Coronavirus – How You Can Stay Healthy

Coronavirus and Symptoms

Coronavirus or COVID-19 is a virus that was originally for animals. This animal virus started in late 2019 (hence the name), but in early 2020, it mutated, and started infecting humans. The outbreak of this new coronavirus started in Wuhan, China, and since then spread to most countries in the world. However, the mortality rate of it is only 1.4%, which is only a little bit more than the 0.1% mortality rate of the seasonal flu. Also, most victims of this virus have reported only a nasty flu, and then they started to feel better. But, this is still something to be very serious about. Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland recently called for schools to be closed for the next two weeks. According to the CDC, some of the symptoms of this virus are:

• High fever
• Shortness of breath
• Coughing and sneezing
• Tightness in the chest
• Pain in the chest area

Types of People Coronavirus Targets and Doesn’t Target

This virus is new, and we don’t know much about it. From our observations, the WHO and CDC have listed types of people coronavirus targets, and doesn’t target. One of the types of people this virus targets are the elderly, because their immune systems are weaker than other peoples. Another type of person who is most susceptible to this virus is pregnant women, because they are using all of their immune system to protect the baby. Finally, people who are already sick can get infected easily, because their immune system would already be weak from the other sickness. Believe it or not, coronavirus doesn’t tend to infect kids, mostly because they are strong enough to fight it off themselves. Also, young adults are healthy enough to not get coronavirus. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be cautious. Just because kids and young adults don’t usually get infected, it doesn’t mean they can’t!

Method One: Washing Your Hands

This is probably the most simple solution to not getting sick. You have known this since you were little (I assume). Just wash your hands regularly, with soap. Washing your hands disinfects and kills all germs on them. Not only does handwashing do that, but it also helps prevent the spread of germs when touching another person. According to the CDC, you must wash your hands for at least 20 seconds in order to kill germs. Some people don’t even wash their hands correctly, so here are some step by step instructions on how to do it.

1.  Wet your hands with hot sink water
2.  Rub your hands together thoroughly with soap
3.  Rinse your hands under water to wash away the soap
4.  Dry your hands using a towel.

Method Two: Social Distancing

Social distancing is when two people keep a distance from one another. The advised distance is about 6 feet. This helps prevent the spread of germs from coughing, sneezing, or touching. Doing this not only helps you from getting sick from someone else, but it helps your peers from getting sick from what you might be carrying! Almost all businesses and schools are closed, and the reason for that is person to person spread, or social distancing. Doing this might save other peoples lives.

Method Three: Touching Your Face

The third and final method to help prevent you from getting sick is to not touch your face. Germs typically try to enter your body through your eyes, nose, ears, or mouth. So if you had a virus on your hands, touching your face would be like welcoming a virus into your body. So before touching your face, wash your hands or use hand sanitizer, even if you need to itch.

Stay Healthy!

These are three very important methods to keeping you and your peers safe. Even after coronavirus is under control, you should still be doing these things, just in case. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll see you in my next blog.