The new corona virus: the last epidemic to hit the human race

Today's medicine was able to discover the genetic sequence of the corona virus within weeks, and it is only a matter of time before they develop a vaccine. Advances in medicine will allow in the near future rapid vaccinations and good supportive care for those who are still infected, perhaps even nano robots

Millions of people found themselves under siege inside their homes, and were instructed not to leave them for weeks. The epidemic raged in the streets, jumping from person to person without being able to be stopped - just like the mass panic.

I'm referring, of course, to the famous Spanish flu: the disease that spread in 1918 and killed between fifty and one hundred million people in a year or so.

We are currently in the midst of another global epidemic, so it is interesting to compare the two - especially to understand how medicine has progressed in the last hundred years, and why the new epidemic may be the last to broadly strike the human race.

Let's go back, then, a hundred years back in time, to the period when the Spanish flu hit the cities of the world. It mostly killed the healthy adults - probably because the sneaky virus misled the healthy and robust immune system and caused it to go out of control. Widows and widowers filled the cemeteries, and the whole world was flooded with the cries of children who had lost their parents.

And no one knew why.

It's hard for us to understand this ignorance today, but modern medicine is, well, modern. Until the end of the 19th century, no one even suspected the existence of viruses. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that scientists were able to start growing and studying viruses in the laboratory. So when the flu hit the population, no one was able to discover its cause. The mystics believed that it was an influence of the arrangement of the heavenly bodies in the solar system, and that is why the disease was called influenza. Others tried to pin the cause on bacteria that used to invade the decaying lungs of the patients. There were many guesses, and zero certainty.

Only 15 years after the epidemic, two British researchers were able to prove that viruses are the cause of the flu, and the planets have nothing to do with the disease. But the name was not easy to change, and so we were left with "flu". It took humanity 15 long years to establish the identity of one of the greatest murderers of the twentieth century.

the situation today

We will jump back to the present, to March 2020. Then we will go back two or three months.

Already in mid-December, laboratories in China began to receive samples of the virus from doctors who treated patients with pneumonia. Sequencing the genetic code of the virus proved within a few days that it was a virus with great genetic similarity to the infamous SARS (which was also a corona virus), and the laboratory managers tried to warn about this - but the centralized government in China prevented them from doing so. Only at the beginning of January was one laboratory brave enough to publish the genetic code on the Internet. And suddenly, hundreds of research laboratories all over the world began to try to decipher what the virus means, how it works and what makes it unique. And of course, everyone is trying to find a vaccine for it.

Until a vaccine is found for the virus, we will have to make do with drugs. In 1918, treatments for the flu ranged from bloodletting to quinine (which is used to treat malaria, and is ineffective against the flu). There were no antiviral drugs, or even antibiotics in the world yet. Today, the most severe patients with the virus receive antibiotic treatment to deal with the bacteria that take advantage of the weakened immune system and cause pneumonia. They can also be treated with antiviral drugs that were primarily developed to fight the HIV virus, but may be able to help here as well. We even have machines that are able to function as replacement lungs for the most seriously ill, while their bodies recover. The chance of recovery in such a situation is admittedly low - but it definitely exists.

The clear differences between the medicine of 1918 and the situation today show how much we have progressed, and how the scientific world is able to understand the enemy it is dealing with in just days - and mount an appropriate response. This is still not enough, as can be understood from the fact that the virus continues to circulate throughout the world and infect many every day. But it is also clear that we are on the trend of improvement.

It is interesting to ask how the world will deal with a new epidemic in thirty years. I don't want to jump a hundred years ahead, because the dizzying progress in science and technology makes me hesitant to even make guesses in such time frames. Some people may not even have biological or physical bodies at the time. Maybe we will completely eradicate all diseases with nanobots that will be in the bodies of all human beings, and will fight any new virus as soon as it finds its way into the body. But there is still a long time until then. We will focus on 2050 and draw a short scenario.

The future of disease treatment

In 2050, Shmuel Shmuelovich of Hadera started coughing, wheezing and suffocating. He didn't make it to the hospital, God forbid. Instead, his wife (some things don't change) called a robotic ambulance to the house. Shmuel was put into the ambulance on a stretcher, and skilled robotic arms checked his medical condition, connected him to an oxygen cylinder and took saliva samples from his throat and other parts of his body. In less than an hour, it was already clear that Shmuelovich was infected with a mutated virus, with the ability to spread similar to the flu, and with serious health consequences - according to the simulation that the computer ran regarding the virus' capabilities, based on its genetic structure and its resemblance to other viruses. The ambulance came to the conclusion that it was a particularly contagious virus.

And at that moment, millions of similar ambulances all over the world, along with advanced laboratories, hospitals and universities, received the message.

The caregivers - the autonomous ambulances and the hospitals - began to examine each new patient with similar symptoms, to understand if it was the same virus. The patients were automatically transferred to isolation without seeing anyone on the way there. The ambulances sterilized themselves after each patient treatment, using a combination of UV light and disinfectants.

At the same time, researchers began to develop a vaccine for the virus. The process took an hour, then a week. The sophisticated artificial intelligence pointed out the parts of the virus that are most suitable for creating a vaccine, and developed within one hour a recommendation regarding the most likely component for creating a vaccine, which would not cause harm to the people who would receive it. Then, since humans don't like to blindly trust the machines, the vaccine was tested on a few dozen humans. In less than a week it was already clear that none of them got sick, and that they all developed high levels of appropriate antibodies in response to the vaccine. Just as the machines predicted.

So great, within a week there was already a vaccine. But how do you send it to the whole world? The answer is simple: the vaccine is not sent. Send the digital information about its composition, and hospitals and laboratories can start producing it in a matter of moments. Everywhere, all over the planet.

Shmuelovich was no longer helped by all this. Vaccination cannot help those who are already infected. His condition began to deteriorate as the virus spread through his body. The doctors, alongside the machines, decided there was no escape from trying an innovative treatment: nano-robots. Shmuelovich's bloodstream was injected with millions of tiny nanobots, each smaller than a white blood cell, which targeted and destroyed the viruses. The nanobots also stimulated Shmuelovich's immune system so it could better fight viruses, and along the way they also killed the cells the viruses infected. Shmuelowitz experienced a severe immune reaction as a result of the war of annihilation that took place in his body, but one day later he was already healthy. The epidemic was stopped in just one week, with no casualties.

This scenario is optimistic, of course, but it is not implausible. If technology and science continue to develop at the rate expected of them, then the technologies described in this scenario should be available to all. And if you don't believe me, wait thirty years, and contact me to tell me if I was right or not.

Until then - only health.

For Dr.Roey Tsezana's blog article, The Guide to the Future

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• Scientists warn: a new virus will wipe out humanity within five years. is that so?
• No country in the world is prepared to deal with the corona virus, and most of them are unable to receive data in real time
• An Israeli vaccine for avian coronavirus will be adapted for humans and undergo a clinical trial