Corona Virus: How Long will Social Distancing Last?

The corona virus is brand new to the whole world. Where did it come from?, how will it stop? What is the treatment? Nobody knows anything right now.

But one thing hundred percent has been proved that it can be stopped with social distancing. The same weapon has been adopted in the countries which have controlled it. In India too, social distancing is being asked to do. And that’s why the government had to lockdown. But how long will this social distancing last?

At the beginning of the last century, when the First World War was ending, a virus attacked the world, which took a quarter of the world’s population under its arrest. Today we know this pandemic as Spanish flu. In the whole world, five to ten crore people lost their lives due to this epidemic.

Spanish flu

During this pandemic in 1918, many cities of America were preparing for the Liberty Bond Parade. Through this parade, funds were being raised to help European countries in the war. The chiefs of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania cities decided to carry out the parade despite the epidemic.

While 600 soldiers living in these cities were already suffering from the Spanish flu virus. Nevertheless, it was decided to take the parade here. At the same time, the states of St. Louis and Missouri canceled their parades. And also take other steps to prevent people from gathering.

As a result, more than ten thousand people died due to Spanish flu in a month in Philadelphia, whereas St. Louis, which did not allow people to gather there, the death toll was less than 700. That is, people in St. Louis survived due to social distancing.

Examples of this in history

Arindam Basu, an expert on pandemics and infectious diseases in New Zealand, says that social distancing means preventing two or more people from meeting in private. And it acts as a big interruption in the spread of the virus. To prevent Kovid-19, social distancing is being resorted to all over the world.

There are many examples of this in history. In 1918, the US also banned public celebrations in many cities. Schools, theaters, churches were all closed. After a century, the world is going through the same phase once again. But in this century, the population of the world has increased 6 billion more than the population of that period.

Kovid-19 is also not like the Spanish flu virus. This is also a subject of virus research for scientists. Currently, the only way to overcome this is social distancing. Through this, the infection chain of Kovid-19 can be broken.

Social Distancing

Almost all countries are advising people to stay in homes, lockdown and follow social distancing. Its only aim is to prevent people from coming into contact with infected people. Self isolation and quarantine are different forms of social distancing.

This phase of social distancing is going to last a little longer. According to a report from Harvard University, this implementation of social distancing in America can continue till 2022. However, this report is still pending in some academic journal. It is expected that by 2022 Kovid-19 vaccine and drug will be discovered.

But till then social distancing and quarantine will have to be followed. If the cycle of weather has some effect on this virus, it is possible that the virus will become active again at the end of the year. A person infected with Kovid-19 infects an average of 2 to 3 people.

Symptoms of virus

According to a study, the Spanish flu virus has a reproductive capacity of 1.8. The influenza virus has a capacity of 1.06 to 3.4. While reproductive capacity in close-ranging rhinoviruses is 1.2–1.83. At the same time, fertility in Kovid-19 is 1.4 to 3.9, which is the highest compared to the fertility of all types of viruses.

According to a research conducted in China on Kodiv-19, the symptoms of this virus start spreading in the body in 5 days and can be seen clearly in 14 days. Meanwhile, if the corona remains in contact with people like an infected normal person, then it infects 2 to 3 people.

And then the same 2 to 3 people further infect the same number of people and the scope of corona outbreaks increases. In this way a corona infected makes about 244 people infected in a month. If not prevented, the same figure could reach 59 thousand 604 in the next two months.

Silent transmission

The virus is also spread to people who have been infected but do not see any symptoms. This is called silent transmission. Such a silent transmission appears in about 10 percent of the case. If such people remove themselves from the people, then Kovid-19 can be prevented from spreading to a large extent.

According to research on the corona virus infection in Wuhan city of China, the strength of the virus can be reduced by social distancing. This effect was also seen during the lockdown in Wuhan. Due to social distancing, the reproductive capacity of this virus decreased from 2.35 to about 1.

Meaning a corona could have infected only one person. Another goal of social distancing is to reduce its speed. That is, if it takes more time to reach people, then its power will be reduced. This will at least harm the people.

Be kept separate from the rest …

If people keep coming close to each other, then the outbreak of the virus will spread. Different countries have adopted different methods to prevent infection of Kovid-19. Britain has adopted a computer model for this, which shows how the infection spreads.

The model for Britain has been prepared by Imperial College London and its report was published on 16 March. Similarly, looking at the population of USA and UK, research was done on two types of models. Under one model, it was emphasized that people who have infections or symptoms should be kept separate from the rest.

Under the second model, infected people and their families should be kept at home. And other people should be given social distancing. In this research, it was intimidating that if no steps of prevention are taken in Britain, then 5 lakh and 10 thousand people may die there.

Health services may break …

While 2.2 million people were feared dead in America, and if the strategy based on the first model was implemented, then this number of deaths can be kept less than half. While the demand for health services can decrease by two-thirds.

Even then, despite adopting this model, thousands of people may die and health services may collapse. In particular, there may be a huge shortage of ICUs. Before this report came, Britain had prepared to implement the formula of herd immunity, which had to reduce the number of people who could get infection.

There is no restriction in herd immunity, due to which healthy people win over this virus and this increases the immunity of a community of the society.

Infection speed

Doctor Arindam Basu says that it is not yet known whether people who have the ability to fight the virus will also be infected again. In the spread of Kovid-19, the fabric of the society and the age of the people are also big. In Italy, for example, there are mostly joint families and there are also a large number of elderly people.

People live close to each other. This is the reason that Kovid-19 has also suffered the most deaths here. In Italy, a large number of people who have died due to infection are of the elderly. Nevertheless, wherever the social distancing formula was adopted in Italy, the pace of infection has reduced considerably.

Different strategies were adopted in the two cities to overcome the infection in Italy. The first case was reported in Lodi city on 21 February. And two days after this, the city was banned from traveling. On 24 February, all schools, universities, stadiums, clubs, public programs were banned.

Due to lockdown

At the same time, patients of Corona started appearing in the city of Bergamo on 23 February. But there were only talks about banning here. On 8 March, when there was a complete lockdown here, restrictions were imposed in this city. As of March 7, there were 800 Corona patients in both Lodi and Bargamo cities.

But by March 13, the number of patients in Bargamo had reached 2300 and in Lodi city this number was almost half. While both cities live in the same age. In both cities, roughly 21 percent of the population is of 65 years of age. The number of patients in Lodi city was low due to lockdown only.

The same difference was seen in 1918 in Philadelphia and St. Louis, USA. Another study conducted in Washington State of America shows that social distancing plays an important role in preventing any kind of respiratory virus. Difficulty comes when people usually start meeting each other after a time.

To defeat Corona …

At that time the virus starts spreading rapidly again. Therefore, to weaken the virus, it is important to follow social distancing for a long time. Obviously, it is not so easy to strictly follow social distancing. There are occasions in everyone’s life when people gather.

By the way, even the experts themselves believe that staying away from each other for a long time increases the chances of getting heart disease, stress and insanity. Today we are not in the era of 1918 where social distancing is difficult to follow. Today we are in the golden phase of technology, where through technology we can connect with the whole world at the same time. If you want to defeat Corona and stay healthy, then it is important to make social distancing for a long time.