We used to catch cold, now we are literally trying to sit Covid out

Well, as of June 2020, the number 1 agenda of the world is Covid-19 since the beginning of the year. This post could have been a philosophical one but i will also share some summarized information too. I wonder what we are going to see in this page like 2-3 years from now. Of course there are lots of unverified information out there. So one the best things to do at this time is to keep calm and search for realiable information with reliable source. In these technologically advanced times, information is literally everywhere. Anyways, i want to take you through a journey from the history of this pandemic through history and some analysis of humankind. The last part might have clues about near future.

In the beginning, there were couple of people

This is the boring and already known part so i will keep this short. Maybe one day some kid might stop by and read this. We did not see it coming my child. The globalization made the world some sort of a market where everyone is going around everywhere. So towards the end of 2019, some people got a virus from possibly an animal they are eating. And then it was silent for a couple of weeks. That was where we did not know (or did not consider) the R nought value of this viral infection. A virus is an adaptive being that mutates and can live inside number of different conditions. Anyway, because of the Symptoms that we were not aware of, the virus were traveling all around the world with carrier the people.

There you have the brief story. After that every country have taken their own precautions therefore some were able to Flatten The Curve for the sake of their health system. At some point i wanted to make a comparison between Italy, Spain and Turkey (my country). Because they were effected before us and having hard time managing the situation. So this huge graph is the number of cases after 100 people are diagnosed.

This one is the death ratios in these 3 countries.

If you are a data scientist or something, there are lots of hidden patterns inside these data. The growth rate might indicate the level of social connection or care for hygene (for Covid-19) in the countries. Or maybe the social dynamics are coming into play and indifferent people are causing it to spread faster than others. Or maybe governments are handling situation differently. Or maybe the death rate shows overall genome tendency for immunity in the population. Or maybe the data reveals clues about the capabilities of healthcare systems. Or maybe there are hidden information for demographic composition. If i can think about this much, go figure how much info can (and probably should) you gain with a lot more out there.

This is just an example graph that kind of reveals the socioeconomic structures and their reflexes of the nations regarding the pandemic. Some countries got the peak value way fast, some got the peak value slow but very high, some had more death rates relative to diagnosed people. I think this proves that no matter what kind of environment you live in, a viral disease can be contaigous via different mechanisms. For Covid-19, the main soure of spread is bodily fluids coming out of your mouth and nose. Because they can hang in the air for a little while or stick to surfaces that you touch. Simple as that. I think with the links above, you can find a lot more useful information about this pandemic. I will jump to another subject.

Humankind gets sick every once in while

I was actually surprised to see there are a great number of Epidemics throughout the history. Some of them killed millions. Considering the time we humankind has been on earth, i think the number or these epidemics are high. These sorts of widespread pandemics can be caused by bacteria, virus or parasitic organisms from animals. When you check the details of those deseases, you will definitely realize that even our spectacularly advanced biology can be completely helpless against a microscopic creature. This falls into social and philosophical part.

How did we respond?

There are number of aspects to talk about regarding the process of this pandemic. In the beginning some people were concerned, most of the people were unaware. This phase brings responsibility to those who show symptoms of disease. But probably because of the lack of information and carelessness, a simple the virus was traveling all across the world. I hope we don't live this kind of times again, but given the delicate nature of human body, this is the lesson that we can take away from this pandemic. It all started with couple of people. I will start with couple of people.

When couple of other countries are effected more people were concerned, a lot of the people were aware but only some people were conscious about it. This is the part that a disease would actually hit the gas pedal worldwide, since we all know there is a very little chance that it will stay inside only one country. This was the phase that most people should have been informed and working actively as preventive measures. This part was the portrait of shame for all of us. Information and communication is everywhere in this technology age but the initiative to turn sensitivity and care for others into action was missing.

Furthermore, nowadays there is an individualism trend going on. I will dig deeper into this matter in the Idea - Philosphy category later. But let me tell you this: Flattening the curve is not just for you. In fact, it is mostly for everyone else.

And the virus were widespread. A lot of people are either concerned or afraid because they realize more and more about the matter. Some people are still indifferent and this is what i do not get. Maybe these days a thousand people are dying because of this virus everyday. Some people are working on this. Do we know how many of these people were making great contributions to humanity. A death is biologically waste of billions of neurons in the most sophisticated entity in this world. A life is 9 months inside a womb of another life and immeasurable effort to care for it.

Yes we can't be stuck with those losses but when did we get used to these kind of mass deaths. Maybe hearing lots of terrorist acts around the world and witnessing wars, we embraced "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.". Since we have gone through 3 stages of whe pandemic, this is the time we care about others more than ourselves. It was already a rare virtue to find but the virus is actually (hopefully) teaching us. This rises the question:

What about tomorrow?

I don't know how long this pandemic will go on but there will be repercussions of this simple (biologicaly not complex) virus. There were already lots of people lost their jobs because their jobs were involved with human interaction. Who would thought that human interaction might be number 1 thing to avoid some day. I think this kind of physically demanding jobs will be questioned or regulated for the sake of safety.

On the other hand some professions are proven to be environment independent like software engineering. People like me were lucky to be able to work from home (there are other careers too) and this also cause people like me demanding home-office working from the employers in the future.

Probably until a vaccine is proven useful, we won't have a life like 2019. This feels weird though, like we are living in a whole different world. There are number of estimates for a vaccine to come out, but this one is kind of fun and tragic at the same time. Don't take these seriously though, since technology and the amount of information is already improving fast.

This brings up another subject. It looks like healthcare systems are also going to go under some sort of inspection or something. Because different countries with different healthcare systems were handling the situation with different levels of efficiency. Yes healthcare workers have already done tremendous job that is not my point. Different systems are putting different loads on those sacred workers. That is human-made.

Call this conspiracy but if it is getting easier to map the dna of a virus, is it also getting easy to create one? Or a more tangible question: Can you simulate a behavior of a virus or its behaviour under certain circumstances or environments with software? I am not a healthcare expert but i do know scientists are able to analyse dna somehow. This makes me wonder, if a Resident Evil kind of scenario is completely fictional or partially possible.

Lastly, even scientists are able to provide a vaccine for this, i wonder how likely is the virus to be mutated and recur every year like flu. Some people got the same question like this and this.

Long story short

Even with all the advancements in lots of different fields of expertises, us humankind has been, is and will always be vulnareable to some sort of new deasease. This one should teach us how to show compassion and empathy and care for others. Hygene is important, understand and apply it as much as you can. We have also realized that even with comfort, staying too much inside is not meant for us. Some of us also got creative and started unexplored hobbies. Near future will mostly be adapting and hopfully learning lessons for us. Appreciating healthcare workers once more and being thankful for having a place to stay safe and comfortable. See you at the next post :)