Corona Virus and its safety

 

The current situation of corona virus

There are several things that can happen when a virus infects the human population. First, there will be an immediate spread of the disease or symptoms. This is known as the outbreak phase and it usually lasts for a few weeks before it dissipates. If you suffer from this type of infection, you can develop mild cases that don’t require any treatment but which eventually cause death if the virus becomes more severe. If not treated in time, this may result in death.

Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 have gone on to develop some form of lung damage (if they were lucky enough to survive) or heart problems or brain inflammation. At times, some patients even developed a neurological disorder. Some patients even suffered from breathing problems (as was seen with severe COVID-19). In addition, many patients have blood clotting disorders. While these may seem to appear separately to different patients, it’s important to note that this type of clinical presentation is similar for all individuals with severe COVID-19. Thus, it follows that many people with COVID-19, especially those who develop serious complications such as pneumonia, are also likely to develop other types of acute manifestations of these viruses. All these can be very dangerous and, as one expert has pointed out, “even with appropriate care, many critically ill coronaviruses patient” have the potential to turn into tragic events if they do become affected.

The third and final step is complete loss of life. When someone with COVID-19 dies, their death is usually caused by arrhythmias, shock, stroke, or respiratory failure. This appears to occur within 1–10 days after the onset of the disease. Usually, however, death caused by respiratory failure occurs much later. A study published in May showed that nearly 12 per cent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients died within two weeks of being admitted (and a further 52 per cent died within 18 weeks post-hospitalization). In most cases, respiratory failure occurs as a result of a sudden decrease in oxygen levels at the patient’s lungs and heart. The effects of the initial shock and the subsequent cardiac failure often make COVID-19 the preferred term describing deaths induced by this disease. Unfortunately, there are a small number of reports of death from heart failure caused by COVID-19. It seems there is an extremely high risk of dying during this period – which means that it’s therefore most important that anyone who suffers from COVID-19 be able to get help as soon as possible.

A total of 7,084 deaths have been reported around the world to date. And so far in the UK, just over 20,000 people have died of Covid-19. There were 1,329 new confirmed daily cases announced yesterday.

How corona virus enters body:

As the pandemic continues, it might not come as a surprise that scientists have warned that we are only months away from seeing a vaccine to treat the novel coronavirus. In fact, early work shows that it would take three to four years to produce one vaccine for human use. Currently, we know little about how quickly vaccines could be made but studies are underway to find out. This gives us a certain confidence that we will not see another major surge of viral infections throughout the year. However, many experts have expressed fear that this will not be true. As virologists point out, SARS is very different because the coronavirus spike protein makes up a big part of the SARS-CoV-2. Even if the researchers are right that one of the two main differences between the two coronavirus proteins (although they differ from each other greatly) is the ability to bind ACE2 receptors on cells and thus bind to its receptor. Despite this difference, ACE2 receptors have similar activity and so ACE2 receptors may still act similarly on human cells. Therefore, if the two ACE2 receptors interact, they will probably work equally well, although this may happen a bit differently. This allows me to predict that a vaccine that uses these same mechanisms would be safe to administer. But what about the other two proteins? Do these work the same way? Would a second dose be needed? Might the person need to be kept on bed rest? So how long does immunity last for against SARS or Covid-2?

The first interim analysis of serum SARS-CoV-2 antibody level was carried out in January 2020. This indicates that there is good antibody response in convalescent plasma, but again, this is only a preliminary report, not definitive proof of anything.

The situation regarding the effectiveness of this data has since changed dramatically. For example, the results for antibodies, which are proteins produced by the immune system that help fight viruses, have often been misinterpreted. Because the immune system produces these antibodies from multiple sources, there are concerns that some of them may contain live virus. However, the research team themselves stress that if there is infection, the patient should not be put on isolation and, as a consequence, the researchers have been under intense pressure to ensure that no cases are missed. And so, the recent release of new data showing that around 95 per cent of adults in UK have neutralizing antibodies that bind to spike protein, but that they can be generated by natural immune responses.

Another important aspect is that this study found that the new antibody profile was different if someone was previously infected with influenza. These findings suggest that the virus changes from one strain to the next, but how long this happens is unclear. Could it be caused by changes in the genetic code, perhaps due to mutations to the virus? Or could it happen that the virus evolves and then adapts to be better adapted to the host but this isn’t necessarily the case. Can it become resistant to immunity? We don’t know yet.

The current state of knowledge is that for now, there is hope that a vaccine will prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2. Scientists have suggested that there are three vaccines; the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Sino pharm vaccines. One of the vaccine candidates is already approved in the US and the other two are expected soon. To our knowledge, none have been tested on animals yet and none have gone into production yet. However, even though we don’t know whether the vaccines will be effective or not, it’s important to remember that the chances of getting infected remain very real. We will need to continue following public health advice and staying at home, socially distanced, wherever we can, until the vaccine comes.

For now, stay safe, as always!