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Both are numbers changing
hourly, of course.
But are you sick? Or at
risk?
You may indeed have
contracted the coronavirus, which leads to COVID-19, if you
have such symptoms as a runny nose, a dry cough, a sore
throat, a fever, chest pains and trouble breathing.
The complicating fact is
that you might have the coronavirus and be asymptomatic for
the first five or six days after you contract the virus.
The fatality rate for
COVID-19 appears to be between two and three percent, or
about 20 times the fatality rate for most influenzas. People
at the greatest risk for a severe reaction to COVID-19 are
those who are obese, or have high blood pressure, cardiac
issues, respiratory issues, diabetes. Being elderly, with a
combination of such health issues, compounds the risk.
It’s not particularly easy
to get tested, if you feel that it may be necessary. In this
area, a testing site has been established at the Botanical
Garden, 5403 Elmer Drive. However, you cannot just show up
and expect to be tested.
First, you have to call
the Nurses Line at 419-251-4000 or 419-291-5355. The line is
open 24/7. When you are connected, you will be pre-screened
and, if eligible, given a time to go to Botanical Garden.
Once there, a sample will
be taken, the sample will be sent to Columbus and the Health
Department will call you back, within 72 hours, with the
results.
And, in fact, if you do
have COVID-19, the next step is usually … nothing.
There is no magic pill, no
cure, for COVID-19. If you are really sick, chances are,
before you receive the test results, you will have gotten
yourself to Urgent Care or a hospital for admittance and
treatment of the severe symptoms. At this point, the tests,
as scarce as they are, serve mainly as a point of
information for government agencies such as the Centers for
Disease Control.
But gathering that
information enables government agencies to assess the
actions that need to be done to contain the coronavirus
because since there is no cure, containment is the only
available solution thus far.
Since there is no cure,
health workers will not have nearly the impact of government
agencies around the world in containing the COVID threat.
The Imperial College London group, in a recent study,
projects that if nothing more is done by the U.S. and U.K.
governments, given their late starts, as many as 510,000
U.K. citizens and 2.2 million U.S. citizens might die of the
disease.
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