What is COVID-19?

COVID-19 or the Novel Coronavirus is a respiratory disease that was first seen in November 2019 (thus the 19 in COVID-19). It is characterized by coughing, fever, fatigue, shortness of breath, and loss of taste/smell. To show off in front of your friends, you can call it by the scientific name, SARS-CoV-2, and to overwhelm your friends you can call it the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2. But that’s just a large, fancy name that scientists give, isn’t it?

Wait a minute though. Coronavirus-2? What happened to part 1? If you’re slightly older than 17 then you’ve probably heard of the SARS outbreak back in 2003. It was somewhat of a deal back then, but you also remember that there wasn’t a fully enforced lockdown. What changed? It’s the numbers. Back then, for the SARS outbreak of 2003, there were 8,098 cases; in contrast, as of October 3, 2020, for SARS-CoV-2 (remember what this cool term means) there are over 34 million people infected. Not to mention we are far from the end of the pandemic, so that number is going to increase!

Alright, alright. You get it. There are so many affected, but what’s the deal? We had Ebola, and that was far more deadly. We had Swine flu as well. We didn’t have some worldwide economic meltdown back then for those diseases. The number of cases were less for those diseases; that’s it, big deal.

Great line of thinking! We love this skepticism. Consider a few things though. Ebola was a tremendously deadly virus, yes. But it was difficult to contract. And the incubation period, another cool word for the time it takes for the disease’s symptoms to develop, was shorter than COVID-19 and had far more noticeable symptoms. This means that if you had Ebola, someone else would know you had it just by looking at you and would distance themselves. Moreover, Ebola spreads through blood, sweat, and urine -- all of which you normally don’t release in large amounts in public (if you do, please seek medical help), so it’s not easily transmissible. Meanwhile COVID-19 can even spread through coughing, sneezing, talking, and even breathing, all of which are things that you can do in public and get away with. So while COVID-19 isn’t as dangerous as Ebola, it has far higher rates of transmission. Note that just because COVID-19 “isn’t as dangerous” as a disease with nearly 50% mortality, it doesn’t mean that COVID-19 can’t kill you. Moreover, since the transmission rate is so high for COVID, despite a considerably smaller mortality rate, the total numbers of death increase far more than a deadlier disease.

What about Swine flu? That’s a good competitor to COVID-19. It spread nearly as fast back in 2009 and through many of the same modes of transmission. However, it didn’t have a high death toll (less than 0.1% as compared to 1.4% as of May 2020 for COVID 19). Moreover, its incubation period was shorter than COVID-19, so you’d get to know about your infection faster and could start isolation sooner.

Alright, so COVID-19 is very contagious, has a death toll that’s manageable, and generally doesn’t have too many acute symptoms. Just like… the seasonal flu? And that’s never been too bad, let alone having a full fledged lockdown and declaring a pandemic for it. Note that, for one, unlike for the seasonal flu, we don’t have vaccines or boosters for COVID-19 yet (read more in our section on vaccines). So there’s no way to prevent the virus apart from practicing safe health measures. Next, the amount of time a person can stay contagious after contracting the flu is less than 7 days as compared to at least 10 days for COVID-19, so more people can catch COVID-19 from a single person! COVID-19 is more dangerous too, even in mild cases, because where flu patients recover normally, those infected with COVID-19 can form clots in their arteries (throughout the body, including heart, lungs, and brain). These can lead to long lasting health problems which are still being examined.

So in some ways, COVID-19 strikes the perfect balance between incubation period and transmission rates, making it a perfect viral disease. Imagine if it were more deadly, right?

Pause for a moment though. Just because a virus won’t kill you doesn’t mean that it isn’t dangerous. It’s like saying that you’re fine with getting your arm chopped off because it won’t kill you. You obviously wouldn’t agree with the previous sentence. But if you contract COVID-19, you’re probably going for worse! There’s evidence from recent studies that in symptomatic and even asymptomatic patients (which means you might not even know you have COVID-19) there can be lung tissue scarring, strokes, and increased risk of Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease. So you may not die, but you could lose functionality of your brain and/or live your life short of breath. Perhaps wearing a mask for a short time with a nearly full lung capacity is better than living the rest of your life with chronic and intense health issues, right?

Read on to learn more about COVID-19. You learned a couple of really cool science terms and facts today which you can brag about to your friends. We have more in stock though. Was it a bioweapon made by China? Is this politically made up propaganda? Are social distancing and other health measures even working? Keep reading to find out!