(39) The Coronavirus Explained & What You Should Do

What is a virus? How do they spread? How do they make us sick? Viruses are the most common biological entities on Earth. Experts estimate there are around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them, and if they were all lined up they would stretch from one side of the galaxy to the other. You can think of them as nature’s own nanotechnology: molecular machines with sizes on the nanometre scale, equipped to invade the cells of other organisms and hijack them to reproduce themselves. Coronavirus There are many different viruses. Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause diseases in birds and mammals. They are all similar in their shape, and in humans, they often cause upper respiratory illnesses. Transmission of coronaviruses Coronaviruses are zoonoses, which means they can be transmitted between animals and people. This means that they can jump the species barrier.

Point of no return: COVID-19 and the U.S. healthcare system: An emergency physician’s perspective In medicine, we examine our errors closely. Since the publication of To Err Is Human by the Institute of Medicine at the end of the past century, patient safety and quality are priorities (1). One core principle is that we cannot improve care if we do not examine our errors and use them to change our processes. COVIDView Weekly Summary Two syndromic surveillance systems are being used to monitor trends in outpatient and emergency department visits that may be related to COVID-19. Each system monitors a slightly different syndrome, and together these systems provide a more comprehensive picture of mild to moderate COVID-19 illness than either would individually. Both systems are currently being affected by recent changes in healthcare seeking behavior, including increasing use of telemedicine and recommendations to limit emergency department (ED) visits to severe illness, as well as increased social distancing. These changes affect the numbers of people and their reasons for seeking care in the outpatient and ED settings. ILINet The U.S.

COVID-19: Questions and answers Alert Level 1 On Monday 8 June at 11.59 pm New Zealand moved to Alert Level 1. Movement around the country, and most other restrictions and legal requirements on businesses, services and individuals have been relaxed. COVID-19 is still uncontrolled overseas, so we must continue to be vigilant and follow the golden rules to prevent any future spread of COVID-19. More information about Alert Level 1 will be available on this page soon. See the Alert Level 1 health and disability services page for further information. Coronavirus Infections—More Than Just the Common Cold Human coronaviruses (HCoVs) have long been considered inconsequential pathogens, causing the “common cold” in otherwise healthy people. However, in the 21st century, 2 highly pathogenic HCoVs—severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)—emerged from animal reservoirs to cause global epidemics with alarming morbidity and mortality. In December 2019, yet another pathogenic HCoV, 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), was recognized in Wuhan, China, and has caused serious illness and death. The ultimate scope and effect of this outbreak is unclear at present as the situation is rapidly evolving. Coronaviruses are large, enveloped, positive-strand RNA viruses that can be divided into 4 genera: alpha, beta, delta, and gamma, of which alpha and beta CoVs are known to infect humans.1 Four HCoVs (HCoV 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1) are endemic globally and account for 10% to 30% of upper respiratory tract infections in adults.

Vietnam’s Low-Cost COVID-19 Strategy by Hong Kong Nguyen Tightened border controls, agile health departments, tech platforms, and a hand-washing song that went viral have added up to a frugal but highly effective response to the threat of COVID-19. The country's success provides a model that other developing and emerging economies should follow. BEPPU – As COVID-19 expands across the southern hemisphere, governments there have a lot to learn from Vietnam’s approach. Cases in U.S. More U.S. COVID-19 Data from CDC COVIDView How an army of students is helping to feed vulnerable New Zealanders Delivery services for supermarkets across the country are filling up weeks in advance, leaving immunocompromised people without options. Students up and down the country have been stepping up, through the Student Volunteer Army, to help those in need. If anyone had said at this point last year that a smile from a stranger passing on the street could mean so much, nobody would have believed it. The current conditions we’re all living under have emphasised the importance of community, with a wave through a window taking on a much larger meaning than before. But for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, the opportunity for interaction, however small, has been significantly reduced as they try to keep themselves safe from Covid-19. The switch from alert level four to alert level three has changed the daily lives of a lot of New Zealanders, from those who work in teaching to hospitality and retail.

Coronavirus: what do scientists know about Covid-19 so far? Coronaviruses have been causing problems for humanity for a long time. Several versions are known to trigger common colds and more recently two types have set off outbreaks of deadly illnesses: severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers). But their impact has been mild compared with the global havoc unleashed by the coronavirus that is causing the Covid-19 pandemic. In only a few months it has triggered lockdowns in dozens of nations and claimed more than 100,000 lives.

She Kept a Diary of China’s Coronavirus Epidemic. Now She Faces a Political Storm. michael barbaro From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.” [music] Coronavirus Update (Live): 4,041,447 Cases and 276,914 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer How dangerous is the virus? There are three parameters to understand in order to assess the magnitude of the risk posed by this novel coronavirus: Transmission Rate (Ro) - number of newly infected people from a single caseCase Fatality Rate (CFR) - percent of cases that result in death Determine whether asymptomatic transmission is possible How contagious is the Wuhan Coronavirus? (Ro)

Siouxsie Wiles & Toby Morris: What we don’t know about Covid-19 We’re beginning to solve a crucial part of the puzzle: just when, and for how long, are people infectious? I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s worth repeating. With Covid-19 we are trying to understand a virus and disease we’ve never encountered before. That means there are many gaps in our knowledge. All around the world, however, people from different fields of study are trying to fill in as many of those gaps as they can.

The race for coronavirus vaccines: a graphical guide More than 90 vaccines are being developed against SARS-CoV-2 by research teams in companies and universities across the world. Researchers are trialling different technologies, some of which haven’t been used in a licensed vaccine before. At least six groups have already begun injecting formulations into volunteers in safety trials; others have started testing in animals. Nature’s graphical guide explains each vaccine design.