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Journaling Project: Public Health, Medicine, And Infectious Disease Outbreaks

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Journaling Project: Public Health, Medicine, And Infectious Disease Outbreaks

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The coronavirus disease has had unprecedented effects on the health and socio-economic levels of the world. In addition to the death and destruction that the virus has left in its wake, it has brought about other social issues that have adversely impacted society and continue to affect it to date. For instance, during the pandemic period, many people lost their jobs as companies struggled to adapt to the changing markets. With increased job loss, society was thrown into a recession (Singhal, 2020). Further, during this time, there was a noted increase in mental health issues associated with losing loved ones and the pressures that come with financial issues. Lastly, and more importantly, there was an increase in intimate partner violence, as noted by Rossi et al., 2020. This violence was attributed to the additional stresses and challenges that affected people's lives during this period, particularly their financial situations.

A pandemic is a broad term used for infectious diseases that spread across many countries at the same time. Ideally, it is a situation where there is a significant spread of the disease from one person to the next at different geographical locations simultaneously (Wang et al., 2020). The coronavirus disease fits this description perfectly as it spread from person to person and was observed at different geographical locations simultaneously. It also showed similar symptoms in different geographical locations, known as the spread of a pandemic (Rocklöv & Sjödin, 2020). The disease also caused large-scale disruption in society's social, economic, and political aspects. Thus it's classified as a pandemic instead of an epidemic or an outbreak.

References

Rocklöv, J., & Sjödin, H. (2020). High population densities catalyze the spread of COVID-19. Journal of Travel Medicine, 27(3), taaa038. https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa038

Rossi, F. S., Shankar, M., Buckholdt, K., Bailey, Y., Israni, S. T., & Iverson, K. M. (2020). Trying times and trying out solutions: Intimate partner violence screening and support for women veterans during COVID-19. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(9), 2728-2731. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05990-0

Singhal, T. (2020). A review of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 87(4), 281-286. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12098-020-03263-6

Wang, S., Wen, X., Dong, Y., Liu, B., & Cui, M. (2020). Psychological influence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the general public, medical workers, and patients with mental disorders and its countermeasures. Psychosomatics, 61(6), 616-624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psym.2020.05.005

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The coronavirus outbreak redefined diverse dynamics of the societal status quo and the policies guiding the operational procedures. The efforts of epidemiologists to combat the wreaking of the virus led to society conforming to cautionary measures such as putting on masks and keeping social distance. Moreover, epidemiology underpins the capacity to handle the complexity and equivocality of covid attributed to the emergence of disastrous strains of the virus. As such, epidemiology defined the noble maxims guiding society from further detriments of the virus.

The immediate impact of the Epidemiology and spread of covid manifests through the adoption of apt precautionary countering the spread of the virus. Restrictions adopted in various covid hotspots were necessary after ascertaining the extent of the reach of the deadly virus. Such acts led to the closure of social halls, mandatory wearing of masks, and keeping a social distance (Huang et al., 2020). Vaccination and more strict social control measures got reinforced in areas where the spread of the disease was high such as major cities of Europe (Zawbaa et al., 2022). Therefore, the societal impacts of the epidemiology and spread of the covid virus were evinced by extreme control measures.

Covid 19 got gauged as a pandemic and not an ordinary outbreak credit to the extensive destruction caused by the virus. The world health organization further classified the virus as a pandemic because of the high rate at which the virus spread. Therefore, the core rationales underpinning the virus as a pandemic are exhibited by the high death rates, destruction to the economy, and the rigor of controlling the spread of the disease.

References

Zawbaa, H. M., Osama, H., El‐Gendy, A., Saeed, H., Harb, H. S., Madney, Y. M., ... & Abdelrahim, M. E. (2022). Effect of mutation and vaccination on spread, severity, and mortality of COVID‐19 disease. Journal of Medical Virology, 94(1), 197-204.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.27293

Huang, X., Wei, F., Hu, L., Wen, L., & Chen, K. (2020). Epidemiology and clinical characteristics of COVID-19. Archives of Iranian Medicine, 23(4), 268-271. http://aimjournal.ir/Article/aim-15538

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Biomedicine As Related to Treatments and Vaccines

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Biomedicine As Related to Treatments and Vaccines

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The Covid 19 pandemic has had unprecedented effects on the community and continues to affect these communities to date. This disease has led to the development and adoption of specific measures aimed at reducing its prevalence. For instance, social distancing protocols were implemented by various organizations to avoid contact with potentially infected people. This saw complete lockdowns of economies and schools around the world. Further, people were expected to wear face masks in public to avoid infection and protect their health. This pandemic is in many ways like historic instances of disease outbreaks through its spread and the measures adopted to prevent its spread.

Measures used to combat the pandemic are like historic instances of disease outbreaks. For instance, social distancing and isolation were used even in historic times to prevent spreading diseases like the bubonic plague. The same mechanism was used in this instance as well as people were expected to wear face masks in public to avoid infection and protect their health (Romagnani et al., 2020). Further, panic over potential disease cases led to complete lockdowns of economies and schools worldwide. Overall, these measures are quite like measures used in the past to prevent the prevalence of diseases.

The economic impact of the disease has been characterized by a slowdown in global economic growth, disruptions of trade and investment caused by reduced international travel, especially in Asia, and increases in the price of oil and other commodities. Specifically, countries already experiencing economic difficulties due to the global financial crisis saw a further decline in their GDP due to this pandemic (Jones, 2020). Moreover, austerity measures were put in place by most countries to mitigate the possible spread of the disease and to ensure that the remaining resources were utilized for the treatment of infected people and health care. As a result, there was a general economic decline due to this pandemic.

Overall, the trends observed during the covid 19 pandemic reflect those surveyed in previous historic pandemics. Many of the effects and measures adopted to combat its prevalence are like the effects of previous pandemics. In addition, the pandemic's impacts were felt in developed and developing countries. The economic results caused by this pandemic are likely to be seen as a precedent for future pandemics and can be used as a model for other infectious diseases such as Zika or Ebola, which has led to similar measures.

References

Romagnani, P., Gnone, G., Guzzi, F., Negrini, S., Guastalla, A., Annunziato, F., ... & De Palma, R. (2020). The COVID-19 infection: lessons from the Italian experience. Journal of public health policy, 41(3), 238-244. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41271-020-00229-y

Jones, D. S. (2020). History in a crisis—lessons for Covid-19. New England journal of medicine, 382(18), 1681-1683. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2004361

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Journaling Project: Mechanisms of Spread and Population Data Trends

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Journaling Project: Mechanisms of Spread and Population Data Trends

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On 31 December 2019, the world was exposed to a disease that had no cure and was spread through human contact. Panic gripped the world, with governments scrambling to understand and identify this new virus. The infectious virus would later come to be known as the coronavirus, which then resulted in the Covid 19 pandemic. Over the period from its discovery, the pandemic has had significant effects on the world. The first symptom is a high fever which lasted for about 3 to 4 days, after which the patients would have difficulty breathing and later died of suffocation. The pandemic is spread through human contact with this disease, contrary to the belief that the virus is airborne.

The coronavirus is a type of virus that has never been seen or recorded in history before. They are known to cause SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) as well as MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), which both caused epidemics with respective fatalities. The disease is spread through human-to-human contact, unlike other diseases that can be contracted through animals or insect bites. The world has changed drastically since that day, with the spread of the pandemic to two other parts of Asia and Africa (Ciotti et al., 2020). As a result, turmoil and anarchy plagued many countries, with their citizens turning on each other so that they could survive. Overall, the devastation this virus has caused would result in humanity reaching a new height in terms of discovering killer diseases such as the coronavirus as well as research into a cure for it as well.

Various remedies were identified that led to a decrease in infection rates. One of the remedies that helped contain the virus was the closure of many public places such as schools and universities. The virus was spread mainly through physical contact with infected individuals, and this method reduced infection rates by more than 70% (Watkins, 2020). WHO coordinated with many countries to create a global health alert system known as Code Red, which resulted in the notification of all countries within 12 hours after a positive case was found. This resulted in immediate quarantine around those infected and arresting anyone who did not comply with quarantine orders. People were also required to wear face masks while in public places. As a result of these measures, the number of cases were reduced by 50%.

References

Ciotti, M., Ciccozzi, M., Terrinoni, A., Jiang, W. C., Wang, C. B., & Bernardini, S. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic. Critical reviews in clinical laboratory sciences, 57(6), 365-388. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408363.2020.1783198

Watkins, J. (2020). Preventing a covid-19 pandemic. BMJ, 368.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m810