CORONAVIRUS SIMPLIFIED
In simplest terms of a frustrated kid, this virus is a douche bag.
For informer’s term, keep reading:)
In late December of 2019, a new strain of coronavirus was found. March 11, 2020, WHO declared a pandemic. That time the symptoms were basic. With new and modified strains the symptoms have become less easy to identify.
With increasing cases and uncertainty, a lot of rumors and panic seems to float around us. It is necessary to understand how this thing works, personally, this helped my anxiety.
STRUCTURE:
I’ll try to explain the virus in as simple way as I can.
So for starters, coronavirus ain’t blue/ red/ green spiked ball with horrifying eye stare but instead, it is an enveloped, positive sensed, single-stranded RNA.
RNAs are proteins.
Everything and everyone is made up of proteins.
This virus is a protein pack with an extended hand-like structure. That hand-like structure is being referred to as the ‘spiked protein’.
Now what happens is these viruses or any kind of virus for that case needs a body to be alive and to function. In SARS-CoV-2’s case, it’s humans.
As this virus interacts with our body membrane fusion takes place and further viral infection is observed. It is the Human ACE-2 the virus binds itself with. As it binds it comes alive and starts dividing itself with cells thus causing them to rupture. Destruction is seen more in the lungs since it is a respiratory disease as we inhale it gets into our lungs along with other air particles, thus affecting our respiratory system.
Visualize this as a jigsaw puzzle, the extended hand or spiked protein is looking for another hand-like structure in our body to get attached and come alive (hACE-2 in this case)
Just like the creation of Adams instead of Adam and creator imagine Two amino structures trying to touch each other for the creation of life. And As they touch destruction happens just as humans did to nature after getting a life.
SO DON’T TOUCH OTHER ENTITY AT ALL!
Obviously, I’m kidding that’s not entirely possible, we humans need the touch of another being to feel human. We need other humans to dwell in this world. Even the virus does.
HISTORY
From 2002–2003, SARS-CoV infected 8000 people but its fatality rate was very low (~10%).
Since 2012, 1700 people have been affected by MERS-CoV with a fatality rate(~36%)
MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV belong to the genus, betacoronavirus. Currently, it’s SARS-CoV which has caused the chaos it’s fatality rate is (~79%)
WORLD IS NOT STATIC
Everything around us is changing with time. The universe is expanding, age is increasing, every second someone is dying, every second someone is being born, viruses are evolving, discoveries are being made, and more ( beyond my peanut size brain’s capacity could handle).
In short, nothing is constant.
Another interesting fact is that this virus ain’t new. These microorganisms have always been around us. They mutate through ages and develop themselves with time. You can compare it to a phone model, the company releases new updated versions of one phone series but they add new applications or software to make it better functional.
WAY FORWARD
Vaccines are out on roll thanks to our scientists who worked hard on this. Vaccines won’t cure the patient rather they’ll reduce the danger of the patient getting admitted to the hospital.
No vaccine can be compared each of them works differently and is as effective as others. So take your vaccines when your chance comes.
Even after vaccination, you need to wear masks, sanitize and maintain physical distancing cause the virus won’t go away the situation is unlike what our dumb politicians say.
SPECIAL MENTION
Last year I came across this podcast, The seen and the unseen on Spotify hosted by Amit Varma.
This podcast has since then been a savior of my sanity throughout this Pandemic.
As a college student, I was supposed to go out and gain experiences, learn from the seniors and pioneers of some particular field and move forward in life.
Amit’s podcast brought me opportunities I could’ve missed due to covid. It is through his podcast I was able to enhance my thirst for an abundance of knowledge.
It is through TSATU that I was able to expand my reading and knowledge of a variety of subjects.
His last podcast with Anirban Mahapatra pushed me to read about this virus. I went through a few scientific papers for the same. I will cite those papers here. As I’ve skipped a lot of biological terms in this post for one would’ve lost in the micro-world. You can check them out if you want to go into detail.
And as he quoted and I loved this, I’ll manipulate it according to myself, “I’m a 92% procrastinator and 8% bacteria”
References:
Wu, K., Chen, L., Peng, G., Zhou, W., Pennell, C. A., Mansky, L. M., Geraghty, R. J., & Li, F. (2011). A virus-binding hot spot on human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 is critical for binding of two different coronaviruses. Journal of virology, 85(11), 5331–5337. https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.02274-10
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-virology-110615-042301
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1008762 (this has some really good pictorial explainations)
Podcast by Amit Varma: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6bNTYrYychUg8T18jP97AR?si=j8m9UTY9SUSzs0AfOiOcVw
