Coronavirus: What's your long-term plan?

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID -19/SARS-CoV-2) quickly spread around the world over the past year-and-half and caused unimaginable influence on economies and people's lives around the world. According to official estimates, as of Aug 2021, over 4.48 million people have died around the world due to this disease and over 215 million people have been affected by it. In March 2020, when the virus just started spreading around the world, we wrote an article (The Conscience Virus) about the possibilities this virus and lockdowns have opened up for people around the world to introspect their life choices and understand their life priorities.  

You can also read this article on Medium.com at https://medium.com/conscious-thinking/coronavirus-whats-your-long-term-plan-792377711275

As the virus continues to impact people even today (after a year-and-half), it makes one wonder if the methods employed by the countries around the world are short sighted and not looking at the big picture. And are we investing all our resources and energies into short term solutions and ignoring the need to look deeper into the root causes and address them.  

Here are our thoughts about this topic.

What is Coronavirus? 

Let's have a quick look at what we know about the Coronavirus disease itself so far. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that is caused by one of the many coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2. Even though there are many theories and investigations underway around the world, the source of this virus's transmission to humans is yet to be accurately discovered. In humans, the virus mainly transmits through respiratory route when an infected person talks, breathes, sings, coughs, or sneezes. Once exposed to the virus, the disease onset can happen anywhere between 2 - 14 days. According to the observations around the world so far, the disease can last anywhere between 5 days to as long as 10+ months. RT-PCR, Antigen, and CT Scans are currently being used to diagnose the disease. The symptoms of the disease include fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, vomiting, loss of taste or smell, and many other symptoms are being added to the list regularly. 

Who is affected by the Coronavirus disease? 

People of all ages are affected by Coronavirus disease. Many are asymptomatic and show no signs of the disease and there are currently no concrete estimates to indicate what percentage of the world population already contacted the virus but were asymptomatic. Even those who show symptoms,  it's been found that most of them (85 - 90%) recover from the disease with very minor to moderate illness. Also, out of the remaining 10 - 15% who were seriously ill, most of them were able to recover from the disease due to dedicated work of the frontline workers & healthcare  professionals. The efforts of most of the governments across the world helped save possibly hundreds of thousands of lives which would've been lost without those extreme measures. 

Why are some affected more than others? 

There are many studies being conducted around the world to narrow the indicators that would provide clues on why some people are affected by the disease more than others.  According to WHO website (as of Aug 2021) Covid-19 disease affects mostly older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer and these people are more to develop serious illness. 

According to American Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website those who are affected mostly by COVID-19 are people who are overweight & obese, smokers (past or present), who abuse drugs, Diabetes (Type 1 & 2), people with liver disease (alcohol and non-alcohol related), and people with hypertension. It also affects those who have chronic lung diseases, chronic kidney disease, chronic heart disease, HIV, Cancer, and any other state where the immunity of a person is compromised. Teens and children and less likely to fall sick. However, children and teens with underlying medical conditions are at high risk of falling severely ill due to the disease similar to adults.    

Limitations of Lockdowns and Vaccines 

This pandemic proved to be challenging for almost all countries to manage and it continues to pose uncertainty to world economies and livelihood of people. Countries employed many new and unique methods to stop the spread of the disease and save lives. Two major tools that were employed were lockdowns and vaccinations.  

Lockdowns were enforced to break the chain of the virus transmission and also act as a way to support the existing healthcare infrastructure to limit the number of patients admitted to ICUs and the number of people needing ventilators. In exchange of saving lives of the people who are vulnerable, lockdowns have seriously affected the livelihoods of poor and those with limited savings. Lockdowns also did not consider the fact that once the lockdowns are eased, those who protected themselves from the virus during lockdown are again at risk of getting infected by stronger mutated variations of the same virus. The effects of Delta variant of coronavirus is an example of this. One case study that is still being researched is in the Indian state of Kerala, where the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) has not gone below 10% since the beginning of the pandemic (that is, since early 2020). One of the possibilities that is being explored in this research, is that most people followed the lockdown rules and protected themselves from the infection during initial lockdowns, and as the time passed and lockdowns were eased, and those people are getting infected by the mutated variations of the virus at a higher rate. This is still in early stages of research and we can't positively conclude one way or the other at this point. 

Lockdowns did limit the spread of virus and tried to keep the patient count to fit within the available healthcare infrastructure. But this happened at the cost of livelihood of millions of poor people. Many federal/central governments of many countries have stepped in with subsidies, relief payments, tax deductions, free food supply and other ways to support those who are economically affected by lockdowns.  

Vaccines was the second major tool employed worldwide to tackle the Coronavirus disease. The research and development worldwide that went into developing Covid vaccine is a testament to the infrastructure and financial support available for science and technology communities that came together in an unprecedented way to develop vaccines for Covid-19. 

The main purpose of the vaccines was to develop immunity in people so they don't fall severely ill and limit the number of cases of serious illnesses and deaths. Vaccinated people can still carry the virus and pass it on to others. Similar to lockdowns, Vaccinations have done a wonderful job with limiting the number of people in ICUs and letting people get back to work. This also helped world economies to restart. The limitation of Vaccines at this point is not knowing how long the immunity of a dose of vaccine lasts. The limited research we have so far shows that they can be effective up to six months. There is no clear plan on what happens after six months to those who are vaccinated. Are they going to repeat the vaccination doses again (US is already considering this)? If so, how long are we going to continue vaccinating ourselves and how frequently? It is still unclear how much the vaccine can prevent a person from serious illnesses from a mutated virus variant. Even though vaccinations are currently proving to be very effective to save lives and get the economy back to its feet, it is unclear if this can be a long-term solution.  

We only have short term solutions 

As this pandemic exploded around the world, the entire world started looking at ways to quickly find ways to save lives and get the economies back to their feet. It is looking more and more obvious these methods aren't helping us in the long run.

There are two sides to the Coronavirus disease (in the context of our health). In very simplistic terms, one side is the virus that is looking to hijack our cells to multiply itself and produce more of its own genetic material. And the other side of the disease is the ability of our own immunity to limit the spread of the virus. When the virus's ability to penetrate our cells exceeds our immunity's ability to stop the virus from entering our cells or fight them, we fall sick. Depending on how strong the virus is compared to our immunity, we fall moderately, severely, or critically ill. 

The measures we are currently using like the lockdowns, masking, social distancing, and washing hands are helping us prevent the virus from entering our bodies and even if it enters our body, these measures are meant to limit the impact on the patient and those around them. These methods do not address any aspect of improving immunity of a person. However, Vaccines support the immune system of a person by introducing memory T cells (T lymphocytes) into the body that remember the Coronavirus and induce a specific response against the virus. However, with limited understanding about the length of immunity, and the effectiveness of this virus on mutated variations of the virus, at this time this is not yet a long term solution. If vaccine makers can't find a way to provide permanent immunity against the virus, there is a danger that people have to depend on this vaccination for the rest of their lives (if they want this to be the only way to be immune to the disease). 

What other things can we do? 

The scientific & medical communities around the world, and governments around the globe have invested very few resources so far at looking into the root cause of why some people are falling severely and critically ill compared to others and promote ways to make people more healthy and immune to this virus. There are no preventive measures, policies, or other tools currently employed actively to address this issue of immunity in the long run.   Here are a few things we think everyone can do in addition to following lockdown protocols, taking vaccines, social distancing, masking, and washing hands - 

Look at lifestyle diseases separately from other diseases - Coronavirus is affecting people with compromised immune systems and those with chronic illness. Some of the conditions that are affecting many people are diabetes, obesity, smoking,  heart disease, internal body inflammation, substance abuse, hypertension and other chronic conditions. Many of these conditions are directly related to the lifestyle of people, not due to their genetic disposal (at least in most of the cases).  As these are economically, politically, and culturally sensitive issues, the diseases that might be related to lifestyles are not being highlighted as such, but they are grouped with other conditions like HIV, Cancer, Pregnancy (42 days following pregnancy), Cystic Fibrosis, Down Syndrome etc.

This lack of separation is preventing many people from looking seriously at their own pre-existing health conditions as lifestyle diseases. If people understand that their vulnerability to Covid illness and their possible death is related directly to their own choice of lifestyle, there is a better chance that they protect themselves and start looking at ways to get healthy.  

Encourage Healthy Eating -  There is enough evidence to confirm that reduced immune systems is directly related to severe covid illnesses and death. It has been proven over 1000s of years that healthy eating is the best way to build one's immunity naturally. Fresh fruits, vegetables, healthy proteins, unprocessed foods, and fibre rich foods are known to have a positive affect on immunity.

A recent publication from US National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) concluded that there is enough evidence to conduct more trials regarding the role of Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc, Vitamin E, Selenium,  and Omega-3 fatty acids in reducing Covid-19 related morbidity and mortality. Most of these are easily available from fresh produce, simple walks in the nature, and exposure to Sun. May be we should educate ourselves about how to eat healthy and the governments and social organisations can play a better role in educating people about the benefits of healthy eating. 

Get your priorities in order - During the strict lockdowns and other measures implemented during the past year and half,  it was obvious to many that it was possible to have a fulfilled life by spending more time with family & friends, and less time on activities for making money and building wealth. Many discovered that it was possible to live with less stress. People started cooking, gardening, meditating, and they found ways to connect with the world from the comfort of their home.  

As the lockdowns are easing, maybe we need to rethink if we really want to fully get back to the old economic rat-race and follow our fears and desires, or if we should see all of that old way of living in the context of our life and relationships, and adjust our  lifestyles. 

Focus on Health (Physical and Mental) - It became evident during this pandemic that most of those who are physically and mentally healthy were able to get through this pandemic without any serious complications (at least from the perspective of health). As many for the first time took up  yoga, meditation, fitness and other health related activities during the pandemic, it is more important to continue these as the lockdowns ease and avoid slipping back into old unhealthy lifestyles. This pandemic made us realize that eating healthy and taking care of our body and mind is not just a personal lifestyle choice, but it could also prevent us from serious illnesses or death due to Coronavirus variants and other pathogens. 

We are already entering the endemic stage of Cornavirus in some parts of the world, and there were a lot of lessons this virus taught us. Most of us lived for a year-and-half in ways that we never thought we could live. This pandemic, and the lockdowns that followed also showed us our capabilities, our priorities, and how we actually manage stressful situations. We hope that we all take these learnings and adjust our lifestyles to be healthy, joyful, and peaceful individuals.

Good luck!!