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Medicine

What We Know So Far About SARS-CoV-2 (theatlantic.com) 214

Posted by msmash from the where-we-are-at dept.
We've known about SARS-CoV-2 for only three months, but scientists can make some educated guesses about where it came from and why it's behaving in such an extreme way. From a report: The structure of the virus provides some clues about its success. In shape, it's essentially a spiky ball. Those spikes recognize and stick to a protein called ACE2, which is found on the surface of our cells: This is the first step to an infection. The exact contours of SARS-CoV-2's spikes allow it to stick far more strongly to ACE2 than SARS-classic did, and "it's likely that this is really crucial for person-to-person transmission," says Angela Rasmussen of Columbia University. In general terms, the tighter the bond, the less virus required to start an infection. There's another important feature. Coronavirus spikes consist of two connected halves, and the spike activates when those halves are separated; only then can the virus enter a host cell. In SARS-classic, this separation happens with some difficulty. But in SARS-CoV-2, the bridge that connects the two halves can be easily cut by an enzyme called furin, which is made by human cells and -- crucially -- is found across many tissues. "This is probably important for some of the really unusual things we see in this virus," says Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research Translational Institute. Further reading: How the Coronavirus Could Take Over Your Body (Before You Ever Feel It)
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What We Know So Far About SARS-CoV-2 More

What We Know So Far About SARS-CoV-2

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  • "no one is likely to repeat that mistake again." (Score:3)

    by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Friday March 20, 2020 @05:33PM (#59854476)

    Has the author MET human beings? I'm sure that specific field of research will be very high profile for the next few years, and then the next couple decades after that it'll fade to obscurity again, until the next coronavirus pandemic.

  • We heard your complaints (Score:5, Funny)

    by paralumina01 ( 6276944 ) on Friday March 20, 2020 @05:37PM (#59854486)
    And we are switching from SARS-CoV-2 back to SARS-Classic. We hope can continue to keep your business/

    • Does that mean we should refer to the current virus as "new-SARS"?

      • The makers of "Corona" beer would greatly appreciate this switch.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Look at Mr Superior Belgian here. But imagine this: What If you people were as stupid as we are? What if? You would be just as scared of Corona beer as Americans. You really would, and don't deny it. "There but for the grace of God go I." Only because of arbitrary, normally-irrelevant factors like intelligence, honesty, a whole lifetime of experience never seeming to match up to supernatural or propagandistic claims, a benevolent government rarely trying to fuck you to make a buck, and the color of your ski

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sconeu ( 64226 )

            Hey, I know that things are difficult, but we really don't need to use such obscene language as the "B-word" here. And yes, I know we are a bunch of stupid turlingdromes.

          • Cracks me up that people still believe any significant portion of Americans think or ever thought Coronavirus had anything to do with Corona beer. It was never a real thing that happened, just one of those "yuck yuck, dumb Americans" memes that people are credulous enough to believe.

    • So this was all just a conspiracy to switch to HFCS in the virus?

    • Aha, you claim to be switching back to SARS-Classic, but we can tell it's not the same! It's still new-SARS, you're lying to us! Go back to the original formula!
  • There is some anecdotal evidence that ACE inhibitor drugs used to control high blood pressure could be resulting in more severe infections for people that use them.

  • Meaning we will get it multiple times.

    • Not that fast. There's 100 variants so far, but none are dominant and (so far) no one has reported re-infection.

  • It kulled the economy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spyfrog ( 552673 ) on Friday March 20, 2020 @08:03PM (#59854880) Homepage
    At least one thing is obvious regarding the virus - it killed the world economy outright. Prepare for a depression like 1929

    • I don't expect a ten-year depression.

  • See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] The goal here is to save lives, not take useless counts of whos got it or whos had it. But we do want to know ICU matters Various Combination of Protease Inhibitors, Oseltamivir, Favipiravir, and Chloroquin for Treatment of COVID19 and or Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin combined treatment WE should also place a dollar value on 'savable lives' Vs full cost of isolation and everything else.Now if we give out Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to health workers (d

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