let's talk about life under lockdown and how the world is closing borders and
canceling events to stop the spread of this car on a virus kovat 19 has
silenced entire cities
we've shut up shop - here's our whole team still working but from home and I'm
in here I'm quarantined inside a hotel in Doha after visiting family in Spain
but I know I'm not alone so many of you have been told to self isolate - we've
seen this outbreak evolve from a few cases of pneumonia in China and December
- a global pandemic that's testing governments and people around the world
this is not a time for panic it's a time to be fully prepared there's a lot to
make sense of so it's worth going over the basics what do we know how do we
keep ourselves and others around us safe and how long is this all going to last
there's a lot we still don't understand about this coronavirus but we've been
speaking to experts all week who know how abba demux work and they're saying
this isn't going to end anytime soon so the mission right now is to manage the
spread scientists think that for every person who has the virus between two and
three people can get infected so it spreads exponentially you may have seen
this curve that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out
it shows what the outbreak looks like if we don't do anything so there's a surge
in the number of cases as the virus spreads but the problem is there's a
limit to how much health systems can cope with a spike like that that's why
experts say we need to flatten the curve meaning we slow the spread and buy time
so hospitals don't collapse you might have a million cases but instead of over
one month you're bringing it down over four months or six months which is much
easier to manage from an infrastructure and public health standpoint so how bad
could it get well one study in the UK was pretty blunt if we do nothing and
let's remember that's not what's happening here but if we do nothing the
report says more than half a million people would die in Britain doing
something like restricting movement say could cut that number in half but the
study says a full-on offensive meaning tough measures for at least a year would
drop the death toll in the UK to less than 20,000 and those numbers would be a
lot worse in countries with poor health services or countries that just aren't
ready
in northern Italy some hospitals were pushed to capacity it's a crowd at
frantic overwhelming place the system is on the brink doctors have been forced to
choose who not to treat comparing patients and choosing the patients who
have the best possibility to survive it's always emotional and difficult to
decide Italy's death toll is now well past
China's most of the dead are elderly the army is had to transport hundreds of
bodies to be cremated no proper funerals no time for goodbyes just a tribute in
the newspapers long obituaries section
idiot it's heartbreaking but we can take some comfort in knowing how this virus
affects us most people show mild to moderate symptoms from getting a cold to
having pneumonia that doesn't require hospitalization we infected a lot of
people not even knowing and that's the issue that if you're asymptomatic or you
just happy a mild symptoms still stay home but many others are getting
severely even critically ill and that includes younger people a u.s. study
found that nearly 40% of Americans who had to be hospitalized were between 20
and 54 years old but even those who get to stay at home don't have it easy I
started having a headache on Tuesday and then I started with a cough on Friday it
was a feeling of drowsiness and trying to like fall back
I just wanted to fall asleep I didn't realize what it actually was until my
parents came back positive with the tests then there are the people who are
most at risk of dying from this virus w-h-o says that's anyone over 60 and
people with underlying conditions or disorders and we all know people who
have them our friend with asthma a relative who's going through
chemotherapy our neighbor who's pregnant my little one especially if he were to
get the virus I don't know what would happen because he's got asthma and it
would it would attack his his respiratory system so how do we protect
ourselves let me just set something up
the whu-oh and the CDC say there have been a few cases of the virus being
passed on by someone with no symptoms but the risk is very low
the main way you get covered 19:00 is from someone who is visibly sick you can
catch it from someone coughing sneezing or even speaking a little too close to
you but what if those droplets linger a recent study suggests the
I can survive in the air for up to three hours now see those droplets land
somewhere well studies show the virus can survive there too on cardboard it
can live up to 24 hours 3 days on plastic two days on stainless steel
that's why the experts say wipe things down even regular soap kills the virus
wash our hands avoid touching our face and stay at least a metre away from
people if you're out and about finally we just kind of have to put our old
lives on hold
shops and businesses have closed people are losing their jobs countries aren't
letting people in it's clear now that this is going to devastate economies in
Europe and America more than half a billion children aren't in school even
praying isn't what it used to be
birthday parties weddings they may not happen this year not to mention all
these events that so many people were looking forward to concerts sports film
festivals they're all canceled so the question is how long is this all going
to last that depends on where you live how many cases there are and how strict
the lockdown is but this isn't short-term it's safe to say that we're
gonna be in this for at least several more months that things are still
continuing to ramp up we don't even have a real sense of how many cases we have
I'll speak for the United States because testing has been severely lagging and
that's a problem because the w-h-o says the focus has to be on testing we cannot
stop this pandemic if we don't know who is infected we have a simple message for
all countries test test test the lock downs help we have more time to
find out who actually has the virus and trace where it came from now the tests
can vary it could involve taking a sample from deep inside your nose or a
throat but that takes supplies and specialists many countries have not been
systemically testing all suspect cases it's one of the reasons why we're behind
in this epidemic at the same time there's this hope for a vaccine or that
the virus might ease up in summer the bad news is yes companies aren't working
on a vaccine but it could take years to roll it out to everyone that's for the
warmer weather slowing this down I just don't know things that kill
viruses are sunlight and drying out but I want to be clear that we do not know
and have no data to support the idea that this virus will go away as the
seasons change and things warm up so the advice is to write out the lockdowns as
best we can
reaching out to people and making one another laughs counts for a lot too
here's some good news China and South Korea which saw the
earliest peaks took aggressive action and saw the number of cases dropped
dramatically by March people have started going back to work
businesses are slowly opening back up but that doesn't mean we can relax there
is a real risk that is some of the restrictions on society loosen and relax
we may see a resurgence of cases and that's because it is so difficult to
determine how many people are still getting exposed and infected that may
not be reporting because they have mild or asymptomatic cases in short we take
this seriously without fear we listen to the experts we stay informed we look out
for each other and we carry on
we don't know when we'll be back on the start here to set but not to worry we're
still going to be bringing you more episodes anyway we can in the meantime
my website aljazeera.com has all the latest on the corona virus pandemic I'll
see you next week