COVID-Confused? Here, Let Me Help!

What is obvious is what is known. The world is in a global pandemic. Of such a virulent nature that it has closed down society as it has developed over the years, presenting us with a faint resemblance of the familiar, where people are ordered to remain separate from others lest the opportunistic virus be given a clearer mandate through oblivious carelessness to infect ever greater numbers of the people than the five million already infected worldwide by its insidious, insistent, triumphant presence.

What is known is that this is a zoonotic, a virus that leaped the species chasm from wild animals to human animals, and that it first emerged in a city of northern China, Wuhan, in a province that became the first to be inundated with the virus, and consequently locked down, where so many presentations at hospitals swamped their capacity to react, and health workers began to succumb to its evil influence.

Known? That China sought at first when the virus initially presented and its own physicians began warning of an unusually dangerous presence of viral pneumonia and puzzling deaths, to deny that any unusual public health threat had arisen. It failed to give vital information to the World Health Organization to prepare to recognize a looming global threat, influencing a too-late declaration issued to the world at large of a global pandemic.

It is also known that in Europe, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom suffered vast numbers of infections; that Russia has been smothered with cases, that in North America the United States has succumbed to the virus with a fury, hospitalizing and killing thousands of health-vulnerable people. In the Middle East, Iran, though claiming otherwise, has seen COVID-19 strangle its population, while India and Africa are striving to control a pestilent disease that thrives within poverty-stricken crowded conditions.

It is well and truly known that the world economy is in tatters, that countries that took steps to attempt to protect their populations from the worst deadly effects of the SARS=CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 by shutting borders, businesses, social spaces, warning people to remain secluded indoors, venturing out only for emergencies, infrastructure and finances -- are in free-fall.

A Mexican flag stands on display next to a closed beach in the town of Bucerias, Nayarit state, Mexico, on Thursday, April 23, 2020. Cesar Rodriguez/Bloomberg

And there's more, much more:

• The elderly; those over 65 and well beyond are at higher risk of infection and ultimately losing their lives to COVID since risks tend to rise in lock-step with advanced age. But this is a very strange disease; some individuals aged 100 and even beyond who were infected, have recovered and somehow escaped the Grim Reaper. 
• Irrespective of age, those with such chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart disease and other serious health conditions are also at grave risk. The combination of age and any of these conditions accelerates the risk of lost mortality.
• Self-isolation; quarantining oneself is immensely useful, given that density is dangerous, representing a situation beloved of the virus which loves to send out emissaries from a host to those located conveniently nearby to represent yet another depository of viral danger. 
• Observe the differences in countries, where heavily-populated Germany went into lockdown and Sweden, heavily populated as well, deliberately failed to; so a low death rate occurred in Germany and a high rate in Sweden. This.is.not.rocket.science.
• In Florida notorious as a haven for the elderly, a low death-rate has been seen which studies explain is due to the majority of its vulnerably elderly chose to voluntarily remain within their homes, even in the absence of government-mandated lockdown.
• No evidence, only rumours, that heat or warmer weather may slow the disease spread or possibly deters its spread. Just as there is no evidence that when cold weather returns in the fall, a "second wave" of new outbreaks will occur.
• The world awaits a life-saving vaccine against COVID, though no one has any idea what it might be, how it could work, and when it will be discovered. On the other hand some scientist believe COVID will of its own volition fade away after 70 days of terror.

There, wasn't that useful? Don't you feel better already? Prepared to launch yourself off on a vacation to some exotic spot. If they aren't under quarantine. If they will permit entry. If you aren't too fearful to venture out. If there are flights to that destination. If you're prepared to distance yourself and to wear a mask to soothe the resentment of the locals that  you've come from abroad to threaten them with the possibility you might be carrying the virus while unsymptomatic....

How about Italy, China or Mongolia. Even Egypt or Portugal? All have high hopes to rescue their tourism season...

A visitor wearing a face mask following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak poses for pictures at the Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing, China, April 24, 2020.Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters