spread more widely than expected. Scientists say that diseases spread in three stages, outbreak, epidemic, and then comes pandemic. Pandemic is a stage where epidemics turn rampant in multiple countries and continents simultaneously. According to researchers, the novel coronavirus is on the verge of reaching the third stage, which can be called a globe shaking stage.
Amid an alarming increase in the cases, experts fear that this flu-like illness might be impossible to stop. However, the World Health Organisation has not declared COVID-19 a pandemic yet which has majorly affected China with 2200 deaths so far. The containment of the fast-spreading disease has become a challenging task for health authorities across the globe. At the initial stage of any ailment, experts try to derive the possible source of the disease and prepare a roadmap to trace the contact of every person who falls sick. However, with 80000 confirmed infections, contact tracing case by case becomes a daunting task. If coronavirus turns into a pandemic, a large portion of the human population around 40 to 70 percent will be infected with the disease. Nevertheless, it does not mean that all of them fall sick.
Health professionals have said that it has been easier to contain the virus if infected people would have been noticeable. In the cases of SARS, infected people were obvious; this outbreak burned itself down in 2003. However, the new virus is spreading among the people who are not visibly sick. The majority of COVID-19 cases are placid. Around half of 600 infected passengers from the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship had no symptoms of the disease. As per a new study, there have been two-thirds of coronavirus infections much before the travel restriction was imposed. The disease reaches its peak when people start feeling sick. The virus has already infected every community in China and now it is reaching Singapore, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, and Hong Kong. The US as well has confirmed 34 cases of coronavirus so far. Experts have said that though it is not certain when this disease will turn into a pandemic if authorities fail to contain it. If it is not prevented from infecting more and more countries, we might witness the next pandemic.
