Coronavirus: What You Need to Know
Reported by Kathryn McClintock
The Coronavirus, classified as COVID-19, is a new virus in the same family as SARS and MERS, previous respiratory illnesses that spread across the world. The vast majority of cases reported have been in China, where the outbreak began.
A virus is not alive like bacteria, and is instead like a package of genetic material. That genetic material invades healthy cells and uses them to reproduce, and that coupled with the body’s response presents a wide range of symptoms. This causes some unique problems when trying to fight an illness like the coronavirus.
“The challenge with viral pneumonia is that we don’t have good therapeutics to treat viruses. Viruses aren’t living, and because of that, the ability to control them with a therapeutic is very challenging,” said Dr. John Schmitt, professor of Biology at George Fox University. “We can’t use an antibiotic on a virus.”
The difficulties involved with treating COVID-19 and other infectious diseases make containment difficult. Slavea Chankova, health correspondent for The Economist, outlined on The Economist Intelligence podcast two possible outcomes for the coronavirus: one, that it is properly contained and prevented from spreading;, or two, that it becomes a recurring illness like the flu that we manage with vaccines.
She also reported that China’s response, while considered by some to be draconian, has bought the rest of the world time to produce a vaccine. Quarantines and the extension of the Chinese New Year holiday have kept large crowds from mingling, but the impact on the population and business will become more of a strain as time goes on.
“The tricky thing about viruses is, you can see this even with the flu and the flu shot, in that, when someone makes the flu shot for the west coast, they’re predicting where it’s going to be at that time, based off of the strains and the different trends that they’re seeing in mutations,” said Natalie Amodei, a biology student at George Fox University.
These viruses can mutate at rates that make it difficult to ensure that a vaccine lasts long enough to substantially mitigate the spread of the disease. Chankova reported that in a best- case scenario, it could take around a year to develop and run trials on a vaccine for COVID-19.
“The concern with not having a vaccine at this point is several-fold,” said Schmitt. “One is that the folks that are dying of it are those in our community that are the most vulnerable: seniors, grandmas, grandpas—maybe children, as their immune system hasn’t fully developed. So, without a vaccine, the folks that normally get some sort of protection are at a higher risk.”
According to the 27th situation report by the World Health Organization, released Feb. 16, lab-reported infections around the world sat at 51,857, all but 683 in China. The death toll sat at 1669.
China’s response was swifter in this case than it was with SARS, which was already on its way to other countries before the government admitted there was an outbreak. Still, David Rennie, Beijing bureau chief at The Economist, noted a general sense of distrust in the Chinese population about the ability of makeshift hospitals to treat the illness, and some prefer to remain shuttered in their homes.
The outbreak likely began in a wet market, just as SARS did. These wet markets kill animals on site for the freshest meat, but that often means that in cramped conditions, viruses in contaminants from living and dead animals and multiple species can mingle and end up in consumer’s food. These wet markets also sell ‘exotic’ animals like bats and civet cats, and it’s these last two that are implicated in SARS and COVID-19.
“A lot of diseases like the coronavirus have traditionally been an animal to a human and that’s the only means of infection that we’re aware of,” said Amodei. “As these viruses are evolving, we’re seeing more and more of this human to human contact and these different strains that are more contagious between people.”
H1N1 is thought to have begun in a pig, who was infected by two diseases—the common human flu, and bird flu. While neither of these two could infect the parent species of the other, they interacted and mutated in the porcine host and created a disease that killed many. These zoonotic viruses have the potential to cause much trouble in the future, as more mutate to infect humans without the need of an animal host.
It’s isn’t known at this point how infectious this new virus is, but its genetic material can remain intact for up to four days on surfaces like metal, plastic, and glass, according to Schmitt. New reports are suggesting that it can travel through air as well. The danger a virus can cause depends greatly on its virulence and its fatality.
A disease may spread readily, but kill only a small percentage of those it infects. The inverse can be true, but still cause catastrophic loss. It is uncertain where COVID-19 lands on those scales, but more data is coming in from researchers across the world every day.
“Every time we go to class we look at the current death rate, and the current number of cases infected, and every single time we come in, it has jumped,” said Amodei. “The number of people that have died has gone up a couple hundred and the number of cases will go up a few thousand.”
It is uncertain just how far the disease will spread, and if or how it will be contained. New viruses have become global phenomena due to human technology and innovation in travel. Americans onboard a Japanese cruise ship have been infected, despite quarantine measures. Regardless of how far the illness spreads, the human cost is beyond the numbers seen on the news or in reports.
“We have to remember to pray for people, that’s the thing that I’ve talked to my students about,” said Schmitt. “One of the things we’ve been talking about is [that] it wasn’t like these people asked for this. It’s sad, it’s dangerous, and the best thing we can do is pray for them, and think about ways we can prevent the disease, and treat people, and care for people who are facing this struggle.”
