March 8, 2020. I Google Worl­dome­ters a web­site ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing live fig­ures on the coro­n­avirus. First page. Coro­n­avirus Cas­es. 100,291. Deaths: 3,408. Re­cov­ered:55,988. Ac­tive cas­es:40,615 View by coun­try.

I watch the fig­ures change on the screen in open-mouth dis­be­lief as if I've en­tered an al­ter­nate dystopi­an re­al­i­ty.

Gov­ern­ments world­wide are un­veil­ing bat­tle plans, shut­ting down schools, uni­ver­si­ties, work­spaces, in­sti­tu­tions, can­celling any­thing in­volv­ing crowds, from con­fer­ences to con­certs Stocks and economies are tak­ing a tum­ble. Air­lines are shut­ting down. This is just the start. This virus has spread to over 80 coun­tries since iden­ti­fied in the Chi­nese city of Wuhan in De­cem­ber 2019. Health ex­perts are sug­gest­ing that new­ly emer­gent clus­ters in Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East and In­dia could ac­cel­er­ate the glob­al spread of the dis­ease.

For those who still think this is just a virus, con­sid­er this.

For once, gov­ern­ments world­wide are fol­low­ing the lead of sci­en­tists who ex­pect that it will in­fect range be­tween 40-70 per cent of the world pop­u­la­tion of sev­en bil­lion peo­ple. The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, it could in­fect every hu­man.

Of the low­er es­ti­mate of 40 per cent, the mor­tal­i­ty rate is cur­rent­ly gauged as be­tween two-three per cent of the peo­ple in­fect­ed. Do the math.

Over time hu­mans have de­vel­oped im­mu­ni­ty to the com­mon flu, which re­port­ed­ly kills some 600,000 peo­ple world­wide an­nu­al­ly. Cur­rent­ly, no hu­man is im­mune to coro­n­avirus. This virus will play un­til a vac­cine is pro­duced which sci­en­tists say will take a min­i­mum of six months. COVID-19 will be much hard­er to con­tain than Mid­dle East Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­drome (MERS) or Se­vere Acute Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­drome (SARS) be­cause the av­er­age in­fect­ed per­son (even if mild­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed) spreads the dis­ease to two or three oth­ers at an ex­po­nen­tial rate.

The 1918 in­fluen­za pan­dem­ic was the most se­vere in re­cent his­to­ry with an es­ti­mat­ed num­ber of deaths of 50 mil­lion with 500 mil­lion or 1/3 of the pop­u­la­tion be­ing in­fect­ed. The num­bers show coro­n­avirus ap­pears to be on a sim­i­lar scale.

What gov­ern­ments are do­ing by rolling out bat­tle plans is play­ing for time as per WHO pol­i­cy to slow down the nat­ur­al rate of trans­mis­sion to deal with it.

Un­less dra­con­ian mea­sures are used, there is no way to stop it be­cause peo­ple are mov­ing around by sea and land. With these num­bers, world trav­el and no known im­mu­ni­ty, cas­es con­firmed in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, St Mar­tin and St Barts mean a mat­ter of time till it spreads across the Caribbean and to us in T&T.

I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a Caribbean vi­rol­o­gist who re­minds us that there are hun­dreds of coro­n­avirus­es in an­i­mals, and some like SARS (batts to Civets cats) and MERS (bats to camels) have ac­quired the abil­i­ty to repli­cate in hu­mans.

The vi­rol­o­gist says that ul­ti­mate­ly hu­mans have brought this up­on our­selves. She says "the coro­n­avirus is hu­man-made due to de­for­esta­tion, habi­tat de­struc­tion, rapid glob­al trav­el, mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al prac­tis­es, and dense pop­u­la­tions. This hasn't come from nowhere."

Sci­en­tists have been wait­ing for this.

"Man has cre­at­ed eco­log­i­cal and en­vi­ron­men­tal changes that in­crease op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­fect­ed an­i­mals and now hu­mans to come in­to con­tact with sus­pectable in­di­vid­u­als. If you are en­croach­ing on forests, you cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for the virus to jump to you. If we are de­stroy­ing habi­tat an­i­mals will live next to you. If we are all trav­el­ling at a rapid rate, you are in­fect­ing thou­sands."

Sci­en­tists have been study­ing the in­ter­ac­tion on hu­mans, an­i­mals and en­vi­ron­ment and how it im­pacts on health and warn­ing us. We have not been lis­ten­ing. So lis­ten now.

To avoid coro­n­avirus: Main­tain so­cial dis­tanc­ing (at least three feet be­tween your­self and any­one cough­ing and sneez­ing to avoid breath­ing in COVID-19 virus). Avoid touch­ing your eyes, nose and mouth, since once con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, hands can trans­fer the virus to your eyes nose or mouth. Prac­tice res­pi­ra­to­ry hy­giene—cov­er­ing your mouth and nose with your bent el­bow or tis­sue when you cough or sneeze. Then dis­pose of the used tis­sue im­me­di­ate­ly. If you have fever, cough and dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing, seek med­ical care ear­ly.

If you are ex­posed to some­one who has it, this will hap­pen.

Quar­an­tine. Two weeks in­cu­ba­tion from the time you have been ex­posed. Wait for the virus to show its face—based on pre­vi­ous coro­n­avirus­es, it will do so be­tween two-11 days. The virus will vary from very mild to very se­vere. In 80 per cent of cas­es, you will have mild flu symp­toms with cough and a fever. If se­vere, you will need oxy­gen, life sup­port, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion. The el­der­ly and those with com­pro­mised im­mune sys­tems of un­der­ly­ing ill­ness­es are most sus­cep­ti­ble. Oth­er con­trib­u­to­ry fac­tors to sever­i­ty in­clude smok­ing, ge­net­ics, and the state of your lungs. Two-three per cent of all in­fect­ed will suc­cumb to the virus.

WHO (World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion) chief Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus told re­porters that "this is not a drill."

Tedros called on the heads of gov­ern­ment to "co­or­di­nate all sec­tors" and not leave it to health min­istries. What is re­quired now is "ag­gres­sive pre­pared­ness.”

What's the bat­tle­plan T&T?