Three months after the pandemic, what we know about the coronavirus is:

Most outbreaks of viral infections face disability in the form of people with at least partial immunity. But this coronavirus is a bulldozer. It can flatten everyone on the road.

When a virus infects people, it does not immediately become ill. Researchers believe that the incubation period before symptoms appear is on average about 5 days. Epidemiologists, when studying the pattern of the disease, made the terrible finding that people began to shed the virus before the symptoms and that others could get sick. Therefore, the virus has the talent of stealth infection. Viruses infect distant communities. Vulnerable human Represents endless fertile terrain.

At the genetic level, the new virus has a derived name of SARS-CoV-2 because the new virus is not much different from the SARS virus that appeared in China from 2002 to 2003. SARS killed nearly one in ten patients. However, people with SARS infection did not shed the virus until they were already quite ill, and the victims were usually hospitalized. SARS died after about 8,000 infections and 774 deaths worldwide.

That successful fight may have led to some complacency. Researchers say funding for SARS research has been exhausted in recent years.

“I thought we had cured it. I thought the virus had gone. Well, the virus didn’t go away?” Michael Virologist, a virologist at the University of California, Irvine, who has been studying coronavirus for 30 years. Buckmeyer said.

Because it is a highly contagious virus, a large proportion of the world’s population, potentially billions of people, can become infected in the coming years. Desperate efforts to develop Safe and effective vaccine It can take over a year.

President Trump and others have repeatedly downplayed the threat of covid-19 by comparing it to seasonal flu, which kills tens of thousands of people in the United States each year. But covid-19 is Many times fatal For infected people as seasonal flu.

Messaudy said the health system was set up to combat seasonal flu, but did not address the new pandemic disease.

“We have a vaccine for the flu. And antivirals. It’s seasonal and we try to prepare it and get coverage for vaccinations. This is already our system That’s what she’s doing, “she said. “This is the wrong time to deal with another surge in respiratory illness that causes much morbidity and potential mortality.”

The bulldozer nature of the coronavirus means that widespread serious illness and death from covid-19 can occur at a terrible rate. This happened in northern Italy, the hospital was overwhelmed and many patients could not get standard lifesaving treatment.

Pandemics appear to be primarily due to direct human-to-human transmission. That’s why public health officials are telling people to keep social distance. This is a simple and effective way to reduce the number of virus reproduction, known as R0. This is the average number of new infections caused by each person.

R0 is not an essential function of the virus. As recovered people are less susceptible to infections and serious illnesses, they can be reduced by containment, mitigation and, ultimately, “group immunity.” The reproductive rate must be less than 1 before the epidemic begins to end.

In early China, R0 was 2.38 before the government imposed extreme travel restrictions on Wuhan and its surroundings, and before everyone knew exactly how bad the communicable disease was. Investigation Published in Science Magazine. It is a highly contagious disease.

However, on January 23, China imposed extreme travel restrictions and hundreds of millions were soon blocked in some form as authorities actively restricted social contact. R0 is below 1, and the epidemic has been suppressed in China at least for now.

Viruses have a congenital infectivity based on how they bind to receptors on cells in the respiratory tract and then take over their cellular machinery to make copies of themselves. However, its ability to spread also depends on the vulnerability of human populations, including the density of communities.

“If you have a serious infectious virus and are sitting alone in your room, the R naught is zero. You can’t give it to anyone,” said Jeffrey Toven, a virologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Burger says.

Without vaccines or drugs to stop the infection, it is best to break the chain of infection one infection at a time. There is no way to combat the virus in hopes of aerial spraying, disinfecting public drinking water with a potion, or simply magically extinguishing.

“Social distance is building a speed bump so we can slow the spread of the virus. We need to respect the speed bump,” Messaudie said.

Melissa Nolan, an epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina, states that the effectiveness of social distance is “currently a $ 1 million problem.”

She compared current public action to those killing an estimated 675,000 people in the United States during the 1918 influenza pandemic.

“The United States is currently doing some natural experimentation, and each state is introducing its own version of social distance,” she said. “We can compare the effectiveness of these various public health policies, but not until more time has passed.”

To maintain social distance, individuals need to participate on behalf of collective needs. But it is first and foremost a stake. No one wants to catch this virus. It can be fatal, otherwise many victims are miserable for days or even weeks.

Viruses need to limit not only direct contact, but also the amount of overlapping routes. Remains on the surface

Viruses break down outside of the host due to moisture, exposure to sunlight, or drying. But studAccording to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, under untouched laboratory conditions, some SARS-CoV-2 particles may survive for three days on metal or plastic.

It is unknown how much contact with contaminated surfaces is involved in transmission. This is obviously something everyone wants to know when handling pumps at a gas station or going to a grocery store. It is strongly recommended that you have no hard data, limit contact with shared surfaces such as door handles and checkout machines, and wash your hands frequently.

Tau Bemberger says that without vaccines, no one has immunity to this new pathogen, but as with pollen and dust, people are exposed to some innate mechanical Said to have defense. Cells in the respiratory tract have small hair-like projections called cilia that move mucus toward the throat in a way that helps remove invasive particles. This is not the first viral rodeo of our body.