All about Coronavirus COVID 19

Dr. K. S. Phaneendra Kumar, Consultant Pulmonologist, KIMS ICON Hospital, Vizag.

Covid 19 is a viral respiratory disease caused by Novel Corona virus. It initially started in Wuhan city of china and later on spread worldwide. India is under lock down for 21 days upto April 14, as per government policy. I feel covid pandemic can be controlled only by collective efforts of every single person in the society.

Everyone should follow social distancing measures and should have zero contact with external world. Especially older people are at higher risk, so they should be isolated even from their families who are going out for various reasons

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Government should test all the symptomatics as we are entering phase 3 with local spread. We should take south-Korea as an example, where they could flatten the curve by aggressive testing and isolating all positives.

It’s very difficult to identify asymptomatic carriers and as much as 50% of covid positives are asymptomatic in various studies. As of now there is no definitive treatment, though various drugs are being tried.

People should be patient and stay at home. Do not come in contact with any outside person. Hydroxy chloroquine, chloroquine or azithromycin should not be used without medical supervision and they are not prophylactic to covid. Frequent hand washing, zero contact with outside world, avoid groups of 5 or more. Follow government guidelines from time to time and do not panic.

Symptoms of covid start 2-11 days after exposure,Common cold, fever, headache, dry cough, myalgias(back pain), nausea without vomiting, abdominal discomfort with some diarrhea, loss of smell, anorexia, fatigue.

81% of patients have mild symptoms, 14% severe symptoms requiring hospitalization. 5% require critical care