Ammuen pay daytoy, ne: 13 CORONAVIRUS FACTS YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW

Ammuen pay daytoy, ne...

13 CORONAVIRUS FACTS YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW

By Alex Daniel

Best Life, Health

March 13, 2o2o

[nabulod ti ladawan a naaramat]

How Longer Does It Stay on Surfaces? Who's Least Affected? These Coronavirus Facts May Surprise You...

It's highly unlikely that you don't already know a lot about coronavirus, the global pandemic currently rolling across the globe, killing thousands and infecting hundreds of thousands, including world leaders and movie stars. In fact, we'd bet an hour doesn't go by that you don't hear about some new coronavirus information. But while you've no doubt read plenty of alarming headlines about the novel virus known as COVID-19, you may have missed some of the fine print. We consulted scientific research and medical professionals to gather the facts about coronavirus you likely haven't heard.

[1] COVID-19 CAN LIVE ON SURFACES FOR UP TO THREE DAYS

Sure, you know that you don't want to grab the seat at the coffee shop next to someone who's coughing away, but have you stopped to think about who was sitting at your table before you… even as long as three days ago? The truth is, coronavirus can live on surfaces long after an infected person has left. A new study from the National Institutes of Health, which has not yet been peer reviewed, found that coronavirus can live on plastic and stainless steel for as long as three days.

[2] IT POSES A GREATER RISK TO PEOPLE WITH OBESITY

While it's well known that the elderly and those with compromised respiratory systems are at a greater risk of contracting and dying from coronavirus, less discussed is the fact that obesity and diabetes can also make people more susceptible.

"Patients with diabetes are more susceptible to severe complications from viral infections of any kind, and as a result, are considered a high risk population for COVID-19," says Rocio Salas-Whalen, MD, of New York Endocrinology. "Due to the pathophysiology of diabetes, patients can take longer to heal, putting them at risk for developing complications from the virus. This is true with any type of infection in diabetes."

Salas-Walen also points to research that has found that excess weight changes the efficacy of the flu shot. Considering that more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight, that could have important repercussions as coronavirus spreads in the States.

[3] IT WON'T DIMMINISH IN WARM TEMPERATURES

Since most associate the regular flu season with the colder months of the year, many assume that COVID-19 will taper off as temperatures rise. But Salas-Whalen emphasizes that it's not as simple as that.

"Unfortunately, the virology of COVID-19 does not diminish in warm temperatures," she says. "Although the virus may have a seasonal cycle, it is not reasonable to expect a huge decline in transmission due to warmer weather alone. We see the largest decrease in infections when people refrain from being in locations with poor ventilation and/or large crowds."

[4] CORONAVIRUS HAS COUSINS

According to an article from the Coronavirus Study Group (CSG) of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, which has not yet been peer reviewed, COVID-19 is a variant of the coronavirus that caused the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002-2003. As a result, its official name is: severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2. It's also a relative of the coronavirus Middle East respiratory syndrome, also known as MERS, which surfaced in the Middle East beginning in 2012.

[5] COVID-19 REFERS TO THE DISEASE THAT THE VIRUS CAUSES, NOT THE VIRUS ITSELF

The World Health Organization (WHO) realized that calling the novel virus SARS-CoV-2 might lead to some confusion and anxiety. As Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of WHO, put it in February: "From a risk communications perspective, using the name SARS can have unintended consequences in terms of creating unnecessary fear for some populations, especially in Asia, which was worst affected by the SARS outbreak in 2003."

For that reason, WHO opted to refer to it by the name of the disease it results in—COVID-19—rather than by the name of the virus itself.

[6] PETS CAN GET CORONAVIRUS

Unfortunately, cats and dogs are able to contract coronaviruses—sometimes with deadly consequences. A 2011 study in the journal Advances in Virology discusses how what's called pantropic canine coronavirus can infect cats and dogs. And a virus known as feline infectious peritonitis can cause cats to exhibit flu-like symptoms or even organ failure.

At the beginning of March, it was confirmed that a dog in Hong Kong contracted coronavirus from his owner. "There are strains of coronavirus that do affect dogs, typically puppies," Christie Long, DVM, the head of veterinary medicine at Modern Animal in Los Angeles, previously told Best Life. "As coronaviruses themselves are capable of rapid mutation, we are always on the lookout for evidence of disease caused by new strains of this virus."

[7] PREVIOUS PANDEMICS WERE FAR WORSE THAN COVID-19

Things are likely just getting started with coronavirus and while there is reason to expect many more people will be infected and die from the virus, compared to previous pandemics, it looks slightly less frightening. More than 5,000 people have died as of the time this article was published—a terrible toll, to be sure. But it pales in comparison to the 1957 H2N2 flu, which killed 1.1 million people (0.04 percent of the global population at the time), or the 1918 Spanish flu (responsible for the death of 50 million people), or the black death, which killed 75 million people (almost 17 percent of the global population at the time).

[8] IT'S LESS INFECTIOUS THAN AIRBORNE VIRUSES, LIKE MEASLES

COVID-19 is incredibly contagious. But it's not as contagious as airborne viruses, such as tuberculosis or measles. "It is an infectious disease, which is most likely spread via droplet transmission. This means that it requires large droplets containing particles of the virus to infect a new host," explains Taylor Graber, MD, a resident anesthesiologist at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.

"That means that overall it is less infectious than an airborne transmission virus or bacteria, such as measles or tuberculosis. For these other pathogens, it is much easier for them to become aerosolized in the air," Graber notes. "The more that they are in the air, the more infectious they become, since they can infect more patients more quickly. Initial studies have suggested that COVID-19 is not spread via the aerosolized route."

[9] TWENTY SECONDS OF HAND-WASHING MY NOT BE ENOUGH

You probably thought you were pretty hygienic—always careful to wash your hands after using the bathroom and usually before you had something to eat. But as numerous health officials have reminded us since coronavirus really started to spread, there's a difference between quickly running your hands under the tap and really giving them a scrub. And though 20 seconds has been the recommended amount of time to spend scrubbing, even that may not be enough.

"Be diligent about washing hands appropriately: for 20 to 30 seconds with soap, under warm running water," Graber recommends. Try timing yourself with some of these helpful memes.

[10] FACE MASKS DON'T OFFER MUCH PROTECTION FROM COVID-19.

Because coronavirus is transmitted via droplets, personal protective equipment, such as face masks, are not particularly effective at preventing transmission.

"Since the virus is transmitted as droplets, it is currently not recommended to need to use standard face masks or surgical face masks, or N95 masks, as good hand hygiene and washing is sufficient," says Graber.

[11] BUT REMOVING YOUR SHOES IS A MUST

While hand-washing is a vital way to reduce one's risk of contracting COVID-19, those aforementioned droplets can also travel from the outside world into your home on the bottom of your shoes. In order to keep your home coronavirus-free, you should remove your shoes when you come inside.

[12] IT'S BARELY AFFECTED CHILDREN

A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that children 10 and under account for just 1 percent of all COVID-19 cases, while those between the ages of 30 to 79 make up nearly 90 percent. Scientists aren't sure why, but they think the answers may help us defeat COVID-19.

[13] IT'S GOING TO SERIOUSLY TEST OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

As coronavirus spreads throughout the U.S., the strain it will put on the country's health care system is increasingly apparent. As The New York Times reports:

***Best Life, Health

***wwwsalunatkenmedisina.blogspot.com

CORONAVIRUS AND THE SUN: A LESSON FROM THE 1918 INFLUENZA PANDEMIC

Pagpampanunotan...

CORONAVIRUS AND THE SUN: A LESSON FROM THE 1918

INFLUENZA PANDEMIC

By Richard Hobday

medium.com

[photo credit to the owner-National Archives]

[Influenza patients getting sunlight at the Camp Brooks emergency open-air hospital in Boston. Medical staff were not supposed to remove their masks.]

FRESH air, sunlight and improvised face masks seemed to work a century ago; and they might help us now.

When new, virulent diseases emerge, such SARS and Covid-19, the race begins to find new vaccines and treatments for those affected. As the current crisis unfolds, governments are enforcing quarantine and isolation, and public gatherings are being discouraged. Health officials took the same approach 100 years ago, when influenza was spreading around the world. The results were mixed. But records from the 1918 pandemic suggest one technique for dealing with influenza — little-known today — was effective. Some hard-won experience from the greatest pandemic in recorded history could help us in the weeks and months ahead.

Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff. There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu virus and other harmful germs. Equally, sunlight is germicidal and there is now evidence it can kill the flu virus.

`OPEN-AIR’ Treatment in 1918

During the great pandemic, two of the worst places to be were military barracks and troop-ships. Overcrowding and bad ventilation put soldiers and sailors at high risk of catching influenza and the other infections that often followed it. As with the current Covid-19 outbreak, most of the victims of so-called `Spanish flu’ did not die from influenza: they died of pneumonia and other complications.

When the influenza pandemic reached the East coast of the United States in 1918, the city of Boston was particularly badly hit. So the State Guard set up an emergency hospital.

They took in the worst cases among sailors on ships in Boston harbour. The hospital’s medical officer had noticed the most seriously ill sailors had been in badly-ventilated spaces. So he gave them as much fresh air as possible by putting them in tents. And in good weather they were taken out of their tents and put in the sun. At this time, it was common practice to put sick soldiers outdoors. Open-air therapy, as it was known, was widely used on casualties from the Western Front. And it became the treatment of choice for another common and often deadly respiratory infection of the time; tuberculosis.

Patients were put outside in their beds to breathe fresh outdoor air. Or they were nursed in cross-ventilated wards with the windows open day and night. The open-air regimen remained popular until antibiotics replaced it in the 1950s.

Doctors who had first-hand experience of open-air therapy at the hospital in Boston were convinced the regimen was effective. It was adopted elsewhere. If one report is correct, it reduced deaths among hospital patients from 40 per cent to about 13 per cent. According to the Surgeon General of the Massachusetts State Guard:

`The efficacy of open air treatment has been absolutely proven, and one has only to try it to discover its value.’

FRESH AIR is a Disinfectant

Patients treated outdoors were less likely to be exposed to the infectious germs that are often present in conventional hospital wards. They were breathing clean air in what must have been a largely sterile environment. We know this because, in the 1960s, Ministry of Defence scientists proved that fresh air is a natural disinfectant. Something in it, which they called the Open Air Factor, is far more harmful to airborne bacteria — and the influenza virus — than indoor air.

They couldn’t identify exactly what the Open Air Factor is. But they found it was effective both at night and during the daytime.

Their research also revealed that the Open Air Factor’s disinfecting powers can be preserved in enclosures — if ventilation rates are kept high enough. Significantly, the rates they identified are the same ones that cross-ventilated hospital wards, with high ceilings and big windows, were designed for. But by the time the scientists made their discoveries, antibiotic therapy had replaced open-air treatment. Since then the germicidal effects of fresh air have not featured in infection control, or hospital design. Yet harmful bacteria have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

SUNLIGHT and INFLUENZA Infection

Putting infected patients out in the sun may have helped because it inactivates the influenza virus. It also kills bacteria that cause lung and other infections in hospitals. During the First World War, military surgeons routinely used sunlight to heal infected wounds. They knew it was a disinfectant. What they didn’t know is that one advantage of placing patients outside in the sun is they can synthesise vitamin D in their skin if sunlight is strong enough. This was not discovered until the 1920s. Low vitamin D levels are now linked to respiratory infections and may increase susceptibility to influenza.

Also, our body’s biological rhythms appear to influence how we resist infections. New research suggests they can alter our inflammatory response to the flu virus. As with vitamin D, at the time of the 1918 pandemic, the important part played by sunlight in synchronizing these rhythms was not known.

FACE MASKS CORONAVIRUS and FLU

Surgical masks are currently in short supply in China and elsewhere. They were worn 100 years ago, during the great pandemic, to try and stop the influenza virus spreading. While surgical masks may offer some protection from infection they do not seal around the face. So they don’t filter out small airborne particles. In 1918, anyone at the emergency hospital in Boston who had contact with patients had to wear an improvised face mask. This comprised five layers of gauze fitted to a wire frame which covered the nose and mouth. The frame was shaped to fit the face of the wearer and prevent the gauze filter touching the mouth and nostrils. The masks were replaced every two hours; properly sterilized and with fresh gauze put on. They were a forerunner of the N95 respirators in use in hospitals today to protect medical staff against airborne infection.

TEMPORARY HOSPITALS

Staff at the hospital kept up high standards of personal and environmental hygiene. No doubt this played a big part in the relatively low rates of infection and deaths reported there.

The speed with which their hospital and other temporary open-air facilities were erected to cope with the surge in pneumonia patients was another factor. Today, many countries are not prepared for a severe influenza pandemic.

Their health services will be overwhelmed if there is one. Vaccines and antiviral drugs might help. Antibiotics may be effective for pneumonia and other complications. But much of the world’s population will not have access to them. If another 1918 comes, or the Covid-19 crisis gets worse, history suggests it might be prudent to have tents and pre-fabricated wards ready to deal with large numbers of seriously ill cases.

Plenty of fresh air and a little sunlight might help too.

***Dr. Richard Hobday is an independent researcher working in the fields of infection control, public health and building design. He is the author of `The Healing Sun’.

***medium.com

***wwwsalunatkenmedisina.blogspot.com