Science: COVID-19 Special, Public Awareness

 

If you have been following the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia is heading into a dangerous situation at an alarming rate. As of May 2021, we observe the highest infection rate per million population, ahead of the United States and even India! Whatever happened has happened, but it is what happens next that is crucial. We are fighting an invisible enemy, which I guess a lot of us Malaysians misunderstood because Malaysia failed science education and public awareness. The COVID-19 pandemic is a game changer equivalent of a world war, and here's what I've learnt from it. In the coming two posts, I will tell you how this pandemic has changed my view on medicine, chemistry and public awareness of science. After all, the very reason I started this blog is for sake of public education.

COVID-19 is not just one single virus that everyone is dealing with. We are certainly not accustomed to the microscopic world, but let me make the virus human size for you so that we can better comprehend the situation. Just one cough can generate as many as 100,000 viral particles, which can remain airborne for at least ten minutes. It only takes a few to start a new infection. Imagine yourself fighting with 100,000 men at once, what are your chances even if it's just for ten minutes? What’s more, these “men” are attacking you like buckshot. Chances are, you will get infected! Respiratory viruses like COVID have perfected this art of war over aeons of evolution. So please, double mask up if you are out in the public and do it properly! You don't buckshot people around you with 100,000 viruses.

A virus is just a string of gene wrapped in fat and protein. In that sense, COVID is like a plate of extra cheesy pasta. What do you do when you get yourself buckshot with extra cheesy pasty? You wash it with soap and water! If you don’t have soap, you use a solvent like high strength alcohol that can dissolve fat. Now that everywhere is full of dirty pasta, what do you do ? You stay at home and don’t simply go everywhere! Finally, if your house has dirty pasta, what do you do? You wash it with powerful detergent like bleach, but you do not wash yourself with bleach, am I right? That’s common sense.

When every virus enters our body, our body will automatically launch a counterattack. The moment a virus infects you, it is a dead end for that particular virus. Its only aim in “life” (a virus is between dead or alive) is to make more of itself and escape your body before its eventual destruction. This is true regardless of your survival in the end. That means every virus including COVID-19 faces a dilemma. In choice 1, it can exploit your body extensively, making you very sick in the process to make more of itself quickly. Alternatively in choice 2, it be quiet and slowly reproduce while you are relatively well. The first choice is good because COVID gets to increase its bullet power. However, if the host fights back too hard and becomes too sick to infect others, COVID defeats its own purpose and goes extinct. Too deadly is too bad. On the contrary, COVID can sacrifice its bullet power in choice 2, but it gets more chances to spread around silently. Life is a tradeoff for everyone. What would you do if you are COVID?

 

Unlike us, COVID doesn’t have a brain, but it has numbers on its side. And just like us, COVID makes mistakes. When COVID makes mistakes at copying itself, new mutants, or variants arises, each with its own choices to make. For now, COVID’s choice is clear, and it changes according to the type of people it infects. COVID chooses choice 2 for young people with healthy immune system, hence next to being asymptomatic. However, for weak people who can’t fight back appropriately, COVID chooses choice 1. Remember that a virus will always try to survive and make more of itself. Now consider this, the more COVID out there, the more likely it is to make mistakes and new variants. These new variants will have to decide between choice 1 and choice 2 to survive. The most successful variants get to rule the world.

But here’s the bombshell, that choice is not up to COVID because as I said, a virus is mindless. It is actually humans who decide what choices COVID would take. That’s why some wishful thinking people think COVID will tame itself naturally over time. If everyone gets COVID and develops herd immunity (or better, from mass vaccination), the host population becomes stronger and stronger, forcing COVID to take choice 2, which is to become less virulent. However, that is not always the case! If we give COVID the chance to spread without worry (like in Malaysia and India), it will happily exploit our body to increase bullet power. If transmission is not a limiting factor, nothing prevents a virus from becoming more and more deadly. After all, it is okay for the virus to kill you since it can escape your body and infect others anyways. Thus, if Malaysians continue to allow COVID to spread without worry, our fate will be the same as India. We will eventually select for a COVID variant that is not just highly infectious, but more deadly. The choice is up to us. I don’t know how much time we have left, but I suppose it's never too late to start. Prevention is better than any vaccine or cure!

This is evolution by natural selection, something Malaysians are never taught, and that’s why we suck today. There is simply a lack of awareness. Humans and viruses are both products of evolution and we will always try to survive. Nature selects for the strongest to survive, strongest in terms of survival strategy gene. Evolution by natural selection is harsh and merciless, but we humans have a choice! We need not end up like India. If we would all act now to be more aware and responsible, we can shape the evolution of this virus and force it to become milder and milder. China has done it, albeit with extremely strict human measures. Accept this, COVID-19 will remain with us and co-evolve with us for a very long time. Perhaps we can’t make peace with it yet, but at least we don’t make it deadlier every day. Good luck, Malaysia.

PS: For non-Malaysian readers who may not know where and what is Malaysia, we are a tiny Southeast Asian country who's famous for its multi-ethnic society, biodiversity and natural resources. Malaysia is considered as a developing country in terms of technology and development, but as far as science education goes, we still have a lot more to catch up.