Evaluating and mitigating the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic

The exact dates of the first COVID-19 outbreaks may remain an unresolved mystery. Unless reliable sources and records can be traced and retained, efforts to trace when initial infections took place, may even constitute a greater task than the other question relating to how it was instigated – the latter having (it appears) to have been partially resolved. The uncertainty and lack of knowledge about the nature of the transmitting organism, as well as the manner of transmission, still constitutes a puzzle and it is even possible that many patients might have died long before the prominence of infections became known to authorities. It is also now acknowledged that humans may have contracted the virus unknowingly without manifesting the usual symptoms. How is it then possible to verify whether many deaths prior to the official reporting outbreak timing of the 12th December 2019, were not linked to asymptomatic patients? Furthermore, does the transmitting agent bear similarities to the flu virus – in which case, it becomes a seasonal problem? This underlines how vital it is to secure vaccines and antibodies which can combat its spread. Amongst several other objectives, this paper not only aims to highlight why global coordination and certainty of information is so vital, but also highlight measures which have been, and could be undertaken, to address and mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak.