by Shivam Panda
What everyone is wondering in this time of duress is how we managed to stumble upon such a situation. We are aware of the effects of the infamous pandemic disease we “affectionately” call coronavirus, but how many of us ask what coronavirus is and how it came to be?
In December 2019, China reported the spread of a virus within its borders at alarming rates to WHO. The virus quickly spread across borders and soon became the well-known coronavirus. This virus is the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Related coronavirus 2 that causes the disease called Covid-19 and what everyone simply calls Coronavirus. It is hard to trace the origin of the actual virus, but what we do know is that this virus is a modified strain of the previously well-known SARS virus.
The SARS outbreak of 2002 moved from the horseshoe bat to cat-like civets, before infecting the humans. In this case, as well, the Covid-19 virus is said to have originated from a bat species but would have also travelled through an intermediary animal, prospectively the pangolin, a scaled anteater, before infecting humans.
What actually happens when the virus infects a human and what should we all do?
A virus is essentially just a hull of genetic material and a few proteins, existing on the border of living and nonliving. They can only replicate by entering a living cell. Though they can spread through contact with nonliving things such as utensils and clothes, it is still unclear how long they can live on such surfaces. Its main method of spreading is droplet infection, meaning when someone coughs into the air or when you touch someone who is infected and rub your eyes, nose or mouth prior to any apt sanitation methods. Once within the body, the virus most commonly affects the lungs, spleen, and intestines.
The virus attaches itself to receptors on the surface of the organs’ epithelial cells and injects copies in genetic material with simple instructions. The cell, unaware of what's happening, follows the instruction which is simply replicated and assembled. The cell keeps replicating the virus till it reaches a critical point after which it dies. The growth of the virus is exponential and so within 10 days the virus has infected a major part of the lungs and grows into the billions of cells we have. This, in itself, is not too harmful but what happens next is what makes the virus deadly.
As the immune system gears up to fend of the attack of the virus, some cells get infected by it as well. These infected immune cells not only kill both infected and uninfected epithelial cells but also call an unnecessary surplus of said immune cells. This in a sense diverts the attention of our immune system to fending off the virus attack, causing high temperature and fever.
However, the immune system slowly regains control and intercepts the virus before infecting new cells and killing off the old infected cells as well. Most victims usually come to this stage and overcome the disease, but for some victims, the condition may rise to a critical state. In such cases, millions of epithelial cells have died and with them, the lungs’ protective lining. Therefore, the lungs are now unprotected against bacteria that usually aren't a big problem. Patients may contract pneumonia; respiration becomes hard and may often need ventilators to stay alive.
Since the immune system has fought the virus for weeks and produced ample antivirals, but less than the normal amount of antibacterials, the bacteria easily spreads throughout the body and causes major infection. In such cases, death is highly probable.
While most people compare coronavirus to the flu, it is much more dangerous as it multiplies faster, infects quicker and causes for deaths. There are two futures for a pandemic like coronavirus, a fast spread and slow spread. The fast spread future will be horrible and entail a large number of deaths but the slow spread, while having a less extreme demographic will no doubt be for a longer time. The importance of this is that no matter what way the virus spreads, the health-care system capacity is going to remain the same throughout, but if we see a more extreme, fast-spread demographic, the capacity of the health care system will see a considerable drop.
However, in the slow-spread demographic the virus is containable as the resources are renewed over time. In the case of fast spread pandemic, the two main steps that need to be taken to keep the advancement of the virus well within the capacity of the global health-care system are not getting infected and not infecting others. The best way to prevent getting infected is by simply washing our hands. The soap dissolves the fat membrane around the viruses, essentially breaking them down and also makes your hand, in layman's terms, slippery, consequentially ripping the virus off of your hands with a washing motion.
Unfortunately, the best way of not infecting others is called social distancing, which means no touching, no hugging, or no handshakes. The way this pandemic ends depends a lot on how it starts, so if it starts off rapidly it will end horribly, but if it starts off slow, it will end ‘okay-ishly'. However, one thing to note is that in this day and age, such a pandemic and its outcome is in our hands, literally and figuratively.
Credits: Kurztgesat
Our world in data
The Guardian
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