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Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah. May Allah keep you in good health, dear guests. May Allah grant you well-being. I have five quick points I would like to discuss regarding Corona, and we will follow up with more, God willing, as part of community awareness based on studies and reliable sources.
In this recording, I will first address the question: Is the situation really serious? Then, should we avoid contact with only those who show symptoms? Then, what does it mean to neglect taking the appropriate measures? Then, does smoking have anything to do with the disease? And finally, the fifth point, distinguishing between the vaccine and the treatment. This is a set of questions to which we will respond to others later, God willing.
First question, brothers: Is the situation really serious? Now, Corona is a group of viruses, including the one that caused SARS, which spread in 2003, and MERS, which spread in 2013 (began in late 2012 but spread in 2013). The type currently spreading is Corona causes COVID-19, meaning Corona Virus Disease in 2019, this is the abbreviation for COVID-19, and this virus is called SARS-CoV-2, meaning the second type of SARS virus, distinguishing it from the type that spread in 2003.
You might say: Okay, the previous epidemics scared us at the time, but they did not cause the destruction we imagined. COVID-19 might be the same thing. The current disease, let's call it COVID-19 throughout this session. COVID-19 might be the same thing.
In fact, brothers, it is not the same thing. SARS and MERS, the previous epidemics, the recorded deaths remained in the hundreds. In the case of SARS, we are talking about approximately 800 deaths, MERS perhaps less than 200-300 deaths. While COVID-19, the current disease, has caused, as of the last update on the World Health Organization website on March 16th today, the death of more than six thousand people.
Go to the World Health Organization website WHO.INT. You will see on the homepage the title "Novel Coronavirus Situation Dashboard" choose it and you will find a map with the places of infection in the world. At the top, you will find the total number of infections and below it the total number of deaths, and to the right of the map (the map shows where the disease is spreading) to the right of the map you will find the infections in each country. We will put all the links and research links that I will mention today in the comments, God willing.
Also, brothers, for example, the swine flu H1N1 that spread in 2009 killed in one year between 151 to 575 thousand people worldwide, according to the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention CDC (Center of Disease Control and Prevention). In fact, the numbers of H1N1 varied greatly, meaning there are estimates much lower than that, but perhaps the first to start with higher estimates was the well-known Lancet magazine, and this estimate that is on the American CDC 151-575 thousand.
The concern for COVID-19 is justified, but at the same time, there are problems that are no less dangerous and deserve for people and organizations to deal with them as an emergency, but there has been a kind of habituation to them, such as smoking, alcohol, suicide, and others. These are dangers to religion and the world, so balance requires us to also pay attention to these other problems and activate their resistance and treatment of their causes. We do not neglect the COVID-19 virus or the cause of COVID-19, but at the same time, we also remember that there are things that are no less dangerous and we have unfortunately become accustomed to them.
So, this is the first point, the matter is worth paying attention to indeed.
The second point, dear guests, some people think that they should avoid being close to people who show symptoms of respiratory disease such as coughing and sneezing, and this is incorrect. I will not elaborate on the disease and the information that is easily obtained from medical websites such as the World Health Organization, but I will say briefly here: The symptoms of COVID-19 disease are fever, fatigue, dry cough, sore throat, runny nose, nasal congestion, and general body aches. Some of these symptoms or all of them may appear.
The virus is transmitted through droplets from coughing or sneezing from the infected person, or from surfaces on which this droplet falls.
What concerns us here, brothers, is that many people may be carriers of the virus but show no symptoms or only mild symptoms. Therefore, you might say: Why should I avoid being close to people and shaking their hands? I should avoid those who show symptoms only. If my relatives whom I deal with, colleagues, if they do not have any symptoms, there is no problem and I will be close to them and deal with them.
No, people, that is not correct. Many people may be carriers of the virus but no symptoms have appeared on them yet, because there is an incubation period in which the virus is present in the body before it begins to cause symptoms in the carrier. Nevertheless, this person transmits the virus to others through coughing or sneezing. Therefore, you may be a carrier of the virus and have mild symptoms, and in some rare cases, you may not have any symptoms at all, and yet you transmit the virus to someone who is weaker than you in immunity or has chronic diseases that we will talk about later, God willing, which makes them more likely to be infected with the virus, get sick with it, and even die from it.
Therefore, the general rule, dear guests, in these times is to avoid being close to people in general, and to keep a distance between you and them of one meter or more. Keep a distance of one meter or more. The use of masks is justified if you are infected with symptoms such as coughing or sneezing, or if you deal with a person suspected of being infected with the disease, and there is no need to overuse them outside of that.
Therefore, this second point is that you do not think the problem is only in being close to those who show symptoms, but rather avoid being close to people in general.
The third point, dear guests: What does it mean to neglect taking the appropriate measures? And on those around you. You may cause the infection of a large number and even the death of some, and you will be sinful for that and they will be held accountable to you, for the saying of the Prophet, peace be upon him: "No harm and no reciprocation of harm," and for your contradiction of his saying, peace be upon him: "No sick person should be brought to a healthy one." The sick should not be brought to the healthy, so quarantine has a basis in the Sharia.
You may not get sick or get a mild illness, but you may cause the death of others by transmitting the disease to them.
Now, at weddings, one infected person may be the father of the groom or the father of the bride, especially with the custom of kissing and cheek-to-cheek that is widespread in our societies on these occasions, may transmit the disease to dozens of people. And the same thing at condolences, people come to condole, cheek-to-cheek, kissing, kissing, transmit the disease to dozens if not hundreds of people.
And it means, in a case I heard about an hour ago, I have not yet verified, about a wedding and the father of the bride coming from Spain, cheek-to-cheek, kissing people, right and left, hundreds of people before him, and there are cases that acquired the disease from him, God knows best, but I have not verified. But in principle, this handshaking, hugging, and kissing at this time is completely wrong.
It is also important to adhere to the prophetic etiquette in coughing, sneezing, and yawning. In a sahih hadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) would cover his face with his hand or cloth when he sneezed and would muffle his voice with it. It is known that Islam designates the left hand for such tasks so that one does not greet people with the same hand. Use your right hand for greeting, and take your left hand for such tasks even in normal days and without the presence of epidemics. Everything that is honorable, such as greeting, should be done with the right hand, as well as eating food and handing things to people. What is meant to remove harm should be done with the left hand.
You will find on the World Health Organization website, under practices to protect against corona, that you should cover your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or a paper tissue when coughing or sneezing. Therefore, this third point, people, neglecting to take measures and procedures can lead to a disaster. We are talking about the corrupt and the oppressors in the lands of the Muslims who are taking the wealth of the Muslims. You can, with wrong practices in pride or joy, go and greet people with it and transmit the infection to them and cause destruction and disaster like what the deliberate corrupt do.
The fourth point, honorable people: those who have a history of smoking are more susceptible to contracting the disease and dying from it. You might say, O smoker: "It's not a problem, I'm not keen on life," and this statement is wrong, but the most dangerous thing in the matter is that you forget again that as a smoker you will cause harm to others.
Brothers, hospital beds are limited. Yesterday, I was with some of the brothers who are doctors talking about the danger of the situation that breathing devices are very limited and hospital beds are very limited in Jordan, for example, and in all Muslim countries. Therefore, if you, as a smoker, enter the hospital and need the devices, you will deprive others of them. Let's, people, get out of the individual thinking of the disease and realize that your shortcoming as an individual leads to harming the collective, the collective, the people.
There is research published in the Chinese Medical Journal showing a relationship between the severity of the disease and smoking. Also, another study titled "The 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak: A Global Threat" shows that there are causes for the Coronavirus Threat, one of which is the global threat of Coronavirus, one of the causes of infection is your medical history in smoking or your previous history of smoking.
It shows that there are several reasons for this association with smoking, as smoking increases the amount of ACE2 protein on human cell membranes. This ACE2 (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme) is known to be present as an enzyme in the plasma and is also present as a protein on the plasma membranes of cells. This, in turn, facilitates the entry of the coronavirus into the cells, facilitates the entry of the coronavirus. If you are a smoker, you have a lot of these proteins on the surfaces of the cells, which will catch the virus and allow it to enter the cells until it starts its cycle.
Also, the corona has the worst effect on patients with chronic bronchitis and cardiac muscle failure, which are diseases with a very high percentage in smokers, as is well known.
This is an opportunity for our brothers, may Allah guide them, the smokers, to quit smoking for their benefit and the benefit of the people who are expected to need hospitals, treatments, and breathing devices that are not sufficient for everyone's needs and are expected to compete for them. Therefore, this fourth point: leave your smoking, O smoker, for the sake of Allah the Almighty, and to protect yourself and others who will compete with you for the devices and the rare beds.
Well, the fifth and final point: when we hear about a treatment for corona, there is a difference, brothers, between the vaccine or vaccine on the one hand, and the drug or treatment on the other hand. For example, when you hear that the company Moderna is working on a vaccine, the vaccine or vaccine is not used to treat the disease or cure it but to prevent it.
What Moderna is working on, for example, is known to specialists that it is a strand of nucleic acid, the idea of which is that when it is given to a person, the cells read it and produce proteins similar to the proteins of the virus but non-harmful. However, these proteins activate the immune system so that it is ready to combat the virus if the person who took the vaccine is exposed to it. So when you hear that there is a new vaccine and a vaccine has been discovered, it's fine and be happy, but it is still, of course, in the development stage, and this does not mean that the patient himself will be treated with this vaccine, but the most that the vaccine can achieve, if it succeeds, is to reduce infection.
Well, what about treatments? What is on the horizon? We will talk about this in another recording, inshallah.
May Allah protect us from affliction and plague and return us to Him in a beautiful return. And may Allah reward you well. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. Welcome.