Back to the Normalcy; Is It Possible After the Latest Coronavirus Disease-Covid-19 Attack?

Abstract

While writing these sentences I feel a sharp pain in my throat and even sharper is disturbing my heart-the fear of severe contagious disease. At the same time stressful radio news warn me how the infection could be dangerous: informing about the number of newly diagnosed, those who died yesterday, and those that are on ventilators.On December 29, 2019 the first four cases of "pneumonia of unknown etiology" were identified by local hospitals, all linked to the Huanan (Southern China) Seafood Whole-Sale Market. Since then an increasing number of cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia have been identified in Wuhan, a large city of 11 million people in Central China [1]. Pneumonia of unknown etiology is defined as an illness without identified causative pathogen that fulfills following criteria: fever (≥38°C), radiographic evidence of pneumonia, low or normal white blood cell count or low lymphocyte count, and no symptomatic improvement after antimicrobial treatment for 3 to 5 days following the standard clinical guidelines. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was quickly identified. On January 31, 2020, the WHO declared coronavirus a global health emergency. It abruptly generated a worldwide pandemic [1,2]. The experience from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) case definitions as recommended by the WHO in 2003 and 2012 respectively were applied, but the new coronavirus unexpectedly showed its sneaky nature. It was different and it produced confusion and uncertainty among members of "The expert community". Whoever gave opinions and prognoses was deeply wrong.Coronavirus outbreak forced us to interrupt our normal activities and to postpone our annual meetings and congresses. It seemed that it disrupted all activities on the planet except the bare essentials. The burden of the severe cases of SARS-CoV-2 overwhelmed health care capacities even in the developed western countries. Besides infectologists, pulmonologists, and anesthesiologists, many different specialists and subspecialists were engaged as first -line practitioners in the triage of suspected patients and even in the treatment of severely ill patients in need of vital support. The younger ones have been forced to work for months in so-called COVID -hospitals, changing their focus of clinical practice and scientific interest towards practical essentials in the treatment of COVID-19 infected patients. Virus gave us a lecture on how arrogant but helpless and minor we are at the same time. We are not permitted to go outside without masks, to shake hands with colleagues, nor to hug friends or family members-restrictions advised to patients with immunodeficiency. Just as COVID-19 causes physiological dysfunction in patients, so too, it caused systemic