Novel Corona Virus
(Photo : REUTERS/Thomas Peter)
A medical worker and police stand at a checkpoint as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Susong County, Anhui province, China, February 6, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

The novel corona virus continues to spread like wild fire as cases and death toll rises. As of February 7, there have been 31465 confirmed cases and 638 deaths recorded around the globe but majority of these are from China.

In some countries there has been also a rise in number that has the governments worried. Japan, for one already has 86 cases which is the highest number of cases in a country outside China.

Moreover, Dr. Li Wenlian, the Chinese doctor who tried to reveal the spread of the "pneumonia-like virus" died from the virus he was trying to warn people about. His death sparked grief from all over the country and people have also expressed their anger about the whistle blower doctor being targeted by the police when he tried to publicize the outbreak in its early stages.

It can be recalled that the doctor posted on WeChat, a Chinese messaging application about how a "SARS-like" disease has infected patients from a local seafood market in Wuhan. Also revealing that they have been quarantined in his hospital.

Not long after posting the message in an alumni group for his medical school, Li was immediately targeted by the Wuhan police for allegedly starting a rumor and sounding alarm about the deadly virus weeks before the outbreak became widespread.

According to a statement released by the hospital, the ophthalmologist was infected while at work trying to help fight off the epidemic.

The nCoV whistle blower doctor who was diagnosed with the virus January 12 and was tested positive on February 1 died in Wuhan Hospital, early morning in Friday.

Furthermore, two newborn babies have been added to the number of corona virus cases in Wuhan, China.
The youngest was diagnosed with the disease only after 30 hours of being born to a mother who was infected by the virus. Experts, however, are still unclear on how the babies contacted the diseases as there are many ways for them to be exposed to the virus.

According to CCTV, there may be a possibility that it was a mother-infant transmission. However, without more information it is still not possible to know if the babies were indeed infected in the womb. A lot of other factors could have caused the infections to the newborns such as but not limited to handling healthcare workers, droplet transmission from coughing mother, the delivery process or through breast feeding.

Susan McLellan of the University of Texas Medical Branc said that it is not clear yet if the baby was infected through exposure to mucous secretions from the mother or if it was blood borne through the mother's placenta.

A medical professor at Britain's University of East Anglia further added that a baby born through normal delivery is exposed to it's mother's microbiome thus there is no telling yet if if the baby was infected during birth or in the womb.

On the brighter side of things, there are patients who were infected in the US, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam who have been discharged in from the hospitals.

With talks on how this outbreak that China tried to keep down is starting to become a pandemic and spreading around the world, people have began speculating this may be another end of the world phenomenon.

According to a column by News Straight Times' David Christy, with the 2019 nCoV, the locusts swarms in East Africa, the Australian bush fires and even with the world's leaders today, it seems like the prophecy of the four horsemen of the  Apocalypse is coming true.

Thus Christ sought what people think and are speculating regarding this. Most people are worried on how these tragedies happen very early in the year and how fast they are spreading. Although only few of them believe that these are apocalyptic signs and these are just trials that humanity can survive.