Background
The UN member states adopted 17 goals which is a 15-year plan for sustainable development in 2015 and this plan aims to achieve these goals by 2030.[1] The 17 goals and other targets are called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a worldwide call to protect the earth and achieve prospects of everyone and everywhere. In this blog, I would like to give my thoughts about the SDG3 (the third goal) which is about health.
Part I. What is the goal and why it matters?
The SDG3 is called ‘good health and well-being’ for short which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages.[2] Frankly, this goal is essential for sustainable development because healthy lives are the foundation of good social order and healthy economy. A healthy emergency can cause economic stagnation to countries and cause bankruptcy to people. Over the past decades, life expectancy has increased a lot globally and steady progress has been made in medical care and fight against infectious diseases. While we still lost heavily when infectious diseases break out due to newly discovered virus. Since infectious respiratory diseases caused by coronavirus (officially named 2019-nCoV) outbreak in China recently, it has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organization (WHO). In this blog, I will pay more attention to the infectious respiratory disease.
Part II. What leads to the respiratory disease?
The new coronavirus (figure1) is the protagonist of this public health emergency, named after its coronal appearance. New coronavirus causes respiratory disease, the disease ranges from the common cold to pneumonia, which can be fatal. New coronavirus is confirmed to transmit from person to person. According to Chinese scientists, people who get the virus are contagious even before they show symptoms. But how did this kind of virus appear? It is initially found in a group of people with pneumonia, and they are linked to a seafood market located in Wuhan, the central city of China. In the market, not only seafood, but also many reptiles, bats and other live or dead wild animals were traded. The disease spread from people who were sick to their family members and medical staffs.
Fig.1. A digital illustration of the coronavirus shows the crown-like appearance of the virus.[3]
Part III. What novel coronavirus brings to China and the world?
To begin with, as of 14:57 on February 10, 2020, there have been 40236 confirmed cases of the respiratory disease (3381 people are cured) and 909 deaths in total all over China. Outside china, there have been 319 infections (27 people are cured) in 25 countries and one person died. (figure 2)
(data source: data is organized by Alihealth according to the public information of the National Health Commission, the provincial and municipal government health commissions, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas authoritative official channels and media.)
Fig.2. data of respiratory diseases all over the world.[4]
Secondly, in the traditional Chinese New Year, not only the patients, but also a large number of medical staffs and workers were forced to live separately from their families. The rest people in all regions of China are restricted to stay at home in order to prevent cross-infection.
Thirdly, enterprises were forced to suspend business, which severely affected China’s economic development.
Besides, cost of facemasks increases in China and many other countries. Unprecedented demand for surgical masks and personal protective equipment caused by the coronavirus epidemic, it has created shortages for those medical staff and patients who really need them.
Lastly, this has caused panic all over the world, some countries and regions have adopted temporary travel bans on visitors from mainland China, which will affect the development of tourism, world trade, and overseas students’ study abroad.
Part IV. What can we do to help?
In order to better fight against and prevent infectious diseases which contributes to achieve the In order to better fight against and prevent infectious diseases which contributes to achieve the SDG3, governments, enterprises and individuals can do a lot to help.
i) Governments: governments should mobilize medical experts and healthcare workers to conduct research on the ways of viral infection, study detection methods and treatments for infectious disease. Besides, the epidemic situation cannot be concealed by the government, and the data of diseases should be published to the public in time. Isolation ward hospital should be established quickly in order to treat patients and protect uninfected people. China set a good example to build Vulcan Mountain hospital and Thunder Mountain hospital quickly in Wuhan city.
ii) enterprises: Enterprises can try their best to donate medical supplies to those who are in real need. Companies can avoid cross-infection by encouraging telecommuting. For example, The Chinese internet company-Bytedance open its office software ‘Lark’ free for some companies in order to encourage working remotely and efficiently. (figure 3)
Fig.3. software ‘Lark’ free for some companies.[5]
iii) individuals:For individuals, it is vital for us to take precautionary and hygienic measures to prevent from infection. Firstly, wash our hands frequently, especially before eating and after contact with sick people or their surroundings. (figure 4) Besides, wear a facemask when going outsides, cover mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing. In addition, people with fever or cough symptoms should go to hospital in time and keep a distance from others. Last but not least, stay away from wildlife that carries a lot of viruses. In short, don’t be panic, don’t make rumors, don’t spread rumors, keep healthy, believe in science!
Fig.4. Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) advice for the public (WHO).[6]
Part V. what we have learnt from this public health emergency?
China has experienced the SARS virus in 2003, but this time the coronavirus still caused heavy losses to China. At present, the epidemic has not been completely controlled. The epidemic gives not only China, but also the whole world a warm and a lesson. In order to achieve good health and well-being (SDG3)，we should:
i) Improve prevention measures and make larger investments in infectious diseases, strengthen public health education around the world, improve people’s access to health care, especially for the most vulnerable such as women and children. The benefits outweigh the costs- healthy people is foundation of healthy world. And the cost of inaction is greater.
ii) When an infectious disease breaks out, countries in the world should not just be panic, but should share viral sequences, research outcomes and medical supplies to help one another fight against the virus.
iii) Every individual should keep healthy lifestyles, keep exercising to improve immunity, raise awareness in the importance of prevention of infectious diseases.
iv) Live harmony with wildlife, no killing!
References
[1]. The Sustainable Development Agenda, ref link: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/
[2]. Good health and well-being: why it matters, ref link: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ENGLISH_Why_it_Matters_Goal_3_Health.pdf
[3]. Picture source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1056562
[4]. Data source: https://alihealth.taobao.com/medicalhealth/influenzamap?spm=a2oua.wuhaninfo.more.wenzhen&chInfo=spring2020-stay-in
[5]. Picture source：https://www.feishu.cn/
[6]. Picture source: https://news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2020/01/1056372
Lynne's Tree Hole 
It is a challenge for China that the new Con-virus threatens the whole continent, but it is a great chance for us to care much about health. By reading your post, I couldn’t help to think more about how we can do better as a normal resident on public health issues. Take the outbreak of this new Con-virus for example, what do you think? Or what does it remind us ?
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As a normal resident on the planet, what we can do is limited but it does matters a lot. To begin with, we should raise our awareness on public health issues, specifically, we should wear a face mask when we get a cold in order not to infect others. When infectious disease outbreaks, the lack of face masks and other medical products like alcohol disinfectants reflects insufficient production capacity of these items which are decided by the public’s needs. Besides, we should care more about our health and stay at home in order to reduce the risk of infection. Lastly, I do believe the outbreak can be controlled and solved soon.
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This post is well-written! This post’s structure is solid and clear with UN’s background and 5 parts in total to illustrate the SDG goal and related issues thoroughly. And I am looking forward to your new posts about how to use social media analytics techniques to address this UN SDG goal.
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I am happy to see you again and I am glad that you like this post. Through this public health issue, many excellent social media applications appeared and they brought information for us in time. Although we have to stay at home in these tough days, but we can update information about the disease in time and buy daily necessities at home thanks to the convenient apps. I will update my next post soon and I expect to see your comment.
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I agree with you that a healthy body is the foundation of normal communities and societies. This outbreak of cronavirus disease may come from humans eating bats, which alerts us that we should ban the trade of wild animals. I hope this outbreak of infectious disease calm down and everything comes back to normal as soon as possible.
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I am glad to see you~ Yes, we should live in harmony with wildlife. In fact, our country has released a law prohibiting selling wildlife , but some people still sell wildlife in disregard of the law, so in addition to banning people from eating wildlife, we should also raise health awareness and popularize the harmful consequences of eating wildlife.I believe the trade can not exist if everyone refuses to eat wild animals. I also hope we can go back to normal life soon. Hope to see you again.
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