FLATTENING THE EPIDEMIC CURVE OF CORONA OUTBREAK: BEYOND THE REALM OF EPIDEMIOLOGICAL MATHEMATICS

Nandita Sharma, Sourya Acharya* and Samarth Shukla

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 is an ongoing pandemic of a corona virus disease having affected over a million people across 200 countries and territories of the globe in the year 2019-20. It is a highly contagious viral infection apparently similar to previous outbreaks of group of corona virus diseases i.e. severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in few years back. It is a highly infectious viral disease which mainly spreads through contact or by droplet infection or through contact with contaminated surfaces; and its common symptoms are fever, cough and shortness of breath. The present and most accepted technique for the diagnosis of Covid-19 disease is based on the principle of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique and yet everyday newer techniques are being developed to enhance and improve the rate of COVID-19 case detection. Presently, there is no vaccine/antiviral treatment for it; but yet many medical agencies of various countries have started working on it and as of now many are suggesting and testing out various previous developed treatment methods and antiviral drugs (for other diseases) as clinical trial experiments. Otherwise precautions that are being taken is to prevent its transmission by methods like social distancing, hand washing, use of personal protective equipments (PPE) and practicing good hygiene, etc. Controlling the pandemic is the only solution to solve this problem and various methodologies are being proposed, one such methodology is „Flattening the epidemic curve of corona outbreak.”An epidemic curve for disease is a statistical approach i.e. done through plotting and studying the progression of positive infected cases of the particular disease in a particular region or territory. It is plotted between two criterions i.e. total number of infection cases and time period (considering the available health care facilities of the area.). From an analytical aspect it means the idea or proposal of slowing down the spread of virus so that a lesser number of people may need to seek medical treatment at any given period of time.COVID-19 is a global emergency and different countries and regions of the world are adopting their own unique strategies to control it. This review focuses on the various aspects of “flattening the curve” and how the word is coping with this struggle.

Keywords: (Covid-19, Epidemic curve, Pandemic, rRT-PCR, Social Distancing).