It’s not ours, but when it’s good, one need to acknowledge. This is the only video you need to watch about coronavirus outbreak, it explains everything from the basic mechanisms of the viral infection, to what are the health consequences and what preventive measures can be done to prevent the infection.

Here is the video. There should be a reason why over 15 million watched it online.

If you don’t have 8 minutes, we show you the basic concepts:

  1. 1) We are witnessing a global outbreak of the coronavirus Covid-19 . Over 300K people were already infected, and I bet that way above 1 million people will be infected before Easter.
The disease outbreak started in Asia, spread through Europe and today are over Americas.

2) The Coronavirus Covid-19 is a RNA-based virus, quite fragile, but it spreads really rapidly. Truth be said, the provoked mortality is not that high, but the death rate among elder people is really worrying.

The coronavirus Covid-19 structure is very simple. It’s a rather common RNA-based virus.

3) From the cellular perspective, the coronavirus mechanism of infection recognize ACE2 receptors on the surface of the host cell and injects its RNA content, looking for a mechanism to replicate it’s content and multiply inside the cell.

The coronavirus injects it’s genetic content into the host cell. Target host cells are in the lungs.

4) The main health issues are due to a respiratory infection. The coronavirus generates one type of SARS – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. It spreads very rapidly due to one of its main symptoms: cough. 

Coughing is the most common symptom. It also includes high fever.

5) Seriously-affected patients require mechanical ventilators to survive. They have high risk of death and often need 2 to 3 weeks in the critical care unit. This is really costly and overloads the health systems worldwide. A potential treatment that can reduce the viral load in 6 days was already suggested and it’s being used experimentally.

Mechanical ventilation is necessary for the serious cases that are treated in the critical care unit.

6) The most serious symptoms are not due to the virus itself, rather, it breaks down the immune system, which turns the body prone to secondary opportunistic bacterial infection. The consequence of this is pneumonia.

The immune system is weakened by the virus, and the body becomes vulnerable to secondary bacterial infections.

7) The best thing you can do is to reduce the events of close contact with potentially infected people and wash the hands very often. The idea is to avoid touching contaminated surfaces and then touch any sensible part of your body, like mouth, eyes and so on. The virus tends to migrate from the mouth to the lungs via the respiratory airways.

The best thing to do: wash your hands.

8) To conclude, coronavirus is a not a simple flu, like some people already said. It’s a dangerous virus, whose main characteristic is to spread really fast via respiratory secretions, surfaces and through aerosol expelled by the mouth and/or on the surfaces. 

The virus is not very lethal, but compared to a flu is really more dangerous.
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