COVER STORY/CORONAVIRUS
reproduction number (R0)—infected people transferring infection to other affecting others—was 1.3-1.8; for COVID-19, it is 2.6. The fact that the outbreak is assuming pandemic proportions has been established in a research paper published in by three researchers from health institutes in Glasgow and Lancaster in the UK and Florida in the US. They state that the total number of cases just within Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, would be greater than 190,000. (See 'Peak season for...' on
change, but studies say warming temperatures and melting of ice are exposing new viruses to the ecosystem. For instance, researchers recently found 33 viruses trapped in the Tibetan glacier. Out of these, 28 were completely new to science and all of them had the potential to cause an outbreak. The study was published in on January 7, 2020. As ice melts, viruses are being released in the air, which would travel through rivers and streams, infecting humans. Also, as the world is urbanising at a rapid pace, natural habitats are being destroyed. This has further exposed us to a host of new viruses for which we have no immunity.
So how many people will be affected in a future pandemic? “The 1918 global influenza pandemic sickened one-third of the world’s population and killed as many as 50 million people—2.8 per cent. If a similar contagion occurred today with a population four times larger and travel time anywhere in the world less than 36 hours, 50-80 million people could perish,” WHO warned in a 2019 report.
On any given day, more than 10,000 flights operate globally, and this explains how inter-connectivity will accelerate this spread. “During the Ebola epidemic in 2014, models estimate that without travel restrictions, 7.17 infected passengers per month would have departed from highly-affected countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to various destinations around the globe,” say Pierrot Derjany and his colleagues from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, USA.
As a pre-emptive move, the global airline industry has cancelled flights now because it does not want to become the virus carrier. Biritish Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Delta Airlines, Egypt Air, Air India, Air Canada, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, FinnAir, Hainan Airlines, Israel Airlines, American Airlines and Air Tanzania have called off all or a few select flights within a couple of weeks of the outbreak in China.
THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SAYS IT IS NOT A MATTER OF “IF” ANOTHER PANDEMIC WILL STRIKE, BUT “WHEN” IT WILL STRIKE