By Jacob Mansfield, Y12
Disclaimer: This article covers an ongoing outbreak, and as such, many figures cited are prone to change very soon.
Although it is hypocritical to write a news article about how the coronavirus is excessively talked about, hear me out. With the subject on everyone’s minds, it would only do harm to avoid mentioning it calmly. There are endless rumours abounding around the school, concerning the school’s measures, symptoms, and even a potential shutdown, and I would like to get some facts straight.
We must first turn to statistics. Mentor classes covered the basics, but a refresher is always useful. According to current WHO estimates (as of 9/3/2020), there are 105 586 confirmed cases worldwide, of which only 24 727 are outside China. There have been 3584 deaths worldwide.
Take out your calculators, because a disease’s mortality rate is its number of deaths over the number of cases. That gives the virus a mortality rate of about 3.4%, a figure the WHO has corroborated. Real life is not so simple though, and according to other factors and inconsistencies, most notably the area struck and healthcare available, the WHO has said the number varies between 0.7 and 4%. For people without pre-existing health conditions or under the age of sixty, the figure is almost zero. Over 80% of cases will be mild. Nonetheless, the mortality rate for the coronavirus is much higher than the seasonal flu, which sits around 0.1%, although not as deadly as previous epidemic scares such as SARS or MERS.
Now that the big scary death number is out of the way, let’s take a look at logistics. There are varying schools of thought as to how to contain nCoVid-19. It has a basic reproduction number between 2.13 to 4.82, which represents the average amount of people one person with the virus infects. This is fast. It can, therefore, seem scary to anyone who’s ever seen an exponential curve. The virus also has a long incubation period before patients start showing symptoms, between several days to a month. Some more authoritarian governments, notably China, have taken the way of the iron fist and have shut down international travel, limited internal movement and curbed their economies to contain the spread. The WHO has lauded these efforts which have proven to be somewhat effective, yet China has also come under fire for silencing early coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang. Other countries have also imposed restrictions of varying degrees, but let’s take a look at our beloved Switzerland.
Switzerland has seen a relatively high amount of cases compared to most countries, presumably due to its border with Italy. Currently, the Confederation has banned all public gatherings of over 1000 people. Our school has taken the baton further and banned all international competitions, formative teacher trips to risk areas and any events involving outside visitors, and postponed the much-awaited Bal des Neiges; there are too many to list, but chances are, if it’s extracurricular, it will be affected by the coronavirus, if not outright canceled.
Moreover, the school has developed a prevention matrix which can be found here. As it stands, we are at level 3, or moderate risk. If there is cantonal advice to shut down the school, we will comply and enter level 4 or maximum risk. Lessons will take place online over Google Meet (The new Google Hangouts). Parents that are not dropping off their kids have also been asked to leave school premises during the day. On a smaller scale, the school has also put up posters and free hand sanitiser around campus for public use, as well as replacing the bathroom soap with a stronger solution.
With those facts out of the way, it is time to clear up some very harmful misconceptions:
- The discriminatory and xenophobic behaviour that has sprung up as a result of the virus, especially towards Chinese nationals, is unacceptable and has no basis.
- Other fears have led people to clear grocery shelves for hand sanitiser, and face masks. For all you hypochondriacs out there, face masks only serve to protect people who have the disease from infecting you, not the other way around. Many healthcare providers or construction workers are now at a mask shortage, which is dangerous at best and lethal at worst.
Having said all of that, I hope you retain that the best way to prevent the spread of the virus is to maintain frequent hygiene and not to panic.
