"In short, ‘Huwag kang praning.’"
"In short, ‘Huwag kang praning.’"
Before we leave the babble of advisories, tokenism and pseudo operations beloved of some countries and groups on combating the spread of the novel coronavirus (nCoV), I would just like to offer some words of advice. For one, If you are not content with the statements of the Department of Health or want to check the accuracy of what their officials are saying, kindly read or listen to the advisories coming from the World Health Organization on the what, where and other related information about nCoV. It will not take more than five minutes for you to appreciate the fact that this virus, though rapidly spreading and can now be transmitted human-to-human, is not deadlier or more contagious than SARS or MERs or H1N1, to name just three of the more recent epidemics which visited our part of the planet in the last couple of decades.
Please note that the advisories have been largely the same: Do not panic, maintain a healthy lifestyle, wash your hands, stay away from crowded places as best as you can, visit your doctor or the nearest clinic if you notice something wrong with your system and so on and on. In a word, take good care of yourself and your surroundings.
If you are still confused or unconvinced by the official advisories, you may want to read the article written by Dr. Bien Manlutac, an internist-nephrologist in some of the known hospitals in Manila, entitled "Should we push the panic button on the 2019 nCoV threat in the Philippines?" Dr. Manlutac offers a layman's guidebook on what this virus is all about and what we should do about it. To working men like us who are already suffering from a surfeit of tasks to attend to in a high cost, politically charged and traffic plagued environment, Dr. Manlutac's piece comes like a breath of fresh air clearing a lot of the garbage being thrown around in both traditional and social media.
His basic message is: "Do not stress yourself with undue worry because of the statements now known about the virus; in Tagalog 'Huwag Kang Praning'"
Here are some interesting points raised by Dr. Manlutac in his shared piece:
"The 2019-nCoV was discovered in 2019 from an outbreak of mostly mild to sometimes severe respiratory diseases in Wuhan, China, hence the designation '2019' and 'n' for novel or new. It belongs to the family of coronavirus, one of about seven known, including those that cause the common colds, flu and the deadlier severe acute respiratory syndrome and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, to infect animals and humans…The medical world does not know a ton about it yet but scientists are working on the new phenomenon that now surprisingly has become newsworthy because precisely it was not known before and new, and projected as a seemingly major health threat to humans by media.."
"The 2019-nCoV are fairly common in many species, including cats, cattle, camels, civets and bats but the Wuhan (market) experience has recently suggested that the virus has evolved and had caused animal-to-human transmission and infection resulting in clinical disease. Person-to-person transmission has since been the major source of transmission…Once a person is infected he can spread the virus mainly through aerosolized respiratory droplets when he sneezes or coughs up the virus, much in the same was as the common flu, SARS and MERS are transmitted."
If we go by the available data, the number of patients-under-investigation has reached 80 mostly in the NCR. Next is Central Visayas where the woman from Wuhan who tested positive for the virus went, first landing in Cebu then proceeded to Dumaguete and finally to Manila with her male companion. After two days of turning herself over for diagnosis and quarantine, the woman has left the hospital alive and kicking. Her partner died.
So going back to the WHO/DoH advisories and the Manlutac article, here's what the good doctor said: "Given the figures, the chance of one dying from the virus is under 3 percent, meaning the 2019-nCoV is not even close to being as deadly as the virus that caused SARS (10 percent) or MERS (35 percent) that originated from civets and camels, respectively. The most common H-influenza (bacteria that causes ear infections in children and bronchitis in adults) is even deadlier with a case fatality rate of 3.6 percent in children and a higher mortality rate in adults over 65 years old who develop invasive disease."
So, we go back to Dr. Manlutac's earlier advise: "Huwag kang Praning." Or, as he ended his piece: "Do not fear or panic when you read the negative news and vibes generated by mainstream media as well as social mediafrom shared or forwarded posts/messages. Derive, share and believe scientific info coming from credible sources like DoH.gov.ph or CDC.org and not from invalidated, incredible ones."
Which is what we have been saying all along. We have to adhere to science and evidence(fact)-based information, not theories or suppositions. Now, if the DoH is on your target list or Secretary Duque is not exactly a favorite of yours, just pause for a moment and keep these to yourself. This is not the time to prejudge or simply brush what they are saying aside. if you still insist on getting more and, to your mind, better information then go to the WHO website or wait for the rejoinder from Dr. Manlutac or a certain Dr. Salvana from PGH who had earlier given a simple, layman's view of this spreading, increasingly being politicized n-CoV phenomenon. Meantime, just stay clean and healthy.