COVID-19 – Page 52 – Liberty's Refuge

Coronavirus Update

sunbeam March 2, 2020 Comments Off

The New England Journal of Medicine has published an editorial on Friday updating information about COVID-19. In their editorial the authors point out that the virus is structurally similar to the one that caused the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003.

While the reported mortality rate has been between 2% and 3%, the facts emerging suggest that a significant number of people may contract the illness without major symptoms. Certainly in some it may present itself as little more than a mild case of the sniffles. The underlying data suggest that the symptoms vary, and fewer than one in six of the cases reported were “severe.”

So, many cases of the illness may go unreported. It may turn out that this is little more than a severe case of seasonal influenza. Those with weak immune systems may be particularly at risk of serious illness. However, most cases will not be severe.

Coronavirus AKA COVID-19

sunbeam February 26, 2020 Comments Off

The coronavirus (COVID-19) that originated in Wuhan, China, is affecting the lives of literally billions of people around the world. Speculation about its origins and its potential to sicken and kill people has been rampant. Some of this has been fueled by China’s lack of transparency about how bad it was/is in China. And there still exists a credibility problem with stats coming out of China.

China seems to be an incubator for these types of epidemics. From the Spanish Flu of 1918-19 to the SARS outbreak some years back, the last hundred years has seen a series of viruses originate in China with the potential to be pandemics.

Just how bad is this particular outbreak? Where did it actually originate? What are the mortality rates? Just as smallpox decimated the Native American population because of a lack of resistance to it, does this virus have a similar potential with different genetic populations around the world? Once a person recovers, is re-infection possible?