How to Combat the Coronavirus

he top priority for countries in the battle against the coronavirus should be to prevent new cases from happening. The number of new cases per day must become zero, and it must be zero for at least two weeks.

As I'm writing this, the Worldometer website is showing that there are 872,447 reported Covid-19 cases worldwide with 184,482 recoveries and 43,269 deaths. This is as of 1st Apr 2020, at 10:02 GMT. The figures keep increasing.

China, where the coronavirus originated, has 81,554 total cases so far. But most of those who got the virus have recovered - and there are those who died - and the number of active cases is falling. Right now, the number of active cases in China is down to 2,004. And the number of new cases being added is down to about 50 daily.

In many other countries, the numbers of active cases are increasing:

The US has right now 177,285 active cases and the number of new cases is about 20,000 per day.

Italy has 77,635 active cases with around 4,000 new cases per day.

Spain has 70,436 active cases with around 8,000 new cases per day. It is easy to see that if this continues, Spain will overtake Italy in the number of active cases.

The UK has 23,226 active cases with around 3,000 new cases a day. If this continues, the UK will see a rise in active cases but will not reach the levels of Italy.

Malaysia, where I live, has 2,218 active cases with 120 new cases a day. Malaysia has already exceeded China in terms of active cases.

Now, every case lasts about two weeks before it sees an outcome, i.e. before the person recovers or dies. I do hope the person recovers.

But what I want to point out is this: One new case every day will accumulate and cause the number of active cases to rise. Then, after about 14 days, one person will recover every day (or die, but hopefully not), and this will cause the number of active cases to stabilise at 14. 14 days, 14 people, 14 active cases.

Therefore:

An average of 100 new cases per day will cause the number of active cases to stabilise at around 1,400 after 14 days.

So we can predict the number of active cases:

China has around 50 new cases every day, so the number of active cases will come down to around 700.

The US has around 20,000 new cases every day, so the number of active cases will rise and peak at around 280,000.

Italy has around 4,000 new cases every day, so the number of active cases will come down to around 56,000.

Spain has around 8,000 new cases every day, so the number of active cases will rise to around 112,000.

The UK has around 2,000 new cases every day, so the number of active cases will stabilise at around 28,000.

Malaysia has around 120 new cases every day, so the number of active cases will come down and stabilise at around 1,680.

These predictions change if the average daily numbers of new cases change.

The implications are:

1. Countries must give priority to preventing the spread of the virus as compared to treating the sick. I'm not saying don't treat the sick, just that resources should be prioritised towards preventing the spread of the virus and that aggressive measures should be taken.

2. The most important metric is lowering the number of daily new cases. The number should, of course, eventually become zero.

3. We must have at least 14 days of no new cases before we can be confident that the virus has been eradicated.

For those of us not in power, like myself, we can advise those who are to adopt the above strategy and, at the same time, take the precautions to keep safe from the virus.