COVID-19... TO WHERE THE WIND?

Coronavirus or COVID-19, marched out unknown to humanity and since then the world has been suffering socially, economically with the weakened healthcare system in some countries. Thousands of people worldwide have been infected, most of us know who got infected and the other majority may not realize that they are infected. In some countries, hospitals are filled and the public squares in cities are left empty, flights are grounded, small businesses closed and cities are vacated. It has separated people from their families, friends and colleagues. Not only that it has interrupted the standard of living that people have never seen before, at least in the last five decades.

In some countries spread of infection is catastrophic, the hospitals have been overwhelmed, equipment ran out thus affecting the patient care and capacity to accept new cases. At such time, people distancing was necessary and personal isolations were important, it was also very important to recognize that individuals who got infected days ago will start definitely showing their symptoms now, even if they have been isolated.

I should say here that with the Ministry of Health’s extensive actions and government cooperation such catastrophic event has been controlled in Oman, however there are possibilities that some of those infected patient will enter intensive care unit in coming April, especially if the pandemic is left unchecked.

If people do not help the government in following the instructions regarding home isolation, definitely with time the number with cases will jump up and this will add more burden on the hospitals, where many patients might die as hospitals are unable to care for the usual cases as well like heart attack, stroke and accidents.

The Ministry of Health in Oman is working hard to keep the medical and personal equipment flow to the healthcare sectors, as healthcare workers will need such personal protective equipment to stay healthy otherwise the health system will collapse, however, the measure advised from the government to contain the virus spread will take time, during such pandemic will either move quickly beyond healthcare ability or slow to containable level, hence following social distancing now or may be later, not advisable till all healthcare facilities have abundant amount of tests and protective equipment, otherwise it will be tragic.

Even with best actions towards coronavirus pandemic, as long as the virus persist somewhere with no obvious manufactured vaccine or treatment, there will be possibilities that an infected traveller could fire new spread in countries that have already stopped or slowdown COVID-19. Therefore, we need to prepare ourselves for possible multiple periods of social distancing.

We know that infected individual can develop immunity towards further infection with COVID-19, however some of them can remain immune for less than a year and few who infected with corona group virus severely, can stay immune for more long time. Interestingly countries or medical companies start thinking about developing serological test which look for antibodies that grant immunity. Actually, immune people can return to their work and also take care for those who might be susceptible.

Some companies have mentioned that coming vaccine will be tested at the end of April 2020, while others are trying to test it and verifying its safety to humans, some other company estimated that it will take more months ranging from 12 to extra-months for just proven vaccine, so how about making such vaccine and shipping it.

At the end, it is clear that COVID-19 has led to radical and lasting changes, where people who suffered or worked with outbreak, definitely with time will have a stress and less productive life, looking that people who underwent quarantine will carry scars with such experience. Still our country can stop the worst predictions about COVID-19, if the citizens and expatriates worked with guidelines advised by Ministry of Health, which will bring at least pandemic for some time under control. We don’t know how long this will take but it won’t be swift. Dr Yousuf Ali al Mulla, MD, Ministry of Health. He is a medical innovator and educator. For any queries regarding the content of the column he can be contacted at: dryusufalmulla@gmail.com