Health

Health Dr Rod Pearce

Winning the COVID-19 fight – and halting the flu

OUR SUCCESS

Social distancing has produced one of the best results possible for Australia and stopped our influenza season.

We have had low rates of spread, while specific outbreaks of coronavirus have occurred on cruise ships and in meatworks.

What has stopped the spread in Australia seems to have been our ability to stay away from each other with social distancing, handwashing, and cleaning of surfaces which might have the virus.

Up until we introduced these practices, the influenza season was set to be worse than last year, starting early and threatening to be more lethal.

HOW WE COMPARE

Australia has a population of about 25 million and has a total death rate from coronavirus (SARS CoV-2 causing COVID-19) of 102. This amounts to slightly more than one death per day.

The USA has a death rate of more than 1,000 every day (population 13 times more than Australia). If the USA had the same death rate as Australia, it would be 15 deaths per day.

THE CHALLENGE

No human in the world will have any built-in defence. COVID-19 is a new (novel) virus. There is no stopping the virus that spreads to one human after another. It grows with no real opposition and spreads to another person.

When Australia set out to “flatten the curve” of coronavirus, the hope was to slow the spread from person to person.

Because we only had 2,000 intensive care beds, we hoped there would never be more than 2,000 people at any one time in hospital. The USA has a death rate of more than 1,000 every day (population 13 times more than Australia). If the USA had the same death rate as Australia, it would be 15 deaths per day.

Part of the plan was to increase the number of intensive care beds. The expectation was to have more ventilators and Australia increase its capacity and intensive care beds to around 4,000.

We did not have treatment to cure the infection so the only way to look after people was to try to keep them alive on ventilators, in induced comas, and lying in intensive care beds, until their bodies recovered or they died.

We saw a similar situation in 2009 with the influenza pandemic, except we had drugs to kill the flu virus (antivirals).

We just about used all our intensive care beds then, and our life-support services were stretched to the limit. We were down to our last dozen spare life-support machines.

WHERE IT STARTED

The coronavirus has been known about for years but this mutation started circulating in 2019.

The latest international studies suggest a mutation similar to the present one might have been around in September 2019. The specific mutation, however, seems to have occurred in China last December.

Sick animals in live markets spread the virus because they are still alive. So those markets are thought to be the biggest cause of these mutations.

P O L I C E A S S O C I A T I O N O F S O U T H A U S T R A L I A

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A virus is more likely to spread from a living animal than it is from a dead animal. And, if the animals are kept close together, the virus will spread from one of them to another of the same species and, then, occasionally, to another species.

The “jump” to another species appears to be relatively common, but the virus will not usually keep on spreading through the new animal line.

The evidence the medical community most accepts at this stage is that the coronavirus from a bat mutated to live happily in humans and spread easily. Because humans have not been used to this virus, we have no immune memory, and it is likely to kill us before we can kill it.

OTHER VIRUSES

The closest thing we have seen before is the Middle Eastern respiratory virus (through camels), a coronavirus that jumped to humans.

If the effect on the human is so lethal, the virus often dies out because it kills the human before spreading.

The next close shave was the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by the coronavirus. Again, it was so severe that it killed off people quickly (especially health-care workers).

SARS in a new form (SARS CoV-2) is different enough to cause problems again. Is there someone you want to acknowledge? Know of an upcoming social or sports event? Whatever the subject, put it in a letter to the editor. We still need to use social distancing to prevent infections and stop people getting into intensive care because we can’t be sure the treatment will work.

And this is not just a problem for the first way to remain safe is to continue the

human (in Wuhan, we assume) and the surrounding community.

THE TREATMENT

The disease itself (COVID-19) has many unknowns. Recent studies suggest it might reactivate in people thought clear. (One study in China suggests up to four times the infection coming back.)

Our treatment for the disease remains primitive and supportive rather than a certain fix for the sufferer. We still need to use social distancing to prevent infections and stop people getting into intensive care because we can’t be sure the treatment will work.

Vaccine is still a long way away. Malaria and HIV vaccines do not exist, and those diseases have been around for many years.

Because people have not had the disease a first time, and we don’t know if you can catch it again, it can spread though the community at any time. This could be our second wave of infection, STAYING SAFE

There is so much we don’t know about COVID-19. We do know that the social distancing and handwashing and coughing and sneezing into a tissue or sleeve.

It’s the same old story, and it’s boring, but it works. It reduces all infections and decreases the spread of multiple viruses.

If we maintain social distancing and jump on any outbreaks, we should be able to contain the spread in South Australia.

SO REMEMBER: The way to stop the spread of a virus is to: • Prevent it from jumping from one human to another. • Practise simple handwashing. • Not sneeze and cough over each other.

P O L I C E A S S O C I A T I O N O F S O U T H A U S T R A L I A

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just as lethal and just as disruptive. Regular mail Police Journal, PO Box 6032, Halifax St, Adelaide SA 5000 Email editor@pasa.asn.au Fax (08) 8212 2002 Internal dispatch Police Journal 168