The Origins and Spread of Covid-19

The coronavirus is impacting the lives of people worldwide. There have been a total of 169,610 cases of Covid-19, and 6,518 people have died as of March 15, according to worldometer.info. The World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Governments across the globe have taken immense precautions to prevent the spread of this disease. 

The coronaviruses come from a family of diseases found in animals, several of which have started to make humans sick in the past 10 years. Covid-19 is the most common and most deadly in this strain of viruses, and has been spreading from the epicenter of disease in China. 

Coronavirus is a respiratory illness spread from person-to-person through the droplets produced in a cough or sneeze. Even if people do not come in direct contact with it, these droplets travel through the air and can land in the nose or mouth of others, thereby transferring the virus. As Covid-19 has developed into a sustained pandemic, “most people do not know where they got sick or what place they contracted it,” which is called community spread, according to the CDC. 

The initial outbreak of Covid-19 can be linked to a large seafood market in China. “Early on, many of the patients at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China had some link to a large seafood and live animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread,” states the CDC. As the virus spread, the link between animals and victims began to dissipate, indicating person-to-person spread. 

The coronavirus has now spread from China to over 100 different locations across the world. The countries with the most intense outbreaks are China, Italy, Iran, S. Korea, Spain, Germany, France, and the United States, listed in order from highest to lowest by worldometers.info. The number of deaths is highest in China and Italy, 3,213 and 1,809 respectively, compared to the 70 deaths in the United States so far. 

The best way to protect yourself from this rapidly spreading disease is to clean your hands regularly and avoid close contact with people who are sick. Wash your hands thoroughly and often and avoid touching your face and mouth. In order to control the spread of Covid-19 as efficiently as possible, cleaning up after yourself is vital. Sneezing or coughing into your elbow or a tissue, constantly washing your hands, and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces are all essential steps of prevention. The precautions taken by the government will hopefully cease the spread of the coronavirus and this global pandemic will come to a close.