MORE INFO ON THE COVID 19 VIRUS ( part 2 )

Experts believe that an infected animal may have first transmitted the virus to humans at a market that sold live fish, animals and birds in Wuhan, China. The market was later shut down and disinfected, making it nearly impossible to investigate which animal, fish or bird may have been the exact origin. This raises an interesting question. Where did the infected creature get the virus? 

Bats are considered a possible source, because they have evolved to coexist with many viruses, and they were found to be the starting point for SARS. It is also possible that bats transmitted the virus to an intermediate animal, such as pangolins, which are consumed as a delicacy in parts of China, and may have then passed on the virus to humans.

The  virus is so small,  it can only be seen through  an electron microscope. If the virus is on the surface of a hand of an infective person, it can be transferred onto the skin of anyone that person touches. Our skin is so porous, the virus can enter the skin and subsequently enter the body.  Then that person becomes infected with the virus. Fortunately, it isn’t airborne however, it is a known fact that much of what you see on a sunny day in a room in which the sunlight enters is very minute specks of skin looking like small specks of dust. This raises an interesting question.

If you breathe in those specks of skin which you will automatically do, will you get the virus if the specks of skin was that of an infected person?  that is a scary thought to think about. I couldn’t find anything in the internet that said that you will get infected with that disease if the breath of the infected person reaches you. Of course if that person coughs or sneezes that will put you at risk if the elements of the virus land on you. That is why infected persons should wear face masks that will cover their noses and mouths. 

Wearing a face mask is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won’t get sick. Tht is because viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can penetrate masks. However, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is a main transmission route of coronavirus, and some studies have estimated a roughly fivefold protection versus no barrier alone (although others have found lower levels of effectiveness.

If  you are in close proximity to someone with COVID19, you have a high chance of getting it. This  applies in  any metropolitan area with a massive Subway system including passenger buses.

If you are likely to be in close contact with someone infected, a mask cuts the chance of the disease being passed on t you. If you’re showing symptoms of coronavirus, or have been diagnosed, wearing a mask can also protect others. So masks are crucial for health and social care workers looking after patients and are also recommended for family members who need to care for someone who is ill.  Ideally both the patient and carer should have a mask. However, masks will probably make little difference if you’re just walking around town or taking a bus or in a subway unless someone coughs or sneezes in your direction.

This is a very dangerous pandemic kind of a virus. We have never seen anything like it before since the Spanish flu which killed millions of victims in 1918. This new virus is almost certainly going to infect people around the world. The obvious reason is that this particular virus  is carried by passengers of planes and ships who then go to their home countries.  For example, Italians who traveled out of Italy and then returned to Italy with the virus. 

The first man confirmed to have contracted Covid-19 has been hospitalized in the Lodi area, in Codogno, for a serious type of pneumonia. Test results arrived Thursday night, February 20^th. The 38-year-old patient had not recently visited China. In a little more than three days later, the coronavirus had spread quickly in the north of the country and 400 people are currently infected. Twelve people, notably with underlying health conditions, have died.

Like any infection or disease, those most at risk are older people especially those with existing illnesses which includes cardiopulmonary issues or weakened immune systems. When we look at who caught the virus in China, two-thirds of those who tested positive were male with a median age of 45. It seems to have affected older adults and men more than young people and women, but we don’t yet know why or if that will continue to remain the case. 

Pet cats and dogs cannot pass the new coronavirus on to humans, but they can test positive for low levels of the pathogen if they catch it from their owners. They can die from this pathogen just like humans  do.

Scientists of 103 samples of the virus, taken from patients in Wuhan and other cities, suggests that early on two main strains emerged, designated L and S. Although the L strain appeared to be more prevalent than the S strain (about 70% of the samples belonged to the former), the S branch of the virus was found to be the ancestral version.

All viruses accumulate mutations over time and the virus that causes Covid-19 is no different. How widespread different strains of a virus become depends on natural selection – the versions that can propagate quickest and replicate effectively in the body will be the most “successful”. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is most dangerous for people though, as viruses that kill people rapidly or make them so sick that they are incapacitated may be less likely to be transmitted.

Many individuals who get coronavirus will experience nothing worse than seasonal flu symptoms, but the overall profile of the disease, including its mortality rate, looks more serious. At the start of an outbreak the apparent mortality rate can be an overestimate if a lot of mild cases are being missed. But a WHO expert suggested that this has not been the case with Covid-19. Bruce Aylward, who led an international mission to China to learn about the virus and the country’s response, said the evidence did not suggest that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. If borne out by further testing, this could mean that current estimates of a roughly 1% fatality rate are accurate. This would make Covid-19 about 10 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.

That is really scary. I could lose my entire family of nine. (my wife, two daughters and five grandchildren) That goes for you also.

However the good news is that most people who are not elderly and do not have underlying health conditions will not become critically ill from Covid-19. But the illness still has a higher chance of leading to serious respiratory symptoms than seasonal flu and there are other at-risk groups such as  health workers, for instance, are more vulnerable because they are likely to have higher exposure to the virus. The actions that young, healthy people take, including reporting symptoms and following quarantine instructions, will have an important role in protecting the most vulnerable in society and in shaping the overall trajectory of the outbreak.

I hope this article has been informative to you. I will keep you up to date on this world problem if I am still alive which is highly likely according to my wife who says only the good die when they are young. She tells her friends that I am so bad, I will outlive God. She exaggerates. I have told he a million times not to exaggerate.