Non-Adherence To Coronavirus Health Guidelines Is The Reason For 2nd Wave – NMA

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Plateau state chapter, Dr Innocent Emmanuel, Chairman has come out to say the 2nd wave of COVID-19 is as a result of poor and non-adherence to the virus’s non-pharmaceutical guidelines.

Dr Innocent Emmanuel recently revealed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, locations where people adhered to the guidelines had lesser cases, and this is proof that disobedience to rules is the problem.

He added that only physical distancing, hand washing, wearing of face mask and the avoidance of crowded places can help to reduce the spread of the disease in Nigeria.

His words, “We need to go back to the basics by ensuring adherence to the COVID-19 non pharmaceutical guidelines, as we cannot afford another lockdown and the economic challenges that come with the pandemic.

“It is pertinent that we adhere to the rules to ensure that we do not have the morbidity and mortality that comes with the virus.”

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Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.