George does not believe in the Covid-19. Or at least, he is convinced that the authorities are exaggerating. For him, the pandemic, and the containment imposed were “a good excuse to push the Lebanese people not to protest again” and ” distract them for some time of the economic crisis “. “Around me, nobody has felt nothing, pounds-t-it. Everyone is doing well. “Samar, meanwhile, argues that the Covid-19 is only a “small flu” and all this tohu-bohu that has surrounded the epidemic in Lebanon was not worth the money. “It has always caught the flu and we had always taken precautions “, she says.
This state of mind is quite common in Lebanon, where the Covid-19 has been well controlled so far, amounting to this day by 1 495 contaminations accumulated and 32 deaths. Rare outbreaks have been recorded since the declaration of the first case on 21 February, and many people believed that the Covid-19 is a respiratory disease like so many others, continue to adopt an irresponsible attitude, ignoring precautionary measures.
“The Covid-19 is surely not a theory of conspiracy,” says Dr. Jad Habib, a family doctor. This is a new virus which belongs to the coronavirus family. As it is similar to SARS or SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome, to the origin of the epidemic from 2002 to 2004), it has been dubbed SARS-CoV-2. “” At the beginning of the epidemic, it was thought that it was a respiratory virus like any other. Over the reported cases, it turned out that he has an important power of contagion. This has prompted the authorities, in Lebanon and in other countries also, to warn against this virus, since it has caused a lot of deaths and several outbreaks have emerged simultaneously in several regions of the world, ” says Dr. Habib.
Flatten the curve
The SARS-CoV-2 ” does not cause a difficulty in breathing “, he recalls. “Because the virus is new, we didn’t know at the beginning what were its consequences,” says Dr. Habib. Of the patients have died, which also happens in some cases of contamination by the seasonal flu. What has surprised, it is the outcry specifically around this virus and not around the other respiratory viruses, in addition to the confinement imposed by virtually all countries. This measure was taken because of the speed with which the SARS-CoV-2 propagates, a speed three times higher than the seasonal influenza virus. It can contaminate three times more people in a same period of time and submerging therefore the hospital settings and the capacity of each country to deal with it. This has resulted in rapid saturation of hospital systems, particularly in Italy, Spain, New York and Iran. ”
Because of this, governments have made efforts to ” spread the progression of the virus in time “. “This is to flatten the curve and thus allow hospital systems to collect the shock that the confinement was necessary at the beginning,” insists Dr. Habib who reminded, however, that ” 80 to 85% of the people who catch the virus will not require hospitalization, since they will be asymptomatic or will present with few symptoms “.
The favorable evolution
Like all respiratory viruses, ” the coronavirus can cause serious complications and life-threatening “, he insists again. “It must be remembered that the influenza virus against which we vaccinate are also lethal,” he continued. According to the world health Organization, almost 600,000 people die each year from the seasonal flu. “People who are at risk of being contaminated by the SARS-CoV-2 are the same as those who are at risk of catching the flu virus, that is to say, people who have chronic problems such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, or breathing and heart problems. These are also smokers, the elderly, those who have an immune deficiency… All these people can have significant complications due to the Covid-19, knowing that the complication, the most important of the disease has been respiratory illness that is violent, often requiring admission to the intensive care unit. “
