A Detailed Guide On Coronavirus Recovery A Detailed Guide On Coronavirus Recovery

The new coronavirus pandemic, called covid19 has successfully put the world to a sudden halt. The rate at which covid19 has spread is a growing concern.The U.S. has witnessed 100,000 cases of coronavirus in a single day.

The fact that we don’t even know how to specifically stop it makes it scary. Initially, there was news that it can’t survive in highly temperate regions. Some also said it targets older people. While thoughts about its transmission centred on direct contact with a carrier.

However, the recent trend in the spread of the deadly covid19 virus has given us more than we can chew.

Not only has it spread, but it has also killed people in the temperate region. Likewise, records have shown quite a lot of young folks who have tested positive for coronavirus. Infants aren’t even left out!

Likewise, the deadly virus can live on surfaces for as long as 24 hours and even for a few days on some. So, beyond contact with the direct carrier, there’s a potential of contacting it from surfaces like door handles in public places, transport park rails, counters, ATM and so on.

Terrifying, right?

The good thing, however, is that the severity of illness for people who get infected is low.

SARS-COV and MERS, which were epidemic in 2003 and 2012, didn’t spread as much has Covid19 has already. But, the percentage of people who needed to be hospitalized after getting infected was very high.

With covid19, a high percentage of the infected people have been hospitalized. A majority can adopt self-isolation at home, recovering a few days after showing covid19 symptoms.

UNDERSTANDING COVID19 – INCUBATION PERIOD AND TRANSMISSION

Since January, the virus has mushroomed, infecting people across the world. The first thing to avoid is panicking.

The new virus, covid19 is unarguably dangerous, given the death toll recorded but the first step to treating a problem is to not panic. Try to understand the situation at hand.

Covid19, as it is officially used by WHO in public speech is the respiratory illness caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus. It is the latest virus from the group of coronaviruses to become epidemic after SARS and MERS.

Its emergence made it the 7th type of coronaviruses known to affect humans. Four of the viruses mostly cause mild infection to the upper respiratory tracts. They are known to circulate in humans.

The other three are MERS, SARS-COV and the new covid19 virus. These three are zoonotic, with an intermediate animal host. They jump from the animal to humans.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was believed to come from dromedary camels from the Arabian Peninsula. This is seen in its widespread usage amongst countries near the Arabian Peninsula like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) on the other hand has its source associated with bats. It originated from the Guangdong province of Southern China. The 2003 SARS outbreak led to approximately 800 deaths from the over 8000 cases recorded. Thanks to self-isolation and quarantine, it was contained

These two viruses have a very close relation to the new coronavirus – covid19. Like them, it is also zoonotic. Its sources are believed to be from an animal market at Wuhan, China. Although, the particular animal hasn’t been confirmed.

WHAT ARE SIGNS THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE CONTRACTED CORONAVIRUS?

The trend of illness from covid19 has been in different dimensions. There have been different symptoms as well as levels of severity.

In terms of severity, we’ve seen mild and asymptomatic cases. Likewise, there have been cases of moderate illness up to severe ones leading to distress in breathing, severe pneumonia, organ failure, and deaths!

Most times, signs of covid19 begin when you start to feel high-temperature fever, fatigue or dry cough. Other common covid19 symptoms include headache, sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches, diarrhea, shortness of breath and tight chest.

Generally, the incubation period for the coronavirus is between 1 to 14 days. That means, within this period, you’ll get some covid19 symptoms that eventually reveal you’ve contracted the virus.

For some people, however, they are asymptomatic, showing no symptoms. Most times, people like this only need to stay at home, practice self-isolation, maintain regularly hygienic measures and would recover in no time.

If your case is a mild one, where you display any of those covid19 symptoms, you don’t need to panic either. Reports have shown that people recover within 2 weeks of self-isolation and monitoring their symptoms. Most times, needing no serious medication or hospitalization.

Only severe cases where illness from covid19 led to conditions like septic shock, organ dysfunction, and respiratory distress. These are the set of people that needs to be compulsorily hospitalized.

So, if I show covid19 symptoms, how do I know what to do? How do I practice self-isolation? How sure am I that I will recover by myself? How do I even confirm I have recovered?

Yes, everyone is that worried and confused. Covid19 is new to everyone and there are many questions to be answered. The next parts of this article are dedicated to guiding you on how to prepare against the illness and what you can do when you feel sick

FIRST THINGS FIRST

The asymptomatic nature of covid19 has put potentially everyone in danger. So, it is better to prepare the mind that you could develop symptoms of coronavirus. It is thus advised that you stock up while you’re still healthy.

The first things on your list should be household goods and food. As much as you want to prepare for coronavirus recovery, having food is top of the list. Eating healthily and resting might be just all you need 0066or coronavirus recovery.

Stock up now!

Other Items that you’ll need for coronavirus recovery include;

Hand sanitizers and antibacterial soaps
Vitamin C
Zinc lozenges
Medicines like acetaminophen, naproxen, ibuprofen, and oseltamivir that can help with cold and flu
Thermometer, for monitoring your fever temperature

With these items and food, of course, you are in the right direction for preparing for potential illness from covid19 and coronavirus recovery.

So, what if I wake up feeling sick? Don’t panic! I repeat, don’t panic!

Especially if you’re not at high risk of severe illness from covid19, as specified in the CDC guide. Mild covid19 symptoms such as high-temperature fever, dry cold, and general malaise are what you’ll witness at worse.

You shouldn’t think of medical care yet as you can achieve a full coronavirus recovery from self-treatment and self-isolation.

All you need is to take precautions, monitor yourself symptoms and you can achieve a successful coronavirus recovery at home.

CORONAVIRUS RECOVERY TIPS

Even if you don’t get to test for coronavirus, taking care of yourself when you get covid19 symptoms is important. The thing is, whether you eventually get tested, the treatment doesn’t change. So, being proactive having tested or not is very important in this pandemic.

The first step as earlier noted is getting needed items at home for your treatment. You’re going to feel a bit crappy, just like when you have flu or mild pneumonia. But with coronavirus recovery, you need more precautions and things to do.

Prepare for Self-Isolation

Self-Isolation is key to coronavirus recovery. In 2003, when SARS was pandemic, quarantine and isolation of infected people helped contain the virus. This is the reason why a similar technique has been advised for the new coronavirus recovery.

In observing self-isolation, the following precautions are necessary to achieve coronavirus recovery as well as preventing spread to family members.

1. Stop sharing of any personal items

Items such as dish plates, towels, drinking glass, and bed space should be limited to you alone. This is especially important when you live with people. Keeping these items clean before and after use is equally important.

2. Wear a face mask or face cloth cover

To avoid spreading droplets from your sneeze or cough, it is important you have a covering cloth across your nose and mouth. This is important to avoid infecting people taking care of you. Because this virus can leave on surfaces, you need to avoid getting infected.

In case of times you don’t cover your face, endeavor to dispose of used tissue papers immediately and wash your hand with soap for at least 20 secs.

3. Limit contact with pets

Although, no reports of animals getting infected from humans. It is important to stay away from them still. Especially because, others could be infected from touching them after you did.

4. Take your medication and stay hydrated

Just like when you have the flu or cold, those medicines that work for you are your best bet. Covid19 doesn’t bring special flu, especially when you’re experiencing only a mild case of covid19 symptoms. So, either acetaminophen, naproxen, ibuprofen, and oseltamivir should help you through.

Other simple drugs like paracetamol can help with the headache. The main point here is, you have to take care of yourself just like you’ll when normally ill. Take more water, and get a lot of rest too.

5. Ensure to get your house disinfected and maintain routine hygiene precautions

High-touch surfaces and items around your self-isolation area should be regularly cleaned. Disinfect your house and items like bedside tables, remote controls, doorknobs, bathroom counters and electronic devices in your home.

Avoid touching your eyes, or putting unwashed hands in your mouth. Use hand sanitizers with at least 60% alcohol after handling or touching items.

Ok, what should I watch out for while maintaining these coronavirus recovery hacks? Maybe after a few days, a week or two?

Also Read: COVID19 AND ASTHMA PATIENTS: SHOULD THEY BE MORE WORRIED?

Monitor your covid19 symptoms

The main reason for self-isolation is to contain the virus and recover back to your normal health state. Thus, it is important to keep a regular check on the changes in the symptoms you earlier noticed.

Put your thermometer to work, see if your temperature has returned to its normal level. See if you no longer have recurring headaches. How about the cold and fatigue?

All these will help you decide if your coronavirus recovery procedures are taking shape. If they are, as we expect, then, yes! You can think of ending your self-isolation!

ENDING SELF-ISOLATION – WHEN AND HOW?

As reported by WHO, those with mild cases complete coronavirus recovery within 2 weeks. Severe cases can last for about 3-6 weeks.

So, in 2 weeks, after maintaining the right coronavirus recovery hacks, you could be on your way out of covid19 infection. But when can you be certain that you’re free of coronavirus?

For now, two strategies, as specified by CDC are available to confirm this. So, if you’ve been isolated for quite a while, you can end your self-isolation as follows.

1. Test-Based Strategy

Although, this may be hard to achieve. The testing strength for covid19 is quite low across the world. So, you might not be able to confirm your status by testing.

However, if you’ll be playing this road, the conditions to be met include;

No sign of fever in the last 72 hours of stopping fever-reducing medications.
All covid19 symptoms like cough, shortness of breath and recurring headache have improved significantly
You’ve received 2 negative covid19 test results that are 24 hours apart.

2. Non-test-based Strategy

This is most likely the option available to you. Why go for a test when you didn’t compulsorily need it in the first instant of seeing covid19 symptoms, right?

So, why don’t we continue our home coronavirus recovery magic?

Signs that you can end your self-isolation must include the following;

No sign of fever in the last 72 hours of stopping fever-reducing medications.
All covid19 symptoms like cough, shortness of breath and recurring headache have improved significantly
At least 7 days have passed since your covid19 symptoms first began.

CLOSING WORDS

Covid19 has come in a range of severity and symptoms. Many people are asymptomatic while some only show mild covid19 symptoms. Likewise, only a few people with severe illness need urgent hospitalization.

So, understanding how the virus spread, and what to do when you feel ill is important.

Just as we emphasized, stocking up the food supply and household goods should be top of your priority as you’ll need them a lot while trying to recover from covid19. Also, shopping for medicines that work for you with just cold and flu is advised. This will help you fight the illness while you’re at home recovering.

Within 2 weeks, you should be ready to bid covid19 farewell if you stick to the directives. Whether you’ll get tested or not, it is important to stay proactive, prepare your mind and have contacts of appropriate medical facilities around you.

Stay safe, stay alert. We will survive this together!

Reference

Tags: What is coronavirus, Coronavirus cases, Coronavirus news