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The spread of a new type of coronavirus began in China, in the city of Wuhan (Hubei Province). At the end of December 2019, the first cases of pneumonia of unknown origin were registered there. On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities informed the WHO of an outbreak of an unknown disease.
The online map of the spread of coronavirus 2022 shows the number of infected, recovered and dead in all countries of the world and cities in Russia. Statistics are updated in real time so that you can always find up-to-date information.
Почти сразу в Китае объявили карантин и начали принимать меры по изоляции пациентов. Но, оказалось, поздно. 13 января 2020 года первый случай заболевания был зарегистрирован за пределами очага инфекции – вирус обнаружили в Бангкоке (Таиланд) у 61-летней женщины – она прилетела из Уханя. К 18 января количество случаев за пределами Китая увеличилось до трех: два в Таиланде и один в Японии. В самом Китае на тот момент было около 60 тыс. заболевших. Дальше COVID-19 начал расползаться по миру в геометрической прогрессии.
As of December 20, 2021 in Russia:
- total infected since the beginning of the pandemic 10 people, +241 new cases per day;
- deaths since the beginning of the pandemic – 298, +222 cases per day;
- recovered since the beginning of the pandemic – 9, per day + 014 people.
The situation in the world is also not happy:
- total cases of infection since the start of the pandemic – 275, an increase per day of +836 cases of infection;
- deaths from infection since the beginning of the pandemic – 5, an increase per day of +377 deaths;
- вылечившихся с момента начала пандемии – 245 781 516, прирост за сутки +436 920 выздоровевших;
- активные случаи –22,895,075, прирост за сутки +43769.
The COVID-19 coronavirus spreads easily from person to person. The problem is that the symptoms do not appear immediately – the incubation period, according to WHO, can last up to 14 days. But in reality, most often the coronavirus makes itself felt much earlier. With each new strain, he gets faster and faster. If in the British strain, which was considered very active, the incubation period was a maximum of 10-11 days, in the delta strain – up to 7 days, then in the newest one – omicron – the incubation period was reduced to 5 days.
Geography of coronavirus
Today, more than 200 countries are affected by the pandemic. Columbia University scientists conducted a study to understand why the coronavirus spread at such a rate2. Conclusion: from the very beginning, a huge number of people in China simply did not know that they were sick – for a long time, experts could not understand that they were not facing a banal influenza virus, but something new (the results of the study were published in the journal Science). Pneumonia developed in a few. People, unaware that they are carriers of the virus, infected each other through communication and handshakes. This is exactly what happened with the first patients outside of China – the virus manifested itself only 13 days after people arrived from China. That is why COVID-19 has such a vast geography. The largest number of cases was noted between 30 and 40 parallels of the Earth – it is over them that the most active flight traffic passes.
Features of the new strain
The first variant of the coronavirus “omicron” was recorded at the end of November in Africa. Later, it began to be detected in Asia, Europe, and the USA. Now Omicron has already hit 89 countries. WHO notes that it is spreading rapidly in countries with high levels of immunization and cannot yet explain this. Experts only state that the strain has been little studied, although it is already obvious that it spreads faster than its predecessors.
The WHO representative in Russia, Melita Vujnovic, fears that a large surge in cases in a short time could paralyze the healthcare system. But at the same time, she expressed the hope that omicron could become a live vaccine that would help overcome the pandemic, and the coronavirus would become one of the endemic infections like the flu. Which of the proposed options will work – time will tell. According to Vujnovich, we have to wait a week and a half to say for sure.
How other dangerous viruses spread
This is not the first time that dangerous epidemics and pandemics have occurred in the world. But often the experience of the past years does not teach us anything, and we continue to ignore simple safety rules.
Bird flu (2003). Bird flu (then called avian typhus) was first described in 1878. Its outbreaks were repeatedly recorded in Europe at the beginning of the 1925th century. In 1955, the disease reached North America. In 1997, it was found that the disease is caused by the influenza virus. For more than a century, it only affected birds. The first human infection occurred in 18 in Hong Kong. Then 6 people fell ill, 2003 died. The peak came in 861. A total of 455 people were infected. 52,8 died. Mortality – XNUMX%3.
География вируса. The peculiarity of this virus is that it is not transmitted from person to person. They can only be contracted from birds. Bird flu still exists today. The main location is Southeast Asia. Outside the region, it was recorded in Turkey, Romania, Scandinavia, and some regions of Russia. The carriers of the infection are migratory birds, mainly waterfowl (ducks). The virus is very contagious and deadly, however, there are few cases because game is not popular on the menu of most countries, and people do not infect each other.
Swine flu (2009). This virus has also been known for a long time – there were outbreaks in 1976, 1988, 2007, but among pigs. Most often, animals get sick in North and South America, Europe, Asia. On the African continent, it was recorded in Kenya. Most often it affects pigs, less often birds. It can be transmitted from animals to humans, but rarely – in total, 50 such cases have been recorded in the world. And then, it does not always cause a disease – often the virus is detected in the body by the presence of antibodies.4.
In 2009, the virus mutated, was able to spread from person to person and began to spread at a high speed. The WHO has declared a pandemic. Then more than 220 thousand people fell ill. Less than 2 thousand died. Mortality – 0,9%.
География вируса. Свиной грипп очень быстро охватил все страны за исключением нескольких африканских. Происхождение нового штамма неизвестно – не сразу стало ясно, что это новая мутация, поскольку заболевание протекает в точности, как и сезонный грипп. Он такой же заразный, именно поэтому получил широкое распространение.
Popular questions and answers
We discussed with an expert therapist Lidia Golubenko questions regarding the spread of the virus and the duration of the pandemic.
Sources:
- Карта коронавируса Covid-19 онлайн в России и мире https://koronavirus-karta.online/
- Davydov S. G. Twelve articles on the nineteenth covid: the first wave of media and communication research in a pandemic // Monitoring. 2020. No. 6 (160). URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/dvenadtsat-statey-o-devyatnadtsatom-kovide-pervaya-volna-issledovaniy-media-i-kommunikatsiy-v-usloviyah-pandemii
- Хунафина Д. Х., Галиева А. Т., Шайхуллина Л. Р. Птичий грипп // Медицинский вестник Башкортостана. 2008. №2. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/ptichiy-gripp
- Хунафина Д. Х., Галиева А. Т., Шайхуллина Л. Р. Грипп типа а/H1N1 (свиной грипп) // Медицинский вестник Башкортостана. 2009. №4. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/gripp-tipa-a-h1n1-svinoy-gripp