Uncomfortable as it is to think about, the human race is threatened by many potentially disastrous occurrences: nuclear war, climate change, and collision with a large asteroid. The year 2020 will be remembered for the threat to humanity that resulted from the outbreak of an infectious disease. All of you who have opened this website have lived in the midst of a pandemic and experienced the turmoil created by the spread of COVID-19 around the world – the large number of people who got sick, needed hospitalization, and died. There were restrictions on daily life such as getting together with friends and travel. Lastly, the disease had severe economic consequences such as unemployment and business failures.
COVID-19 is not the first infectious disease that has killed many people worldwide. Furthermore, it is unlikely to be the last such illness. For that reason, this material has been prepared to provide basic information about infectious disease: what forms it takes, how it is spread, how it may be treated, and what organizations have been created to deal with it. Part I provides a background on infectious diseases. Specifically, you will find information about the sources of infectious diseases, the importance of immunity, and how diseases are given names.
The four most important health organizations for studying and preventing infectious disease are the subject of Part II. Because infectious diseases may spread beyond the boundaries of a single country, the World Health Organization was created to develop global medical responses. Three American health agencies that promote medical research and protect the public health by ensuring the safety of a variety of drugs and medical treatments also are described.
Part III is devoted to the work of epidemiologists – also known as “disease detectives.” This section will focus on the Epidemiologic Triangle, a model that scientists have developed for studying health problems, specifically to understand infectious diseases and how they spread. Epidemics that spread beyond the boundaries of a single country are known as pandemics, and these are the subject of Part IV. Information is presented about the history of pandemics, the likelihood that they will occur in the future, and their risks, impacts, and mitigation.
Therapeutics, vaccines, and behavior change models are medical measures discussed in Part V. Therapeutics and vaccines are treatments developed by doctors and pharmaceutical companies to cure an illness once scientists identify and understand the microorganism that causes a disease. Behavior change models are non-pharmaceutical methods that do not have curative powers but may be used to prevent the spread of a disease.
Finally, Part VI deals with COVID-19. The specific virus that causes the disease is discussed. Because what is known about COVID-19 is evolving as scientists and doctors learn more about the disease, links are included to reference material prepared by leading health authorities that offers updated information on the spread, prevention and treatment of the disease.
Part I – Infectious Disease
According to the Mayo Clinic, infectious diseases are illnesses that can be spread directly or indirectly from one person to another, or can be transmitted to humans by insects or animals. Contaminated food or water also can be sources of infectious disease. Throughout history, infectious diseases have had dreadful effects on the lives of people around the world.
Infectious diseases are caused by a variety of pathogens – microscopic organisms that are harmful to the health of human beings. Pathogens may be bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi. The National Center for Infectious Diseases has a very useful website that presents both graphic and written details about the pathogens that cause infectious diseases as well as descriptions of 21 of the most common infectious diseases. Medical News Today, a British website containing medical information for the general public, has an excellent report about infectious diseases.
Advances in treating and eliminating infectious diseases have increased human lifespans. For example, measles and chickenpox are just two of many harmful infectious diseases that can be prevented by vaccines. However, malaria and HIV/AIDS are deadly infectious for which there are no vaccines and, therefore, remain threats to societies worldwide. Humans do not develop immunity to these diseases. That is, people always are susceptible to these diseases because they do not have natural or acquired resistance to them. Consequently, persons who survive AIDS must live with HIV. And, because malaria survivors don't develop long-term immunity to the disease, the parasite can infect them again and again.
Public health officials continue to deal with outbreaks of new, unknown infectious diseases. Reemergent diseases that appear again after they have declined significantly also present public health challenges. Reemergence may occur because of the failure of public health measures for diseases that were once under control, or may occur due to the appearance of a new strain of known disease-causing organisms. Return of diseases that once were treatable and controllable may be the result of over use of antibiotics that cause certain pathogens to become resistant to these medicines. Reemerging diseases include malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, pertussis, influenza, pneumococcal disease, and gonorrhea.
Two videos introduce elementary concepts associated with infectious diseases. The first is a brief introduction to infectious diseases. This video addresses what infectious diseases are, some terms used to describe characteristics of infectious diseases, and different types of these diseases. The second video takes a look at how infectious diseases are transmitted and how different tools are used to control them. The spread of infectious diseases may be limited by behavior change, vaccines, surveillance, and environmental changes. These videos were produced before the spread of COVID-19 which is discussed separately in Part VI.
A new infectious disease must be given a name that makes communication about the illness easier. Political considerations often affect the final selection of a name. The World Health Organization issued guidelines for naming new infectious diseases that avoid these concerns.
Part II – Health Organizations
Almost all countries in the world have established organizations concerned with providing health care for their citizens. Health care involves medical services that satisfy people’s health needs. As the world population enlarges and the likelihood of infectious disease increases, health care has become a top priority of modern society. Health care organizations conduct medical research and improve patients’ quality of life by developing treatments based on state-of-the-art clinical practice and education. One measure of government effectiveness is the quality of health care it is able to provide. The quality of health care is a significant influence on a country’s economy.
Upgrading health care requires cooperative approaches among the health services of different countries or among state and professional agencies within a country. Such cooperation improves the detection of and response to serious health emergencies caused by infectious diseases.
Four of the most important organizations that have protected humanity from the threat of disease are discussed below. However, because scientific organizations must deal with many unknowns about new infections, there is always the chance that their initial work will prove to be wrong. Further, it should be noted that government organizations like these four often must deal with political rather than scientific considerations that have, at times, affected trust in their work. Examples of problems associated with their work are included in the descriptive material you will find for each of these health organizations.
World Health Organization (WHO)
In 1948, the WHO was created by the United Nations to provide leadership on global health by giving technical assistance to countries and monitoring and evaluating health trends. The WHO influences health research throughout the world and establishes medical norms and standards. The World Health Assembly is the governing body of the WHO. It is composed of health ministers from the 193 member states. The World Health Assembly meets annually in the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland (see photograph) where it serves as the world's highest health policy setting body.
Among the Assembly’s most important activities is updating the International Health Regulations (IHR). These regulations call for all WHO member states to meet specific standards for detecting, reporting on, and responding to outbreaks. The IHR have provided the basis for investments that improve the treatment of infections disease and build health care capacity. Nonetheless, not all member countries have the resources or the will to meet the basic requirements of the IHR. As a result, significant gaps and challenges exist in global readiness to deal with infectious diseases.
The eradication of smallpox, the near-eradication of polio, and the development of an Ebola vaccine are among the most notable medical achievements led by the WHO. Even though it is considered the world’s most influential health agency, the WHO has, at times, been criticized for its assessment of the risk posed by various diseases, including tuberculosis and COVID-19.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
The HHS protects the health of all Americans and provides essential human services. HHS is a presidential cabinet-level department of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services who administers the largest departmental budget in the federal government. Managed by the Assistant Secretary of Health, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) is a major portion of HHS. Among USPHS’s operating divisions are three primarily devoted to domestic and global health issues: Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Food and Drug Administration (FDA); and National Institutes of Health (NIH). These federal health organizations coordinate with state and local health departments to ensure that they are able to maintain current programs and are able to implement new programs to protect people’s health. Many YouTube presentations about HHS are available.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the main Federal agency for conducting and supporting biomedical research in the U.S. In 1880, the U.S. Congress began funding scientific study of the causes of epidemics like cholera and yellow fever. With the start of these investigations, medical research became an official government responsibility. In 1922, government sponsored medical research was organized as the Public Health Services (PHS). This newly created agency undertook partnerships with universities to collaborate on specific research projects. In 1930, the PHS became the newly designated National Institute (singular) of Health. As a result of the incorporation and development of various institutes and centers that studied specific medical issues, the agency’s name was changed to the National Institutes (plural) of Health in 1948.
NIH is the largest biomedical research agency in the world. Congressional appropriations of taxpayer funds support NIH research into the underlying biology, etiology, and treatment of diseases. There are two approaches utilized by NIH to undertake medical research that have resulted in numerous important discoveries. NIH-supported researchers have received 156 Nobel prizes. A number of these prizes were awarded to the agency’s own investigators conducting basic research in NIH intramural programs. Most NIH-supported research is extramural, i.e., conducted outside of the agency by scientists who have been awarded funding through competitive grants and contracts.
Securing funding for NIH projects is not without difficulties. Given its reliance on government funding, the NIH agenda is affected by political considerations. Congressional funding of NIH has become more problematic due to the deepening partisan divide in Congress between Democrats and Republicans. Also, the source of funding for NIH research can raise perceptions of bias and loss of integrity if the sponsor stands to benefit from particular outcomes of the investigation. For example, the NIH study of whether drinking small amounts of alcohol every day can improve health was ended when conflict of interest concerns came to light. Questions were raised about the study because researchers also had solicited and secured $100 million in funding for the investigation from members of the distilled spirits industry.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
With the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, the U.S. government established the FDA in 1906. The agency provides accurate, science-based health information to the public. It protects public health by monitoring the safe consumption of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, tobacco items, medical devices, our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.
Regulating the development of new drugs is the best-known activity of the FDA. The FDA has developed a four-phase process of clinical trials on human volunteers that must be successfully completed on all new medications before they can be sold to the public. In the case of certain health emergencies created by the rapid spread of disease such as COVID-19, the FDA will accelerate the approval process of new treatment options and fast track development of vaccines. Numerous videos are available on many aspects of the FDA, including its history, drug approval process, and food safety.
The FDA is vigilant with respect to the usage of drugs and occurrence of medication errors. For example, in June of 2020 it revoked its emergency-use authorization for hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 after several studies cast doubt on its effectiveness. Nonetheless, as is true of many governing agencies, the FDA is no stranger to political interference. The agency has been criticized for both excessive as well as insufficient regulation.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
The CDC is the U.S.'s health protection agency. It works globally with members of the medical profession and other health agencies to create the expertise, information, and tools that people and communities need to save lives and protect people from disease. To accomplish its mission, CDC conducts scientific studies intended to prepare for new health threats, control disease outbreaks, make sure food and water are safe, and help people avoid leading causes of death (e.g., cardiovascular illness).
The CDC began in 1946 when Dr. Joseph Mountin founded the organization in Atlanta, Georgia where its headquarters are still located. Its first major mission was to study malaria, a communicable disease that was widespread in the southern states of America. CDC’s mission expanded to study other communicable diseases (e.g., influenza and AIDS). Articles by the Pan American Health Organization and the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report offer historical information about the CDC, including early use of the testing and trace methodology for studying and treating an epidemic. Although the CDC has contributed greatly to the preservation of good health, from time to time it has been mistaken about the products it has approved and the forecasts it has made about the spread of disease.
Part III – Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the scientific study of the patterns and causes of disease and injury in human populations. In epidemiology, the patient is the community. Individuals who are part of the community are viewed collectively as a group. An epidemic occurs when an outbreak of cases of a particular disease for an extended period of time is greater than expected in a given geographic region or among a specific group of people.
Epidemiologists are public health professionals. They seek to identify a disease outbreak and find its source. They then report the spreading of the illness and verify the factors that affect risk of getting the disease. Epidemiologists carry out research, perform community education, and develop health policy.
The Epidemiologic Triangle guides the study of the causes of infectious disease. The three parts of the Triangle are: an external agent (a microscopic organism that causes the disease); a susceptible host that harbors the agent (an organism that gets sick as well as any animal carrier – e.g., insects or worms - that may or may not get sick.); and, an environment that causes or allows the host and agent to get together. Epidemiologists attempt to disconnect at least one of the sides of the Triangle. This involves interrupting at least one of the links between the environment, the host, and the agent, thereby stopping continuation of disease. For example, in the case of malaria, the agent is a single-celled microbe of the Plasmodium group; the host is most commonly an infected female Anopheles mosquito; and, the environment is an area with forests, marshes, tall grasses and weeds, and ground that is wet at least part of the year. According to the Triangle, the spread of malaria can be controlled by interrupting the link between the host and the environment by means of mosquito control measures such as draining standing water in which the insects breed. Also, insect repellents and mosquito netting are methods to interrupt the link between the host and the agent.
The CDC has developed a six-part learning program on epidemiology that is carefully constructed to facilitate the location of information on each of the components of this medical science. Lesson 1 is a good introduction to this field.
Part IV – Pandemics
According to the WHO, a pandemic is “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people.” In other words, a pandemic is an epidemic that travels and spreads disease over several countries or continents. Large-scale outbreaks of infectious disease produce illness and death, and cause significant economic, social, and political problems in many parts of the world.
COVID-19 is not the first pandemic that has infected Americans. For example, a third of the world’s population became infected during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, and about 675,000 Americans died from the disease. The CDC has reports about four previous pandemics: 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus); 1957-1958 Pandemic (H2N2 virus); 1968 Pandemic (H3N2 virus); and, 2009 H1N1 Pandemic (H1N1pdm09 virus). In addition to describing each of these pandemics, links are provided to technical resources about the specific virus responsible for each illness. Also, there is a link on the home page of this site to an historical timeline of major scientific and public health events in influenza prevention.
Significant attention has focused on the need for policies that would identify and limit emerging outbreaks of disease that might lead to pandemics. Policy should address the importance of expanding and continuing investment that builds preparedness and health capacity, such as the Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents created by President Obama’s administration. Unfortunately, there are no widely accepted methods for estimating the costs specifically associated with pandemic preparedness or the economic impacts of pandemics. However, the study of pandemics has provided information about their risks, impacts, and mitigation.
Risks
Although pandemics have happened throughout history, the risk of their occurrence is growing. Pandemics have been made more likely by the growing appearance of viral disease from animals. They are also on the rise due to increasing travel, urbanization, changes in land use, and uncontrolled development of the natural environment. If these trends continue, pandemics are likely to occur more frequently in the future. The risk of a pandemic arising is greater in geographic regions such as Central and West Africa that lag behind the rest of the globe in pandemic preparedness. Influenza viruses pose the greatest risk for causing a severe pandemic.
Impacts
Morbidity (i.e., the degree of suffering caused by a disease or medical condition in a population) and mortality (i.e., the number of deaths in a given area or time period, or from a particular cause) can be substantial in a pandemic. These impacts are especially serious in low- and middle-income communities. Pandemics can produce both short-term and longer-term negative effects on a country’s economy. The main reasons for business failures during a pandemic are the fear of going to work or to other public gathering places such as restaurants.
Another potential impact of a pandemic is the tension that may arise between states and citizens. Government regulations intended to reduce the spread of a disease may have unexpected social consequences. Authorized changes in behavior like mask wearing in the case of COVID-19 may cause some people to object to such limitations on their lives. For example, violence was triggered during the COVID-19 pandemic by Americans who refused to wear masks as required by local or state governments.
Mitigation
In epidemiology, mitigation means reducing the risk of loss from the occurrence of a disease. Mitigation procedures are non-pharmaceutical public health measures meant to minimize the degree of any loss or harm from an infectious disease. In the early stage of a pandemic or epidemic, mitigation measures may be the only readily available actions to slow the spread of the disease. Development of therapeutics to treat the disease and vaccines to prevent the disease require an uncertain amount of time following the discovery of the disease. Mitigation measures such as social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing were recommended to delay the spread of the COVID-19 virus, to lower the peak of the outbreak, and, ultimately, to reduce the total number of infections, severe cases and deaths.
Mitigation procedures may vary depending upon the specific pathogen causing an epidemic or pandemic. However, there are also common procedures that offer effective preparation and response to more than one infectious disease. Mitigation steps that are useful for all pandemics include strengthening basic public health facilities such as water and sanitation systems, notifying the public about a possible outbreak, and rapidly dealing with the first cases of the disease. Public health officials also must consider a community’s surge capacity — the ability to increase the delivery of appropriate health care for the disease and the population at risk.
A brief, informative video about the use of mitigation data can help one understand the graphs that are presented on television news programs to describe the status of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Part V – Treating and Preventing Infectious Disease
Treating individuals who are ill as a result of a known infectious disease depends on the microscopic organism that causes the infection. If the cause of a disease is bacteria, antibiotics usually kill the bacteria and heal the infection. Supportive therapies, like rest and increased fluid intake, are prescribed for viral infections. Fungal and parasitic infections are treated with either over-the-counter or prescription antifungal medications.
With the arrival of an unfamiliar illness caused by a previously unknown microorganism, much work has to be done to determine how the disease spreads from one person to another. Transmission may be by means of air, food, water or exchange of bodily fluids. Medical research is necessary to discover how to heal people who have been sickened by the disease. Lastly, measures must be created that will prevent occurrence of the disease. Respiratory diseases that spread through the air (e.g., measles) usually are more difficult infectious diseases to prevent.
Therapeutics
Therapeutics treat disease. This may involve treatments and schedules of care used to cure or prevent a disease, or to ease pain or lessen injury. Once physicians make a diagnosis or identify the most likely cause of a patient’s symptoms, they decide on the appropriate treatment. Therapeutics used to treat specific symptoms include drugs to relieve pain or treat infection. Surgery to remove diseased tissue or replace poorly functioning organs are also therapeutics. The FDA is assisting in the development and availability of therapeutics in the treatment of COVID-19. However, its efforts have been hindered by political pronouncements.
Vaccines
A vaccine causes an individual’s immune system to produce an antibody that protects the person from a specific disease. This response is called immunization. Vaccines prepare the body to fight the disease faster and more effectively, and have been shown to be the best protection against more than 20 serious diseases (e.g., mumps, chickenpox, and whooping cough). Since vaccines were invented, the number of babies and adults who get sick or die from vaccine-preventable diseases has decreased substantially — and some diseases have been wiped out altogether in the U.S. (e.g., polio).
Vaccination is the act of administering a vaccine, usually by means of an injection. Intraocular (eye drop) or nasal instillation (nose drop) are other vaccination methods. There are several types of vaccines. A vaccine may be made from very small amounts of weak, disease-causing germs (live-attenuated vaccines) or from dead disease-causing germs (inactivated vaccines). Killed or weakened forms of germs do not cause the illness or put a person at risk of its complications. Before a vaccine is recommended for use in the U.S., the FDA makes sure that it is safe and effective. Why Vaccines Work is a lively video about the importance of vaccinating everyone in a population in order to eliminate the threat of certain diseases. Vaccination hesitancy (the reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated or to have one’s children vaccinated against an infectious disease) is discussed in this video by anti-vax and pro-vax persons. The WHO has a website that provides answers to 13 of the most commonly asked questions about vaccination.
Behavior Change Models (BCMs)
Because it is better and less costly than having to cure sick people, prevention and control of infectious diseases are important for public health and welfare. The behavior of hosts (i.e., the individuals carrying the disease) and people susceptible to the disease has a crucial influence on the prevention and spread of the disease. Therefore, in order to control the transmission of infectious disease, epidemiologists stress the importance of behavior change based on information about the disease.
BCMs focus on lifestyle activities that influence health. Unlike therapeutics and vaccines, they do not have curative powers. BCMs assume that individuals will follow well-founded advice about a disease and take one or more preventive measures to lower the likelihood of becoming ill (e.g., washing your hands). Epidemiologists urge individuals to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors, to use preventive health services, and to take responsibility for their own health.
The effectiveness of BCMs depends upon how the awareness of risk is shared among people. For example, sexually transmitted disease is still a problem because use of a condom is ignored by many couples.
Further, with regard to COVID-19, many teenagers believe that they are either immune to the disease or will only experience mild symptoms. Consequently, they attend large gatherings and ignore medical guidelines about social distancing (maintaining a distance of 6 feet between yourself and other people). Lastly, whether or not people will take preventive measures depends upon the extent of lifestyle changes recommended to reduce the risk of infection. For example, some Americans consider it too burdensome to wear masks in order to deal with an airborne infectious disease such as COVID-19.
Part VI – COVID-19
The first reports of a novel (i.e., a new, previously unidentified) coronavirus came from Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019. This virus was especially dangerous because there is no known natural immunity or resistance to it among humans. Further, no specific therapeutics or vaccines were available to treat the disease it caused. On February 11, 2020, the WHO chose the name COVID-19 for the disease caused by this novel coronavirus: CO for corona, VI for virus, D for disease, and 19 for the year the outbreak was first recognized.
The pathogen that causes COVID-19 is a distant cousin of the virus responsible for the common cold and bronchitis. It is more closely related to the virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Because of its similarities to the causal agent for SARS, the novel coronavirus is known as SARS-CoV-2. Understanding this coronavirus and COVID-19 is a work-in-progress around the world.
COVID-19 is mainly a respiratory disease. It affects the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, and throat) and/or the lower respiratory tract (windpipe and lungs). Once the lungs are infected, the virus may cause problems throughout the body, including blood clots and heart, kidney and stomach issues. The seriousness of the disease appears to vary depending upon the age and overall health of the patient. A substantial majority of people who get infected with SARS-CoV-2 will suffer a mild or moderate form of the disease. Many individuals, however, will get sick enough that they must be hospitalized, and of these some will become critically ill and die. When COVID-19 occurs in elderly people or people currently suffering from another medical ailment such as obesity or diabetes (i.e., comorbidity), the disease is likely to be more severe. Scientists are still learning about the long-term effects of COVID-19 that occur.
Not all people experience the same set of symptoms from the disease. The Mayo Clinic has an informative website that describes the variety of symptoms that may reveal the presence of COVID-19. This site also has a link to a Self-Checker that enables a person to make decisions on when to seek testing and a doctor’s care if they are concerned about having COVID-19.
Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is primarily from person to person. Some people who don’t appear to have any symptoms of the disease (i.e., asymptomatic persons) are capable of spreading the disease. Tiny respiratory droplets from the nose or mouth are responsible for spreading the disease when an infected person coughs, speaks, sings, or exhales. Although the virus can survive for a short period on some surfaces, fomite transmission is not thought to be a frequent way the virus spreads.
In the absence of vaccines to prevent COVID-19, BCMs such as hand washing, mask wearing, and social distancing are relied upon to control transmission of the disease. In addition to these protective actions taken by individuals, controlling transmission of the disease is dependent upon testing people to determine whether they are hosts to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. People who show symptoms of COVID-19 should avoid person-to-person contacts until they are tested to determine whether they carry the disease. Testing is especially important to detect non-symptomatic individuals who, because they feel perfectly healthy, could be unknowingly spreading the disease to others with whom they are in contact.
Contact tracing is the next step to maintain control of the infection. It is important to identify all persons who have been in contact with an individual who previously tested positive for the virus.
Ensuring that these contacted individuals do not interact with others is critical in order to protect communities from further spread. Therefore, case investigators and contact tracers need to immediately identify and interview people with SARS CoV-2 infections and COVID-19. All infected individuals should be urged to isolate themselves. Contacts must be warned of their exposure and their symptoms. After assessing the individual’s risk of becoming ill, s/he must be provided with instructions for next steps. Those contacts that show symptoms must be informed about the importance of testing and care.
If communities are unable to effectively isolate patients and ensure contacts can separate themselves from others, rapid community spread of COVID-19 is likely to increase to the point that strict mitigation strategies will again be needed to contain the virus. The isolation of symptomatic cases and tracing of contacts has been used as an early COVID-19 containment measure in many countries, with additional physical distancing measures also introduced as outbreaks have grown. A description of this process is presented for Scotland.
The ease of transmission and highly infectious nature of the disease can sicken enough people to place real burdens on even the most advanced health care systems. Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 typically require a high level of supportive and intensive care to treat the disease successfully. This often involves helping the patient to breathe. Such assistance may require intubation (inserting a breathing tube into the patient’s airway either through the mouth or directly in the trachea). Intubation is necessary when a patient must be placed on a ventilator that moves air in and out of the lungs.
Hospitalization may be only a matter of a few days. However, some patients, especially those that require intensive care, have been hospitalized for months. Importantly, hospital staff, nurses, and doctors that treat COVID-19 patients are in danger of getting the disease themselves, especially if they are not furnished with the personal protective equipment (PPE) necessary to shield them from the virus transmitted by their patients.
Because it is caused by a novel coronavirus, both therapeutics and vaccines had to be developed to treat patients with COVID-19 and to protect the public from spread of the disease. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains a website that contains the most recent information about available and effective therapeutics. Links are provided to sites with additional technical information regarding treatment guidelines and clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also maintains a website with current information on COVID-19 therapeutics.
The COVID-19 outbreak necessitated the development of vaccines to protect the public from the disease. By December of 2020, two vaccines received emergency use authorization and several others were in the midst of clinical trials necessary for FDA approval. The CDC’s website Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work explains the mechanisms utilized by various vaccines to mobilize a person’s immune system to defend the body from the virus. Links are provided to websites with more detailed information about each of the approved vaccines. A collaboration between the CDC and ID Week (a forum for health professionals of varied backgrounds) maintains a website with up-to-date information about the availability of vaccines, including those still in clinical trial phases.
The State of New Jersey has a very informative website related to COVID-19 that contains official government information about:
determining whether you are experiencing symptoms of the disease;
the importance and availability of testing for the disease;
the availability of benefit programs and employment search assistance for those who have lost their jobs; and,
details about the process and timing of the reopening of businesses and institutions in the State.
Information about the outbreak of COVID-19 throughout the U.S. and the rest of the world can be found on the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center website. Data are updated daily and provide figures for confirmed cases and confirmed deaths down to the level of counties. There is also a running total of the number of vaccinations given in each state.
An excellent and entertaining summary of information about the COVID-19 pandemic is available in a video of Bill Gates who appeared on the Daily Show on April 2, 2020. Information about a variety of COVID-19 issues confronting the WHO is available on YouTube. Of special interest is a video calling for leadership among young people in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.
The United Nations (UN) has launched a new COVID-19 Communications Response Initiative based on science. A rapid response team is being formed to help share facts and science to overcome a surge of misinformation about the disease and its spread.
The UN is tackling the spread of misinformation in a variety of ways, including these five strategies. First, UN Information Centers throughout the world produce and disseminate facts and accurate information in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). Second, the UN partnered with businesses, viz., WhatsApp and Facebook, that helped the WHO to share critical guidance on COVID-19. Third, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in conjunction with the International Center for Journalists, has published two policy briefs that assess the COVID-19 ‘disinfodemic’ of falsehoods, fabrications and misinformation. Fourth, the UN’s Department of Global Communications, in affiliation with the WHO, conducted a survey about COVID-19 to learn what misinformation, stigma and myths are circulating around the world and threatening the global response. Fifth, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke out against restrictive measures imposed by several States against the independent media and for the free flow information that is vital in fighting COVID-19.