For Kids
Worldwide, the number of people infected with coronavirus has exceeded 420 thousand people, of which almost 19 thousand died. And if in China the epidemic was stopped, in Europe it is not possible to do so. In Russia, so far everything is much better, some of the patients have already recovered, but the total number of infected people continues to grow here. To counter the virus, authorities have declared next week a day off. How soon the pandemic will end, how the disease will subsequently affect the health of survivors and how the virus can change everything around — we learned from the author of popular scientific lectures on YouTube about the coronavirus, doctor of biological Sciences, Professor of the school of systems biology at George Mason University (USA) Anchi Baranova.
Good and evil virus
The new coronavirus became known in December. Almost until March, all countries watched with interest what and how. After the virus was suppressed in China ,it” exploded ” in Europe and America. Is this a consequence of the situation being underestimated?
Ancha Baranova: Naturally, the leaders of all countries have known for a long time that the situation in China is serious. But if you live steadily, without shocks, it is very difficult to take and destroy the usual way of life, based on some forecasts. Let’s say you are warned today that in the summer the electricity in the house will be completely cut off for several months. But you do not immediately run to buy yourself some kind of electric generator or batteries. You have a budget for each week, but there are not enough free funds. And you think: maybe with the next salary or even with the next one…
States live by the same principle. Health system with the coronavirus can’t cope not because of the fact that the organizers are bad and not prepared. The existing system is self-regulating in such a way that it copes better in normal life, and worse in a crisis. For many previous years, efforts have been focused on reducing the exorbitant cost of healthcare. Now everyone is very upset about this. But if you take the health care of a country and increase its tenfold margin of safety — that is, just in case, increase the number of equipment or something else tenfold-the price for this will simply be evenly distributed among all patients. But some of them came to the doctor just for pills for headaches or diarrhea.
There is no tenfold margin of safety in any healthcare system, because it makes the cost of treatment significantly more expensive. And it is also fraught with victims.