Don’t Fall for the Corona Virus Con
Consider the Coronavirus for a moment. It is the symbol of perfection. It is the personification of Schrodinger’s Cat in Quantum Mechanics, a biological organism that is neither alive or dead. Inside the Corona is a single strand of Ribonucleic acid (RNA) like beads on a string and this strand is wrapped in a double layer of fat or lipids. Protruding from this layer are structural proteins like the fuses of a vintage naval mine and they are fuses of a kind.
When you next encounter this virus, it could be in a gas station bathroom or on the bus. The virus enters your body through a natural opening. When the virus encounters a cell, the structural proteins bind to your cell envelope enabling the virus like a bomb. The virus then disintegrates inside your cell releasing the RNA string. This RNA overwrites the DNA in your cell forcing it to replicate the virus.
Two infected cells grow into four. Then four infected cells turn into eight cells. Eight cells become sixteen and the vicious cycle of exponential growth begins.
A week or two go by and you get a fever.
Is the infection lethal?
Did adding social distance fail you?
How did we get here?
The virally popular Convid-19 is a species of Coronavirus closely related to the common cold. When it gets you, the most common symptom is fever, cough, and some shortness of breath. You might further get a sore throat and body aches. The virus can be spread for as long as two weeks after exposure without symptoms and heat is no protection. If it was there would be no outbreaks in several countries at the equator.
While it’s true that the Coronavirus is an airborne disease, wearing masks won’t save you! Masks only capture the particles you’re coughing into the air and onto me! The best way to catch the disease is to touch grimy surfaces. Dare you! Washing your hands protects you from this peril, as does hand sanitizer. The virus can persist on dirty surfaces for a few hours but it could last for days depending on conditions like the heat.
You can still travel and visit the store provided that you wash your hands and clean surfaces.
Great! But what if I have an infection?
I will be real with you. Despite the administration’s best efforts at shoddy preparation; the disease won’t place you on death row, probably. In reality the doctors can’t even agree what the fatality rate is. This rate varies by country on account of each nation’s unique healthcare resources and treatments.
The medical experts at the China Centre for Disease Control say that 80.9% of the infections are mild. This chart is from the data experts at Informationisbeautiful.
You also have a 96.5% survival rate says the experts at John Hopkins University.
It’s not all shits and giggles, the elderly and the sick are primarily at risk. The majority of the Corona deaths have been with people aged sixty and older from sources at China’s Centre for Disease Control. Most of these people have further been tormented from a preexisting lung condition. The smoking rate is high in China and this is a lethal potion when mixed with Corona.
The overall fatality rate is only .9%, but it jumps to 5.6% for cancer victims. You got a 6% likelihood of dying with elevated blood pressure and a 6.3% probability of death with a chronic respiratory disease. Diabetes raises your risk to 7.3%. Cardiovascular (heart) disease presents the greatest risk at 10.5%.
The experts still can’t agree on how contagious Covid-19 is, but the Center for Disease Control places it at about ten times more deadly than the seasonal flu. Covid-19 could further be between 1.5 and 3.5 more contagious than the seasonal flu.
The fatality rate is 1.8% in the United States, but this figure varies widely by the age of the population and the overall quality of healthcare available. The fatality rate climbs to as high as 4% in China to a low of zero in Malaysia.
The Center for Disease Control says that Tuberculosis is still the global champion with 3,014 deaths per pay on average but this could rapidly change with this crisis.
Final remarks
Like a vintage mine, the Coronavirus is still a living threat to the ocean of humanity. The frail ships of the diseased and the elderly are the most at risk to its explosive contents. Nonetheless we are all at risk and we should take efforts to defuse this threat by sterilizing ourselves and our environment. You will almost certainly see tomorrow and the Corona is no doomsday pandemic.
