Lack of concern, blithe disregard for social distancing is exceedingly dangerous
Understanding "viral shedding" of COVID-19, how it differs from SARS' mechanism of infection, is key to fighting the pandemic
German researchers establish when the COVID-19 is most virulent
Health authorities, policy makers, people should take serious note of clinical data
LURKING DANGER: German researchers found very high levels of the COVID-19 virus emitted from the throat of patients from the earliest point in the illness — when people are generally still going about their daily routines. Understanding this mechanism of attack by the deadly virus, alongside the introduction of a vaccine or therapy against it (all still in development stages) would give a significant push to the global drive in curbing its spread.
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SARS CRISIS. In November 2002, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) rampaged through 17 countries, infecting over 8,000 people and killing nearly 800. Experts said it was just a hint of what this latest COVID-19 could do. As early as March 1, 2020, Prof Gabriel Leung, dean of the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) medical faculty, has called the coronavirus epidemic a global “pandemic”, as it has spread quickly across several countries. The first wave of outbreak outside China was “just starting” then. https://bit.ly/3djxCUB
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WAY MORE DANGEROUS THAN SARS: The 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19 diseases, is sufficiently divergent from SARS-CoV to be considered a new human-infecting carrier.
Image Credit: GULF NEWS / Jay Hilotin Sources: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://bit.ly/3bg6Dam
Sources: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://bit.ly/3bg6Dam
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin
People who contract COVID-19 emit high amounts of the virus very early on — in the first 5 days — in their infection, a study (pre-print, not peer-reviewed) from Germany suggests.
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IMPORTANT DETAIL: Here's an important detail from the German team's research findings: Viral shedding significantly dropped after Day 5 in all but 2 of the patients, who had more serious illness.
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Source https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20030502v1
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Source https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20030502v1
KEY POINT: With COVID-19, shedding from the upper airways (upper respiratory tract) early in infection makes for a virus that is much harder to contain.Experts say understanding the differences in the pattern of virus shedding holds the KEY.
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FACT: The SARS outbreak was contained after about 8,000 cases; the global count of confirmed COVID-19 cases has already topped 267,000, with more than 11,000 deaths, and cases spreading in 184 countries (March 22, 2020).
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Sources: https://bit.ly/2Ujbr80 https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
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