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A coronavirus is a deadly disease caused by a virus. It is a contagious airborne disease transmitted by droplets containing the virus when people breathe in contaminated air. When people are affected by COVID-19, they experience cold, cough, headache, fever, and especially shortness of breath. People started to suffocate and experience shortness of breath. A gradual increase in covid cases led to a shortage of medical devices, which became the ground-glass opacity. Hence, several NGOs, celebrities, and social activists came forward and started to contribute and planned to produce ventilators at their expense.
COVID-19
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Most people contaminated with the virus will experience mild to medium respiratory illness and recover without special treatment. Nevertheless, some people will become extremely ill and need medical attention. More aged people and those with underlying medical conditions like diabetes, chronic respiratory and cardiovascular disease, or cancer are better likely to acquire serious illnesses. Anyone can get sick or die at any age.
As the first wave affected aged people and was hit with fewer deaths, a devastating second wave caused crematoriums and hospitals to be overwhelmed and widespread shortages of medical devices, which became ground-glass opacity during the pandemic.
Shortage of Medical Devices
Eventually, the second wave caused rising demand and shortage of medical devices, mainly personal protective equipment, ventilators, masks, and sanitisers. This puts lives at risk from the recent second wave and other infectious diseases.
Personal protective equipment
Frontline workers rely on protective equipment to protect (PPE) themselves and patients from being infected and infecting others. Thus, the shortage of medical devices left doctors, nurses, and other frontline workers dangerously ill-equipped to care for COVID-19 patients due to restricted access to medical masks, respirators, gloves, gowns, and face shields, and aprons. Without assured supply chains, the risk to frontline and healthcare workers worldwide is real. Enterprises and governments acted fast to increase supply, reduce export limitations, and set measures to stop hoarding and speculation.
Ventilators
Ventilators are mechanical devices that have become a shield against the COVID-19, the final hope for the people to survive who can no longer pull a life-sustaining breath. However, the ventilator also made a crisis point in a patient’s life and led to the shortage of medical devices becoming ground-glass opacity during the pandemic.
The problem is that the shortage of medical devices led all the intensive care units to delay putting a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator until the last possible moment when it is truly a life-or-death decision. They let the people tolerate a little more oxygen deficiency and give them more oxygen. They do not intubate them until they indeed suffer from respiratory distress. Hence if they put somebody on the ventilator when they need it and not prematurely, the ventilator is the only option.
These critically made numerous ill patients die because they were sick and needed a ventilator to remain alive.
Surgical Mask
As the coronavirus fright rises, sanitisers and masks have suddenly increased in demand, jacking up their prices and becoming short in supply. Due to the increase in demand, many medical stores are facing shortages of medical devices, and at the same time, all the stores have increased their prices. Surgical masks have witnessed a sixfold increase, N95 respirators have tripled, and gowns have doubled. As the supplies can take months to deliver, there is widespread market manipulation, with stocks constantly sold to the highest bidder.
Planned to Produce Ventilators
As the Sar-CoV-2 virus targets the lungs and kills people from acute lung infections such as respiratory distress and pneumonia, ventilators become the key determinant of COVID-19. Therefore the government planned to produce ventilators that became the need of the hour. They planned to produce local ventilators to reduce the number of COVID-19 patients and break the chain. In India, most ventilators are either assembled or imported; hence to reduce the number of COVID-19 patients, it is essential to provide intensive care and a ventilator. Therefore the government needs to produce ventilators so that we do not face a critical situation.
Hence COVID-19 affects humans adversely; as an individual, we should protect ourselves by wearing a proper mask, washing our hands frequently using sanitisers, maintaining social distance, and getting vaccinated when it’s our turn.
Conclusion
Since the virus is not entirely evacuated worldwide, the better way to stop and control transmission is to be well informed about the infection and how the virus spreads all over. Initially, people are affected by COVID-19, and they experience cold, cough, headache, fever, and especially shortness of breath. A gradual increase in covid cases led to a shortage of medical devices becoming the ground-glass opacity. Hence, several NGOs, celebrities, and social activists came forward and started to contribute and planned to produce ventilators at their expense. Also, as an individual, we need to protect and take proper measures to prevent ourselves.
