IT'S BACK - AND IT'S STRONGER THAN EVER

All it took was a sneeze - and you just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

An uninvited guest pierces its sharp, club-shaped spikes into your door’s keyhole and enters right into your house. The stranger removes its protein coat and places it on your coat hanger. It leaves you a little present - a single strand of RNA, and the heaviest of its kind -which uses all the appliances in your house and replicates more of its own out of control. It scavenges the refrigerator for a source of food, savouring the amino acids that will keep it wanting more. It uses mirrors to proofread its army of innumerable count, assuring the exact copy each time. The lights flicker on and off, and the outsider wrecks everything in its path. Its horde of followers seeps into the walls and fissures of great length begin to form. They flood the pipes and keep on replicating, your fortification not holding up against the pressure. They permeate the water supply, inflaming the pipes with purulent gunk as they do. Alas, your barricade collapses under the tremendous force and the multitude roams around free - a lytic infection - only to go attack your neighbors. Unfortunately, this means you've contracted the coronavirus.

Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. They cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to a new problem for the world to tackle - Novel Coronavirus (nCoV). 

Novel Coronavirus, or nCoV, first broke out in Wuhan, China in December of 2019. As per reports, numerous patients infected had some link to a large seafood and animal market, possibly suggesting an initial animal-to-person spread. Though the source of this epidemic is still unknown, genetic analyses suggest nCoV emerged from a virus that shares 80% of its genetic code -SARS, an epidemic the world valiantly fought in 2003. SARS-CoV (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which first broke out in Guangdong Province, China, is an infectious condition that can cause serious respiratory illness (such as pneumonia) and in worse cases, death. Over 8,000 people had fallen prey to SARS, with 774 of them losing their lives to it. The only initiative of containment taken at the time was through isolation and standard public-health measures, such as wearing surgical masks and thoroughly washing hands.

Although no cases of nCoV have been reported in Saudi Arabia as of now, the kingdom has had an encounter with a fellow member of its genus - Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) back in September of 2012, the reason being dromedary camels - a major reservoir host for MERS. Over 2,100 cases and a mortality rate of 37.1% were reported from Saudi Arabia alone. Despite a few mild cases throughout the country, the potent contagious virus had effectively been contained by public safety protocols.

With nCoV, the number of victims has taken a toll for the worse. In a mere ten days, the number of deaths rose from a little over 200 to more than 900, with 36,078 people infected worldwide. The number of deaths from this newly discovered virus has overtaken that of the SARS pandemic. With an incubation period of 2-14 days, the virus is rapidly spreading from nation to nation faster than any other pathogen, leaving behind a trail of symptoms and disease - but how fast? The map from Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering tracks coronavirus cases across the world using a real-time map, which you can find here.  

A question now arises in the minds of many: could this have been prevented? Chinese doctor Li Wenliang posted about the signs of the new virus on an online chat group for doctors as the outbreak began. He was then detained by police and accused of spreading “rumors”; claiming he committed “illegal acts”. Had Dr. Wenliang’s warning been taken seriously, would the situation be as worse as it is today? Would the world have been conflicted with such a burden? -- This article was published on the 12th of Feb 2020 and the information available is valid as of that date