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
coronavirus 1000 x
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
Gulf News Shedding
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
Virus carrier shedding
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
14 COVID SPREADS FAST
Sources: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://bit.ly/3bg6Dam Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin
Coronavirus Early on
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COVID-19 emit high amounts of the virus very early on — in the first 5 days — in their infection, a study (pre-print, not peer-reviewed) from Germany suggests.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
Viral shedding coronavirus
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
SARS VS COVID 19
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin Source https://bit.ly/2Up12b3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20030502v1
covid 19 shedding harder to contain
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
SARS VS COVID19
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
After Day 5
Image Credit: https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
German study
Image Credit: Gulf News/Jay Hilotin https://bit.ly/2Up12b3
coronavirus how countries fight back
Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hiliotin https://bit.ly/33GJewj
Dr Bruce Aylward
Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUI6DIswmFk&app=desktop [from 11.00] Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin https://bit.ly/2U8jqWS
Virus shedding defined
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/virus-shedding Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin
Day 8 COVID 19
Image Credit: Gulf News/Jay Hilotin https://bit.ly/3a8Zk45
Case severity rate
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm Image Credit: Gulf News / Jay Hilotin