UK’s “Act Like You’ve Got It” Drive

The United Kingdom (UK) government have rolled out an awareness drive called “Act like you’ve got it”. This campaign comprises of a series of advertisements that warns people to Act like they have been infected. This campaign has been launched after a new highly transmissible variant of coronavirus cases is being reported and anyone can spread coronavirus.

Highlights

• The campaign comprises of the television, radio and newspaper adverts and social media blitz.
• It provides the details regarding the latest daily death count from the deadly virus hit.
• As per the data, around 1,325 deaths have been reported due to new strain of virus and the infections have rose to 68,053 cases.
• This is of huge concern, as one in three people infected with the virus do not have any symptoms. Thus, people could pass it on without realising.

Coronaviruses

Coronavirus are the RNA viruses that leads to the diseases in mammals and birds. These viruses cause mild to lethal respiratory tract infections in the humans and birds. The mild illnesses in humans include common cold and the lethal variants can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. The viruses also cause diarrhea in cows and hepatitis and encephalomyelitis in mice.

Characteristics of the virus

Coronaviruses belongs to the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae of the Coronaviridae family. They comprise of the positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The viruses have the genome size of approximately 26 to 32 kilobases. This is one of the largest among RNA viruses. The viruses have club-shaped spikes that comes out from their surface. These spikes create an image reminiscent of the solar corona in the electron micrograph.

New Coronavirus strain

The new strain of coronavirus is being called as the Variant of Concern 202012/01. It is a variant of SARS-CoV-2. This new variant of the virus was first detected in December 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. The variant has the higher number of mutations it contains.