RE: Soap breaks down covid-19 structure kills the virus
Per Hunter Nolen, research technologist developmental neurobiologist at St Jude
RESEARCH-BASED COVID-19 INFO
St. Jude just held a seminar addressing many of the concerns regarding the outbreak of the 2019 novel corona virus so, I wanted to share some of the key take-aways, many of them being inspired by the common misconceptions I hear people spreading.
The bullets I am providing in this post are derived from the sources below:
Mark Denison, MD, Chair of Infectious Diseases - Vanderbilt University
Hana Hakim, MD, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Janet England, MD, University of Washington School of Medicine
Joshua Wolf, PhD, Infectious Diseases, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Miguela Cantina, MD, Director or Global Infectious Diseases, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Michael Osterholm, PhD, University of Michigan, Director of Infectious Diseases
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
John Hopkins School of Medicine
The most common misconception discounting the gravity of the potential pandemic is the comparison between the seasonal flu and COVID-19. People are citing the fact that most people affected with the novel corona virus will experience only mild symptoms (that is true, no knowledgeable person is saying that if you get the corona virus you’re going to die), that the mortality rate is only 1% (true but that statistic, on its own, is misleading in regard to the potential severity of the spread of the virus) and that “if you don’t freak out because of the seasonal flu, you shouldn’t freak out about this” (I’m not even really sure what that means).
These are the facts:
- Local news stations are not helping the situation. (Please, don’t Lysol your kids).
- There are MANY different strains of the Corona virus of which we’ve been aware for a long time. (Just because the back of the Clorox container says “human corona virus” doesn’t mean that COVID-19 isn’t new)
- COVID-19 has never existed in humans before now; therefore, we have NO existing immunity to this virus.
- There are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments available for slowing COVID-19 spread although there are some that have been shown to be extremely successful in pre-clinical models, have very low rates of developing viral resistance, and are currently beginning clinical trials.
- The notion that this virus could have been man-made is nonsense.
- The average incubation period for COVID-19 is 5 days and can extend up to 21 days. The incubation period for the seasonal flu is about two days. This means, that in the case of COVID-19, you could contract the virus and become contagious long before you become symptomatic and have the opportunity to take measures against spreading the disease with whom you interact.
- The belief that COVID-19 is spread ONLY through close contact with the infected is FALSE. Transmission of the novel virus can occur through the air and occurs after extended periods of exposure within 6 feet of an individual that is infected.
- Wearing traditional ear-loop masks might lower the risk of you infecting someone else, but it won’t prevent you from being infected. If you can get your hands on an n95 respirator, that actually would lower your risk of infection.
- The best approach to avoiding the impact the virus has on us is avoiding things that might promote its spread i.e avoiding large crowds, avoiding travel through places where the virus has been confirmed, and frequently cleaning heavily trafficked surfaces/materials (virus can live on some surfaces for up to 3 days).
- As it stands, the COVID-19 mortality rate is roughly 1%. The seasonal flu is .1%. That is 10x less the mortality rate of the novel corona virus.
- Risk factors for poorer outcomes following infection are pre-existing heart conditions, smoking, comorbid infections, obesity, and old age (especially over 80). Because of this, some experts are predicting that mortality rates in the US may exceed what we’re seeing in other countries.
- COVID-19 is far more contagious than the seasonal flu. Estimated to be a little over twice as contagious.
- Death toll and mortality rates are different. Because of the differences in the rates that these viruses are spread, it is estimated that COVID-19 could be 20-30x more deadly than the WORST seasonal flu.
- There is no evidence that COVID-19 is seasonal. So, there’s nothing that suggests that we can just wait this out without consequence if we aren’t able to intervene. (The seasonal flu actually isn’t seasonal either, but is instead migratory, meaning that it moves between hemispheres based on weather patterns).
- Aside from the death toll, a very valid concern is the overwhelming of the US health care system that is not prepared to take on an epidemic of this magnitude. Other countries are already having to turn down symptomatic patients. There are roughly 327 million citizens in the US and roughly 900,000 hospital beds. Those aren’t available beds. That’s total beds. Assume .1% (that’s one tenth of 1%) of Americans become symptomatic enough to be hospitalized for COVID-19 in the next 4-5 months. That’s 327,000 hospital beds that will need to be dedicated to JUST COVID-19 patients. That’s over 1/3 of all the beds in the country.
A few interesting comments that Dr. Denison made was that no one really knows what’s going to happen- good or bad. For now, the virus is in charge until we have an answer for containment and/or irradication. Because it takes so long to develop new vaccines, the likely answer to how bad this will get will be “how quickly can we build an immunity to this?”
Taken together, this information makes it clear that this is not another seasonal flu virus, whether this evolves into a global pandemic or not.
To give a more practical comparison of COVID-19 vs seasonal flu threat, a disease with a high rate of fatality but low rate of spread that may only affect 100 people is ultimately not very deadly. But an illness with a mere 1% mortality rate that could lead to infection of a billion people is extremely threatening. The rate of infection is what makes COVID-19 potentially far more deadly than any seasonal flu we’ve ever experienced. So, when your friend says “Everyone is freaking out about a virus with a 99% survival rate.” Understand that 1% of the population is 78 million people.
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