Coronavirus: This is the good news

The whole world is under the spell of the corona virus. Drastic measures are being taken to inhibit the spread of the virus, also in the Netherlands.

Every day we are flooded with reports about the corona virus. It is often negative. And that makes sense in times of crisis. Yet there is also enough positive news to report about corona.

Number of infections decreases sharply

The growth in the number of corona infections in the Netherlands is declining sharply. The number of people lighting a sick person is around 0.3 . This has been calculated based on a GGD study of patients who have been hospitalized and who have been questioned about their first day of illness. During the carnival, around the end of February, the reproduction number was almost 3.

Stabilization in Brabant

There are positive signs in Brabant: the explosive growth in the number of hospital admissions has come to a halt there. The number of new hospital admissions is now stable. The peak in the number of new admissions probably already seems to have passed.

Extra breathing machines IC

In many places in the Netherlands, efforts are being made to increase the IC capacity and the number of regular hospital beds.

Last weekend, Philips delivered the first 100 of a total of 1,000 respirators for the Dutch Intensive Care Unit. The Dutch Association for Intensive Care (NVIC) hopes that 2,400 IC beds will be available this Sunday.

Coronavirus appears to be under control in China

In China, hardly any new infections from Covid-19 are added. The country appears to be in control of the situation.

In Wuhan and the Chinese province of Hubei, where the corona pandemic started, the last emergency hospital has been closed for a while. No contamination was added in the past five days (since March 18) . On March 24, one contamination was added in Wuhan.

In the rest of China, on March 31, 36 new infections were added. Many infections come from Chinese who have returned from abroad. Critics doubt these figures and think that the numbers are deliberately kept lower.

More than 82,000 people in China have contracted the lung virus. At least, that is the registered number of infections. More than 76,000 of this group have now been fully recovered. Nearly 3,200 people have died.

Public life started slowly

Although strict measures still apply in China, the economy and public life are slowly restarting :

• Museums, attractions and parks are open again in Shanghai and Beijing. At the entrance people are still screened for complaints.
• Shops are also largely open again, even in Wuhan.
• Cinemas reopen in most places.
• Public transport is running again in many cities.
• People are back to work in multiple sectors, especially in those industries that are vital to the economy.

Positive reports also come from South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. The number of new infections (and deaths) is decreasing there.

How long will it be?

It is difficult to predict how long the corona pandemic will last in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. We do know how the disease developed in China, where the peak was reached some time ago:

• In China, the coronavirus was able to continue undisturbed for about a month from sometime in late December.
• On January 23, a lockdown was established for Hubei Province, which is home to 60 million people.
• Roughly at the end of February - a month after the lockdown in Hubei - the peak in China was reached. From then on, the number of new cases continued to decrease.
• The lockdown in Hubei Province (excluding Wuhan) was largely lifted on March 25.
• In Wuhan, where the outbreak started, the lockdown will end on April 9.

Promising

It is encouraging that the measures in China and a number of other countries have an effect.

The question now is whether the measures in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe are drastic enough to control the virus and to resume normal life with care, as now also seems to be happening in China.

Good to know: everyone in our country is entitled to reimbursement of the necessary care through health insurance.

Probably more people already infected

The coronavirus probably already infected many more people in the Netherlands than the official estimates indicate. This is evident from a study of health care workers from two large hospitals in Brabant. It may sound like bad news, but this is actually a positive development.

Why?

"It means that group immunity among the Dutch population is probably already more advanced than initially thought," says physician-microbiologist Jan Kluytmans, who is involved in the study. 

In many people, Covid-19 infection is associated with mild or mild symptoms. Especially with younger people, the complaints sometimes go unnoticed.

Many people are cured

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, nearly 180,000 people worldwide (as of April 1) have been cured of Covid-19. In reality, of course, there are many more.

Although hard figures are missing, we also know that many people in the Netherlands have already recovered from the virus and have built up immunity. This is still being investigated.

In the Netherlands, a 101-year-old woman recovered after infection with the coronavirus. She was hospitalized for 1.5 weeks.

Vaccine corona

There are 35 other pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions worldwide working on a vaccine against COVID-19. A vaccine is expected to be widely available within 1 to 1.5 years. But this is difficult to estimate.

The most important news about the developments of a corona vaccine:

Coronavirus mutates 'barely'

The coronavirus hardly mutates, although it spreads very quickly among the population. That's what researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory say.

The US laboratory is investigating more than 1,000 different samples of the virus, such as the variant that first surfaced in China and the variant now found in the US. The research shows that there is little difference between the samples, which means that the virus hardly mutates.

Furthermore, there are indications that no new coronavirus variants are emerging that are more deadly than the original ones.

Overall, this is very good news for vaccine development:

• A vaccine does not have to be developed every year, as with the common flu.
• One vaccine could provide protection for years, and perhaps even life.

Immune system makes antibodies against corona

The human immune system is able to fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19). This happens in a similar way as with the flu. This is evident from a study in Melbourne , in which a Dutch researcher also participates.

The study looked at the immune responses of patients infected with the coronavirus. For this, cells in the blood were examined.

What happened in patients with mild complaints:

• Several parts of the immune system were activated quite soon after the infection.
• The amount of virus gradually went down.
• Three days after the peak of the immune response, the body was virus free and recovered.

So, patients' bodies do exactly what they need to do: fight the virus. The results of the study should help to develop an effective vaccine that can activate the immune system in the same way as with an actual infection, but without making you sick.

American and German pharmaceutical companies will develop vaccine together

The American pharmacy group Pfizer and the German drug producer BioNTech are going to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus. People can be vaccinated with the vaccine.

This will help to curb the worldwide spread of the coronavirus.