Is planet Earth approaching COVID-19?

When the new strain of coronavirus hit China in late 2019 and then early next year began to spread to other countries at a very rapid rate, the world knew little about the virus and watched helplessly as the COVID- 19 wreaked havoc on everyone. around, posing the worst crisis ever faced by humanity. As the months passed, scientists, researchers, and the medical fraternity around the world came together to study, analyze the virus, and began to come up with life-saving repurposed drugs and develop effective vaccines. Until now, there has been no proven cure for the virus, but repurposed drugs and improvements in health care infrastructure have contributed significantly to lowering the death rate, allowing patients to recover in ever-increasing numbers and containing the disease in several of the most affected countries. We will discuss here some positive developments that are really indicators of a possible conquest of humanity over the killer virus.

With the total number of people infected by coronavirus in the world exceeding 15 million, more than 9 million have recovered, thus registering a recovery rate of more than 60 percent. In some countries or regions, recovery rates have crossed the 70% mark. With this, mortality rates are falling everywhere: the vast majority of countries have managed to keep rates below 5%; the most affected countries, mainly in Europe, which showed mortality rates above 10% or even 15% have already more or less controlled the spread of the virus and consequently have successfully neutralized the mortality rate; in the US, the country that ranks first in terms of total infections, the alarming mortality rate of more than 5% has now dropped to 3.7%, despite the fact that the country seems to have a second wave with a large number of new cases every day; In the second country in terms of total number of infections, Brazil, a similar trend is observed, and in the third most affected country, India, the mortality rate has dropped from more than 3% to 2.43% at the moment with recovered patients touching nearly sixty-five%. The only country showing a mortality rate above a staggering 25% is Yemen; however, at the moment new cases are not increasing exponentially there. Countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Jamaica, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Nepal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, and Russia, among others, have recorded very low mortality rates ranging from less than 1% to 2%. Most significantly for Planet Earth, the global mortality rate is now 4.19% and hopefully will drop further in the near future.

Some researchers point to a difference between the actual number of infections and those reported or confirmed, meaning the number of reported deaths may be underestimated. In many countries such as the United Kingdom and also in China, in fact, the fatality figures had been revised upwards. This issue had been politicized in several Indian states with the respective political opposition alleging underreporting in the number of deaths, and in most states the state government had also revised the figures upwards. In addition, the comorbidity factor has also created anomalies in reported deaths. In any case, this has not contributed significantly to the increase in the mortality rate in the nations or regions in question.

The factors that contribute to reduce the mortality rate and increase the recovery rate are, as we mentioned before, thanks to the reused life-saving drugs such as Favipiravir, Dexamethasone, Remdesivir, Tocilizumab, etc. and a very effective method called plasma therapy, successfully tested in India and other countries, mainly in patients with severe ventilation problems. And then the positive developments on the vaccine front.

The results of phase 1 and phase 2 human trials of a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford have been announced, and they are very positive: the vaccine appears safe and its injection into more than a thousand human volunteers shows an immune response. in them. Buoyed by this success, the UK government has already ordered the production and supply of 1 million doses. In India, Covaxin, which is being developed by Bharat Biotech, has started human trials with more than 300 human volunteers for Phase-1. The Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi, has announced that 100 volunteers are being organized for the trials from AIIMS, Delhi, and the results of the Phase 1 and Phase 2 human trials of Covaxin are expected in three months. This is to mention here that there are more than 100 candidate vaccines globally in various stages of development.

So all indications point to a period in the near future where Planed Earth will be able to conquer the coronavirus effectively and hopefully permanently. However, all these developments should never make us complacent and careless. The World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly pointed out that COVID-19 is a very intelligent and dangerous virus, and that it can overcome human efforts by mutating, which is a common feature of any virus that mutates periodically or even annually. . Therefore, we must continue to adapt to a new normal life, wearing masks all the time outside the home and observing other rules such as social or physical distancing. In both India and the US, we have already seen the cost in terms of spread and deaths as free-spirited citizens do not accept being locked up and wearing masks or similar regulations they call “bondage” or “agenda” . ‘ by the authorities. And most importantly, even though death rates are going down, people are still succumbing to the virus on a daily basis, which cannot be acceptable to humanity. For the final victory over COVID-19, not only the governments of the world must give their best, but mainly the citizens of the world who must unite in their cooperation and a united power.