Pandemic

A pandemic is an epidemic which causes pandemonium.

No seriously, a pandemic is an epidemic of world-wide proportions.

The last massive pandemic (like in the millions dying) is the flu pandemic that occured 100 years ago, between 1918 and 1922. There was an estimated 25 million deaths in its first two years.

This deadly outbreak cut across the world, infecting over a third of the world’s population and killing 30 to 50 million people out of the 500 million people infected. Imagine there was not even that much air travellers back then.

Experts have been saying all along that the next pandemic is a matter of when not if. Meaning it will happen, it will start with one person being infected by a new virus which humans has no natural ability to fight against and depending on how deadly and how contagious the virus is, and how fast it is contained then that will determine how many millions will become infected and how many could die from it.

Certified Pandemic

Of course, many people do not want to believe the hype. But the novel Corona virus outbreak has at the latest count infected 15,000 people and killed over 300. The first death outside of China (the country it originated in) has just occured and the virus has been confirmed to have spread to 25 countries so far.

Quarantine

60 million people have been put in quarantine in a huge region of China, which initially was just the mega city of Wuhan and then almost the whole province of Hubei. But we really do not know how many of the infected have already gone outside of the area on lockdown and how many of them have slipped out and flew out of the country. Every region of the entire country of China (population over 1B) has already been infected.

Sources: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China; local governments. Note: Data as of 4 p.m. E.T., Feb. 2

What Now

Vigilance is the key. Even if you do not want to believe the hype. The fact that infected people have already been confirmed to have left China and have arrived in to 25 countries and someone infected has died in a different country and that many more people suspected of carrying the virus are either unconfirmed or under reported should get our attention.

The next few weeks will determine if this pandemic will turn into pandemonium.

Stay tuned.

Link: Epidemic Epicenter