Coronavirus: A view of UAE

In modern times no crisis has been as devastating and extensive in its effect as has been the Coronavirus. Business shutdowns, social distancing, sanitization, suspension of international travel, closure of public places and a halt to sports events are just some of the immediate effects of this virus that come to mind. Skeptics will tell us that the flu kills more people than this virus, and had the plague been in the era of social media the effect of our social consciousness would have been far greater.

Indeed social media has added to the over all way we see this pandemic as billions of people has talking, sharing and giving out news through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many other platforms. In a sense this attention has also been good that it has woken many people from a carefree slumber to take the coronavirus seriously.

In the United Arab Emirates attention to the virus and talk about it has been widespread. However the response of the authorities to the coronavirus has, by and large, been good and effective. The measures to close schools early, stop events and limit social outings has been graduated upwards each day in a response to the pandemics progress too. However, under the surface, testing has been widespread and most of all awareness has been across the board. Super markets have taken to sanitizing the trolleys after each customer has used it, staff are generally wearing gloves and masks and even at the beach I have seen the municipality workers cleaning up and taking the usual precautions.

On Friday I visited a riding school to pick up someone and was not allowed in. He had to come out, sign out with security and few hours later when I dropped him off he was tested at the entrance. He later told me every second day all the staff at the riding center, which is owned by the Government of Sharjah, are tested. All this is being done without the hysteria we are seeing in many other countries.

Speaking to a doctor, who is knowledgable about such viruses he informed me that whole a majority of those who test positive will recover from the coronavirus, the threat is that unlike other viruses this spreads very fast and usually for the first seven days does so without showing symptoms. While those with weak immune systems and generally the elderly are most vulnerable, the virus as of today has no vaccine readily available and perhaps will not for another year, given the long period of testing and approval of such medicines. Doctors in Australia have reported good results from using a quinine based vaccine used for malaria in patients who has shown serious symptoms of the coronavirus. The current coronavirus is named COVID 19 and has a 70% genetic similarity to the SARS virus some years back. It must be noted that even a common cold is technically a coronavirus; each strain of the corona virus differs in the way the cells attach to the receptor cells of the person infected and hence this determines their unique identification; like MERS, SARS and now COVID 19.

It is too soon to make any predictions of which of the current experiments will work, but the message coming out is prevention is the best cure. In this respect kudos does go to the UAE authorities for their measured response in limiting activities where people could be exposed to the risk of the corona virus. Cinema's, entertainment parks, beaches (since today) and schools being closed and many offices adopting a policy of 'work from home' are all very good measures. I do personally wonder why shopping malls have yet not been closed down, even though admittedly there has been a serious drop in the footfall at the malls, it still remains the one public place that is still open.

As these closures took place there was the inevitable rush at the stores and for about four days it was not uncommon to see empty shelves in almost every large hyper market. By Saturday afternoon things had returned to normal and the country's leadership made a public statement that there is no need for any panic as there are enough food and supplies to overcome this pandemic. Judging by the speed at which empty shelves were restocked indicates this to be entirely true.

A bio-medical model has been used to determine the pandemics profile. Using the Wuhan data it is interesting to note that this model about two weeks ago predicted that if the measures of testing and control are effective then within 86 days a downward trend in the infections will show up and after another 21 odd days the pandemic can said to have been contained. The Wuhan cases were first identified in December 2019 so it seems the bio-medical model seems right when around March 19th 2020 a slow down of new cases was reported from Wuhan in China.

This implies if the countries take quick action and widespread and effective action then perhaps within a period of 110 odd days the effects of the virus within a country can be brought under control. One of the key elements of this action has to be testing because it allows one to profile an infected person in terms of his/her contacts over the previous 48 hours. Then through quick isolation of the people (can be self isolation) who the infected person has been with the spread is contained. On a wider front the quick reaction of closing the places where contacts are frequent indicates a throw of a wide fishing net that ensures slowing down the spread of the virus.

I believe that the measures taken in the UAE seem effective and it is highly likely that within a period of 100 odd days the spread of the virus might well slow down and contained.