General Information about COVID-19

COVID-19 or Coronavirus Disease 19 is a disease that originated from China in 2019. This disease is caused by a strand of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, a virus similar to the ones that caused the SARS outbreak in 2003 and MERS outbreak in 2014. The virus spreads very easily among people. There are two ways that a person usually gets infected with this disease: through inhaling respiratory droplets from an infected person or touching one’s mouth, nose, or eyes after touching a contaminated object. This virus may be asymptomatic up to 14 days, but for most cases the virus showed symptoms within 4-7 days. However, asymptomatic doesn’t mean that a person can’t spread the disease. Researches and multiple cases have shown that asymptomatic people can indeed spread the disease.

Most common symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, and tiredness. Some of the other symptoms may include loss of smell or taste, shortness of breath, muscle aches, chills, sore throat, runny nose, headache, and chest pain. The severity of this disease depends on many factors, but there are some people who are more vulnerable to this disease. People with serious heart diseases such as coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy, or heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Type 2 Diabetes, severe obesity, chronic kidney disease, sickle cell disease, or people with weakened immune systems due to solid organ transplants.

There are two methods to test for COVID-19: by separating the virus from specimen or separating the specific DNA of the virus from the specimen. However, the treatment options are very limited. Currently in hospitals, most of the patients are treated with medications that help relieve the symptoms of the disease. There are currently no antiviral drugs against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, making this disease very difficult to treat. There are treatments being developed and tested currently. One of the most prominent and promising examples is Remdesivir. This drug was first developed as a treatment for Ebola but was found ineffective against Ebola. However, when tested with patients of COVID-19, Remdesivir showed promising results.

With no treatments and ability to spread quickly and silently, people must take action to protect themselves from this disease. Some ways to protect oneself against this disease is to wash one’s hand for more than 30 seconds frequently, covering one’s mouth and nose while sneezing, not touching one’s eyes, nose, or mouth without washing one’s hand, and sanitizing frequently. Also, most importantly, wearing a mask. There are currently no vaccines available for COVID-19, as it is being developed right now, so one must follow the procedures mentioned above, especially wearing a face mask, seriously.

Sources-

Beigel, John H., et al. “Remdesivir for the Treatment of Covid-19 - Preliminary Report: NEJM.” New England Journal of Medicine, 27 May 2020, www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007764.

“Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 3 July 2020, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/symptoms-causes/syc-20479963.

보건복지부 . “코로나19 란?” 코로나바이러스감염증-19(COVID-19), 2020, ncov.mohw.go.kr/baroView.do.