Skip to main content

When will Covid-19 end?

 

Image from ShutterStock

Historically a pandemic has 3 types of ends. One, medical end which implies that the disease does not spread any more. Two, social end which happens when life returns to normal. And the last is political which is decided by the government.

 Obviously, it is the first kind that matters. And that end seems quite distant as of now. There is a lot of movement of people even now, including international journeys. That makes it a big challenge for medical science to contain the virus. People will have to acquire natural immunity to the virus if a medical end to the pandemic has to arrive. The vaccines are meant to bring about that immunity. Some may develop immunity by contracting the disease and overcoming it. A few may develop the immunity internally. There is also the possibility of the virus weakening due to various reasons and eventually disappearing.

Science has observed that the rate at which a pandemic moves towards its peak is the same as the rate of its decline. For example, if the doubling time of the spread (100 to 200 to 400 etc) is 20 days, the halving time (100 to 50 to 25 etc) will be 20 days too. Keeping that and the progress of the virus so far in mind, it is estimated that Covid-19 will beat a retreat only by the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022.

Spanish Flu as an example

Look at the history of Spanish Flu in brief. It ravaged the world a century ago, in 1918-1920. Each wave lasted about 4 months.

1st Wave: Feb to June 1918

2nd Wave: Aug to Dec 1918

3rd Wave: Jan to April 1919

4th Wave: Dec 1919 to April 1920

The second wave was the deadliest killing millions of people all over the world. India witnessed the death of nearly 20 million people in that period. Bombay alone recorded 15,000 deaths when the population of the city was 1.1 million. The pandemic was known as Bombay Fever in India at that time.

The last wave hit after an interval of 8 months. In the meanwhile, the pandemic had affected 50 crore people and killed 5 crore. Spanish Flu affected only about half the countries in the world because international travels were not so common in those days. Those whom it killed were older than 40 mostly. But we should remember that the average lifespan in those days was 45. Most of the deaths were caused by pneumonia that followed the virus infection. We can see some similarities with Covid-19.

Because of improved health conditions, the most risky group hit by Covid-19 seems to be those above 60 years old. But the virus has done much harm to youngsters too. No one can afford to take risks though the second wave seems to be receding.

PS. Did this virus come as a result of what we did to the planet and the environment? Or did China create it in a lab? You can read about China’s role here: The Evil Empire: Is China on its way to world domination?

PPS. The above post is based largely on an article I read in a Malayalam weekly, Madhyamam, written by Dr Jayakrishnan T.

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanJune 8, 2021 at 5:36 PM

    Hari OM
    Indeed, I beleive there is still quite a way to go before we reach anything like the 'normality' of not having to worry about whether each person we meet has potential to pass on this serious illness to us. I avoid subscribing to conspiracy theories - but the fact that WHO is investigating so thoroughly the possible lab escape suggests the 'no smoke without fire' aspect... oh to be a fly on the historian's wall a hundred years hence. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 8, 2021 at 6:38 PM

      Given China's track record, this possibility cannot be ruled out. Xi thinks he's performing a divine task.

      Delete
  2. FoodopiumJuly 2, 2021 at 5:50 PM

    The way the virus is mutating my guess its not natural, cannot rule out the china angle, but it is now no use of blaming anyone. Its in our backyard and we have take care of it by ourselves, yesterday received a message from my friend who is doctor, listing how many doctors we have lost to the virus only in Karnataka its staggering....have lost many relatives to this virus in 1st wave and 2nd wave. Hope to see some sense in the people and follow safety regulation given the government and vaccinate themselves before the virus taps on your door :-) Since seen the roll coaster from the front seat...would not advise this ride for any body !

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
12 comments
Read more

Good Life

I introduced A C Grayling’s book, The God Argument , in two earlier posts.   This post presents the professor’s views on good life.   Grayling posits seven characteristics of a good life.   The first characteristic is that a good life is a meaningful one.   Meaning is “a set of values and their associated goals that give a life its shape and direction.”   Having children to look after or achieving success in one’s profession or any other very ordinary goal can make life meaningful.   But Grayling says quoting Oscar Wilde that everyone’s map of the world should have a Utopia on it.   That is, everyone should dream of a better world and strive to materialise that dream, if life is to be truly meaningful.   Ability to form relationships with other people is the second characteristic.   Intimacy with at least one other person is an important feature of a meaningful life.   “Good relationships make better people,” says G...
21 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let...
36 comments
Read more