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Special Reports

Explainer

Why this coronavirus is extremely virulent: Understanding 'virus shedding' and why blithe disregard for social distancing is exceedingly dangerous

It hits the best, weakest among us: Understanding "peak shedding" of COVID-19

Highlights

  • Lack of concern, blithe disregard for social distancing is exceedingly dangerous
  • Understanding "viral shedding" of COVID-19, how it differs from SARS' mechanism of infection, is key to fighting the pandemic
  • German researchers establish when the COVID-19 is most virulent
  • Health authorities, policy makers, people should take serious note of clinical data
LURKING DANGER: German researchers found very high levels of the COVID-19 virus emitted from the throat of patients from the earliest point in the illness — when people are generally still going about their daily routines. Understanding this mechanism of attack by the deadly virus, alongside the introduction of a vaccine or therapy against it (all still in development stages) would give a significant push to the global drive in curbing its spread.
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2UbMNHX; https://bit.ly/398jFp5
SARS CRISIS. In November 2002, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) rampaged through 17 countries, infecting over 8,000 people and killing nearly 800. Experts said it was just a hint of what this latest COVID-19 could do. As early as March 1, 2020, Prof Gabriel Leung, dean of the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) medical faculty, has called the coronavirus epidemic a global “pandemic”, as it has spread quickly across several countries. The first wave of outbreak outside China was “just starting” then. https://bit.ly/3djxCUB
Image Credit: GULF NEWS / Jay Hilotin Sources: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://bit.ly/3bg6Dam
WAY MORE DANGEROUS THAN SARS: The 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19 diseases, is sufficiently divergent from SARS-CoV to be considered a new human-infecting carrier.
Image Credit: GULF NEWS / Jay Hilotin Sources: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://bit.ly/3bg6Dam
Sources: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://bit.ly/3bg6Dam
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin
People who contract COVID-19 emit high amounts of the virus very early on — in the first 5 days — in their infection, a study (pre-print, not peer-reviewed) from Germany suggests.
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Sources: https://bit.ly/3dndRvl https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
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IMPORTANT DETAIL: Here's an important detail from the German team's research findings: Viral shedding significantly dropped after Day 5 in all but 2 of the patients, who had more serious illness.
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Source https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20030502v1
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Source https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20030502v1
KEY POINT: With COVID-19, shedding from the upper airways (upper respiratory tract) early in infection makes for a virus that is much harder to contain.Experts say understanding the differences in the pattern of virus shedding holds the KEY.
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Source: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
FACT: The SARS outbreak was contained after about 8,000 cases; the global count of confirmed COVID-19 cases has already topped 267,000, with more than 11,000 deaths, and cases spreading in 184 countries (March 22, 2020).
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Sources: https://bit.ly/2Ujbr80 https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
Image Credit: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
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Image Credit: Gulf News/Jay Hilotin https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
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Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUI6DIswmFk&app=desktop [from 11.00]
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin https://bit.ly/2U8jqWS
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/virus-shedding
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin
Image Credit: Gulf News/Jay Hilotin https://bit.ly/3a8Zk45
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Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin
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