The spread of the coronavirus is increasing and increasing. The Covid-19 virus is now spreading not only in China, but also in South Korea, Iran and some parts of Italy. How do you know what happens next? Do you dare to travel at all?
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Coronavirus - Covid-19
The coronavirus that is spreading across the world, originating in China, has now been named Covid-19. We wrote about the the coronavirus on 1 February, when a total of 9800 cases of the virus had been diagnosed. Now the number has increased almost tenfold and we have seen the spread of the virus as close as Italy. What to think about the spread of the coronavirus now? Do people dare to travel anywhere at all?
The spread of the coronavirus
According to the latest update from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) (25 February), more than 80,000 cases of the novel coronavirus have been diagnosed and 2,698 people have died as a result of the infection.
Around 97% of all cases are in China (reported on 25 February), but there are also cases in other parts of the world. Recently, the spread of the disease has been reported in some areas of South Korea, Italy and Iran, which can be interpreted as worrying.
This information will of course soon be out of date, but you can read continuous updates at Public health authorities and on ECDC website. You can also find an interactive map at Gisand data, which shows the spread of the coronavirus and is continuously updated.
Advice against travelling to China
On 17 February, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed its advice on travel to China and now advises against all travel to Hubei province. They also advise against non-essential travel to the rest of China, with the exception of Hong Kong and Macau. The advice is valid until further notice.
The spread of the coronavirus in the rest of the world
Although the Public Health Agency of Sweden still assesses the risk of infection as low within Sweden, it now assesses that the risk is high that people are detected in Sweden who have been infected with the coronavirus abroad, which is due to recent developments. In addition to China, the spread of Covid-19 is reported in the following countries and areas:
- South Korea
- Iran
- The following regions in Italy: Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto.
There is no official advice against travelling to these countries and areas, but if you have been here and come home with a cough, breathing difficulties or fever, you should call 1177 Vårdguiden for assessment.
The spread of the disease has not been reported in this way in other countries, although people have become ill in many places, such as Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, the USA, Australia, Germany, the UK and France.
Do you dare to travel?
At the moment (25 February), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not advise travel to any other countries than China, due to the coronavirus. This can of course change, and you can always check the current status on the website The Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises against.
Depending on the situation, you may feel more or less comfortable visiting certain destinations. The spread of the coronavirus is still increasing, and it is of course difficult to predict exactly how it will develop. We are not generally worried about travelling, but we are of course not keen on areas with the spread of infection and we are following developments closely.
What are your thoughts on the spread of the coronavirus?
What do you think about the spread of the coronavirus? When will it peak, and how big will the outbreak be before then? How do you think about travelling in these times?
Facts about the Coronavirus - Covid-19
- Symptom: Respiratory symptoms, fever and cough. Most people do not become seriously ill, but some develop more severe symptoms and death occurs.
- Mortality: The WHO currently estimates the mortality rate at 1-2 per cent.
- Incubation period: 2-14 days
- Vaccine: Not available
- Treatment: Treatment focuses on supporting the function of organs, such as the lungs and kidneys.
Spread of infection and protection
- This is how the disease is transmitted: Through contact with infected people or through coughing and sneezing, known as droplet infection.
- This is how the disease is not transmitted: Experience from similar previous outbreaks shows that viruses are not transmitted via parcels/mail.
- Then you get infected: COVID-19 is contagious when you are ill and when you fall ill. According to current knowledge, infection does not occur during the incubation period.
- This is how long the virus survives outside the body: For a limited time and under specific conditions (not yet fully understood).
- Risk of spreading in Sweden: Currently assessed as very low.
- That's how you protect yourself: Wash your hands or use hand sanitiser, avoid contact with infected people, do not touch your face/eyes. Face masks do not protect healthy people from infection, but sick people can protect their surroundings to some extent with face masks.
- More info: Questions and answers at the Public Health Agency
All images in the post are borrowed from Pixabay.
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Ann says:
It's a difficult question, of course you want to continue travelling exactly as usual, but I'd be lying if I said I looked at destinations with high infection rates... of course I choose my destinations carefully, but I don't stop travelling.
26 February 2020 - 6:52
Berit "desires" says:
I myself got - a severe stomach infection while travelling - 1 year ago the tough neurological paralysis disease Guallain Barre! (Affects ONLY about 200 a year in Sweden!) AND I am still partially disabled and strongly affected by it!
.... has additional autoimmune diseases, therefore more susceptible says the neurologists!
...... have booked a trip in the future, but the daughter asks me to cancel because of this!!!
...... the daughter who is currently in Tenerife and lives next to the hotel where 1000 people are quarantined because 1 Italian had the coronavirus yesterday! (Today 4 Italians are reported)
..... so maybe I should skip travelling for a while! ??
26 February 2020 - 10:08
Helena says:
Berit, oh have you suffered from that disease, how annoying! I remember very well when we read about it during the neurology courses, because it is so special.
26 February 2020 - 17:13
Mrs Angela says:
Has anyone been to Lisbon recently? What is the situation there? We have already bought flight tickets for the 7th of March..........,,,,,,,,
28 February 2020 - 16:43
Helena says:
Ann, It's always good to know where you're thinking of travelling to!
26 February 2020 - 17:11
Madeleine Krans - First Morning says:
Since we just came back from Thailand and before that we travelled around the world.
including Vietnam, we don't feel like travelling at all. And this is solely due to the Coronavirus. We did not experience any hysteria in Thailand, are not worried directly. But we probably met a lot of Chinese people on our trip, stayed in x number of hotels with Chinese people etc. Could just as easily have been infected. I think we will probably wait to travel now, that we left Southeast Asia in the old days. Now we stay at home for a long time. Had it not been for the Coronavirus, the next trip would already have been planned.
26 February 2020 - 7:40
Helena says:
Can understand your feeling then, and maybe it's nice to wait now and see how it develops!
27 February 2020 - 19:34
Lena in Wales says:
Tenerife is also now affected.
Has been much in the news in Spain.
Hard to say what to do, leave it to the experts.
26 February 2020 - 9:18
Helena says:
We think along the same lines. We follow the developments and any warnings from the authorities.
26 February 2020 - 17:18
Monica says:
I commented on this issue when it was first raised. And felt that many people thought that I was both taking in and exaggerating. Several wrote "no I am not afraid". "No, I'm not cancelling my trip to Thailand, there is no danger" (large Chinese tourist country!).
Even then, experts are already on TV advising against travelling to Asia or to countries with limited healthcare resources. "Avoid flying at all unless absolutely necessary, wait a few months to see how this develops..." It's not helping. Now people are quarantined in hotels in Tenerife, the virus manifests itself and spreads hour by hour in Europe, starting in Italy, which nobody expected.
Under these circumstances, going to a crowded airport, crowding into a plane where you share air for hours with unknown potential carriers of the virus seems completely crazy. This is exactly how the virus spreads. "It flies and knows no borders" as one expert put it.
I come to Sweden after ten years in France. It has characterised me. They have experience of two world wars and constant disasters of various kinds. They are well organised, prepared, equipped and act quickly and professionally. They provide exemplary information and do not put any suspected infected persons in voluntary home quarantine - they are taken care of and isolated under very professional conditions.
It worries me to live in Sweden with a lack of resources, poor insight, a healthcare crisis and mixed messages from politicians, authorities and infectious disease specialists.
26 February 2020 - 10:11
Helena says:
How worried you feel is different. My experience, having shared two posts about this on Facebook, is that people's reactions go in very different directions.
26 February 2020 - 17:25
Monica says:
Feeling anxious is not only a matter of personality. It also depends on how well read you are and how you absorb and adapt to what you are informed about. I just sent you an email with a quote from an expert from tomorrow's SvD saying that if you do not necessarily have to travel, you should not do it now. While new cases in Europe, including in Sweden, are currently being reported hour by hour, the Public Health Agency of Sweden is once again criticised for downplaying the entire situation and the real experts, the doctors, are extremely critical of the entire Swedish management and the possibilities for the healthcare system to cope with a further spread. For me personally, it is completely incomprehensible that one can even think in terms of going out into the world right now if it is not absolutely necessary. Many companies also prohibit their employees from travelling and contacts should be made via Skype and social media. I also see what you describe - people react in two ways. I'm definitely on the restrictive side, but I've also worked with these kinds of issues. If that's the difference.
26 February 2020 - 21:16
Ama de casa says:
Hmm... How can the Ministry of Foreign Affairs exclude Hong Kong and Macau in its advice against travelling to China? They are kind of surrounded by China and in addition, the infection came on board the Diamond Princess when they picked up an infected person in Hong Kong...
The spread is very worrying. We had started looking at a cruise in the areas around the worst affected areas. We are no longer considering it, not when the situation is as it is.
But we do not stop travelling of course. But first Anders must get well in his broken arm 🙂 .
26 February 2020 - 10:45
Helena says:
Your question about China there is a bit interesting. No idea actually?
27 February 2020 - 19:35
Maria's memoirs says:
It is impossible to predict where major outbreaks can suddenly appear, but I still booked my spring weekend recently (or really just before I heard about these outbreaks). Not to Italy, however, and it was lucky because it simply does not feel really healthy to consider the country right now, even though it may of course be that everything is over there in a couple of months... The only thing that is really in my power and is worth thinking about right now is how my travel insurance will work if the place has an outbreak and I can not travel there. I should call and ask if I need additional insurance perhaps? And so I have booked an apartment instead of a hotel/hostel, it also feels a little wiser right now ? Greater risk that a hotel is isolated than that a whole town does it.
26 February 2020 - 10:52
Helena says:
You simply have to follow developments closely. Italy does not feel so attractive right now, at least not the northern part, then you have to see what happens in the future.
27 February 2020 - 19:36
Maggan says:
We are travelling down to Alicante in a week and will not be staying in a hotel. We are hoping that it will go well. A little more worried about my son who is going to Milan and further up in the Alps.Milan is one of the areas in Italy that is affected. We keep our fingers crossed that it will work, they are young and healthy.
26 February 2020 - 12:57
Helena says:
You simply have to follow developments closely. Now that you are aware, you can also try to be careful with hand hygiene, and not to be too close to other people.
27 February 2020 - 19:37
pilla says:
I currently do not plan to stop travelling (travelling for work almost all spring). Can get sick at home too. Better to focus on maintaining good hygiene, being out in the fresh air, eating good food and exercising.
26 February 2020 - 14:29
Helena says:
Of course you can get sick at home too. The difference when travelling is perhaps that you are with many others on buses, airports, etc. But so far it is only certain specific places that are more affected.
27 February 2020 - 19:38
Mr Nils-Åke Hansson says:
Is Coranavirus a biological weapon developed by the Chinese called Wuhan-400?
The Eyes of Darkness Author Dean Koontz
26 February 2020 - 15:16
Helena says:
Exciting coincidence with Wuhan if nothing else!
27 February 2020 - 19:42
BP says:
There is a certain amount of doubt, at least for me. If the virus had "stayed" in Asia, I probably wouldn't have cared so much, but it's getting closer and closer (Italy, Tenerife). And I don't know if the person in the checkout queue/on the escalator has been to any of the affected countries. No, right now I'm staying at home and hoping that Sweden doesn't suffer more cases than the one discovered in Jönköping.
PS. Went into a pharmacy in the small Mörby Centre yesterday. Asked on the counter if they had masks. Got a laugh in response - no, they are out of stock. DS.
26 February 2020 - 18:28
Helena says:
Yes, the rather large outbreak in Italy makes it all feel more uncertain, of course.
27 February 2020 - 19:43
Monica says:
Berit, sounds wise to stay home for a while. I have diagnosed Guillain Barré disease a number of times during my career in clinical immunology and felt sadness each time and joy when I saw that it was only suspected. But treatment has evolved and it usually heals now but takes time. Do not know if you were affected by a respiratory infection or intestinal infection, but this virus Influenza A H1N1, if it goes on to the lungs, usually results in a fatal outcome because the virus attaches to and kills the alveoli that should give us new oxygen for continued breathing. ECMO is what must be used but such artificial lungs are not readily available. You have a wise daughter, I was going to write that you should consult a doctor but unfortunately the knowledge is very varied. Take care of yourself.
27 February 2020 - 18:56
I Monica says:
And my namesake Monica who writes here has wise insights and I am a little surprised by people's "faith", completely without knowledge and science but just a faith. A little funny almost but dangerous because it is because of this that the virus spreads. A little interesting with Nils-Åke's comment, knowing what has been written, but the correct info is among virologists and it is that in this city this particular virus is being researched intensively and is therefore in the laboratories, high risk I hope, but could something have gone wrong? And in addition, there are opportunities to not only have thoughts to make vaccines in the name of goodness ... Now I call myself I Monica, I was the one who wrote to Berit. May I wish everyone pleasant travels with the hope of travelling home again. Just have to add that Anders at the Public Health Agency is more like a joke. What the representative Linde would be needed! Virologist, professor at KI, head of the Swedish influenza centre within WHO, big name internationally with 200 scientific articles, active today but must have a successor when she reached retirement age unfortunately.
27 February 2020 - 19:28
Helena says:
So good that you clarified that this is another Monica 😉 Thanks for your comments!
27 February 2020 - 19:45
Mr Patrick says:
We are going to Tenerife on 31 March to Puerto del la cruze you can get sick anywhere.
05 March 2020 - 7:05
Alexsnder says:
We have booked a trip to Barcelona in the middle of July. Is there a risk of contracting the coronavirus this month?
We are a family with two children a little apprehensive about travelling to Spain.
11 March 2020 - 20:23