Medical staff all around the world urge people to stay home

First detected in Hubei, China in late December, more than 438,749 people globally have been infected with Covid-19, whilst over 19,675 have died from the novel coronavirus.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

As the reports of confirmed coronavirus cases continue to increase worldwide, countries across the globe are imposing stay-at-home orders in attempts to curb the disease's spread and flatten the curve of deaths to ease the pressure on health services.

Many health workers from various countries which are all struggling with the novel coronavirus pandemic have started their own "stay-at-home campaign" to raise awareness in public. 

For many health professionals, the virus itself is only one part of the equation: The overwork, the constraints on physical contact with patients, and the stress of knowing they are putting their own loved ones at risk also have an emotional toll.

The coronavirus is waging a war of attrition against health care workers throughout the world, but nowhere is it winning more battles at the moment than in Italy and in Spain, where protective equipment and tests have been in severely short supply for weeks.

In Spain, the country’s hospitals are groaning under the weight of the pandemic. Video and photos from two hospitals in the Spanish capital showed patients, many hooked up to oxygen tanks, crowding corridors and emergency rooms. At the 12 de Octubre University Hospital, patients could be seen on the floor as they waited for a bed in recent days. The hospital says the patients have since been accommodated elsewhere.

On Wednesday, the number of medical personnel infected was nearly 6,500 nationally, health authorities said, representing 13.6 percent of the country's 47,600 total cases and about 1 percent of the health system's workforce. At least three health care workers have died.

In Italy, where nearly one-tenth of about 70,000 infections are among medical workers, doctors and nurses have been begging the government daily to provide more masks, gloves and goggles.

Italian media have reported at least 19 deaths among health professionals in the country, which leads the world in coronavirus fatalities.

There was no immediately available data on infections among health care workers in the United States. Neither Iran nor France is disclosing those figures.

But in China, where the outbreak started and where more than 80,000 people became infected in three months, over 3,000 medical workers were believed to have fallen ill by the end of February, according to Doctor Liang Wannian, the leader of a team of Chinese experts working with WHO to study the outbreak.

German hospitals with spare capacity on Tuesday welcomed their first coronavirus patients from Italy, where an overwhelmed health care system has seen the pandemic kill more people than in any other country.

Ahead of an expected larger wave of home-grown infections that German authorities are preparing for, a first group of six Italian patients arrived at Leipzig airport in the eastern state of Saxony on Tuesday morning.