COVID-19, as it is now popularly called, has rapidly become a global concern. The word COVID-19 simply stands for Coronavirus disease 2019. It is an infectious disease that is caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus.
COVID-19
The whole world is alert and everyone being very cautious. This is because the COVID-19 is contagious in humans. The COVID-19, for over a month now, has been the cause of the ongoing pandemic happening in the world today. The disease has been designated as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO).
This has caused a lot of social gatherings to cease. Markets, churches, schools are being short down on the account of trying to contain the spread of COVID-19. Social-distancing has now become the new practice.
Discovery of Coronavirus
The Coronavirus disease was first discovered and identified in Wuhan in 2019. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei in China. The spread of this virus started in China. It has currently spread to almost every country in the world since its first discovery.
The specific virus causing the pandemic is the COVID-19. Coronavirus is a family of viruses that cause diseases in humans and other animals. Viruses in the family of Coronavirus are listed below.
- SARS-CoV in 2004
- SARS-CoV-1 in 2002-2003
- MERS in 2012-2013
- SARS-CoV-2 in 2019-2020
Those were the first kind of coronavirus discovered in the world. Its attack on the human system is in the lungs.
Symptoms of COVID-19
COVID-19 has a couple of symptoms that would alert the infected person and those around. Those who have been affected by the virus may develop flu-like symptoms and others may show some emergency symptoms like, difficulty in breathing. An infected person could stay up to fourteen (14) days before the symptoms start to manifest.
The period between the time of infection and the time symptoms manifest is called the incubation period. The typical incubation period for COVID-19 is five to six (5-6) days, although a lot of affected persons have developed symptoms within 11.5 days. Below is a list of all the possible symptoms of COVID-19.
- Fever
- Fatigue (tiredness)
- Dry cough
- sneezing
- Sputum production
- Loss of smell
- Loss of taste
- Persistent chest pain or pressure
- Shortness of breath (tightness of the chest)
- Sore throat
- Muscle or joint pain (difficulty in walking)
- Headache
- Chills
- Nasal congestion
- Vomiting (nausea)
- Haemoptysis
- Conjunctival congestion
- Diarrhea
- Multiorgan failure
Transmission of Coronavirus
The COVID-19 can be spread from one person to another through respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes of infected persons. So just contacts with the respiratory droplets of an infected person would get you infected too.
The virus is said to be active even on surfaces of things around us. This means it takes some time for the virus on a surface to die off. This leaves us prone to being infected when we also come in contact with a surface that still has an active virus. Different surfaces have shown different time span for the virus to die off.
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The virus has been found to be dead on copper after 4 hours, 24 hours on cardboard, 72 hours on stainless steel and also 72 hours on plastic. This would make us more careful with everything around us. This disease has also not shown any attack on children and pregnant women up until now.
Prevention of Coronavirus
The prevention of COVID-19 is very simple. This guide would list out all the possible prevention tips you would need to prevent yourself from the virus and also reduce the spread of it. The following are a list of the necessary tips you need to follow to prevent COVID-19.
- Always wash your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and water.
- Always use a hand sanitizer or and alcohol-based hand rub on your hand after touching a surface.
- Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze. You could do this with your flexed elbow or with a clean tissue.
- Avoid contact with anyone who has shown symptoms of the coronavirus.
- Properly dispose of every used tissue, napkins and face mask immediately.
- Disinfect surfaces for fomites.
- Wash personal items of persons with COVID-19 in hot soapy water.
- Isolating oneself as much as possible to minimize the spread of the virus.
- Seek medical care early if you have or know someone who has shown any of the coronavirus symptoms.
Treatment of Coronavirus
A lot of mythical treatments have erupted in the past weeks. Some of these treatments are even posing more danger than the virus itself. Treatments for malaria and HIV have been tried on the virus and to some extent have shown positive results in the beginning stages. These drugs, however, have also not been able to cure the disease.
This coronavirus cannot be treated by antibiotics. They do not have any direct effect on it. Although the search for the cure is on, we hope they find it soon enough. With all the work and search going on, there is hope that the cure would be out and vaccines would also be available by 2021 for babies.