Corona Daily 418: Anatomy of the Novel Coronavirus

The SARS-C0V-2 baby is now more than six months old. Epidemiologists, scientists and frontline doctors have described it in variety of ways.

Like all viruses, it is not a living organism. It can’t reproduce itself unless it enters a living host. Once the viral code, like a burglar, breaks into a human body, it uses the body’s genetic machinery, and instructs it to produce a new code - new virus. Some medical writers compare it to a microscopic Xerox machine.

Out of the trillions of viruses that exist, a few hundred thousand are known. Only 6828 virus species have names. Only about 250 of them, including the novel coronavirus, can infect humans. It is twice the size of a flu virus, and 50% larger than the Ebola virus. Still, it is 10,000 times smaller than a millimeter, one thousandth the width of a human hair. A wonderful NYT article says: If a person were the size of earth, the virus would be the size of a person.

SARS-C0V-2 has been called a genius. During the SARS pandemic, symptoms were visible immediately. The current virus infects, and waits. The infected person, feeling healthy, infects dozens of others, and only then starts feeling ill. SARS-C0V-2 can use something as basic as the human voice for transmission. People talking energetically, loudly, or singing, can spread it beyond the social distance boundaries.

Genome analysis has concluded it is a nature-made virus, not born in any human lab. A virus that can quickly spread to two hundred countries, infect prime ministers, princes, and paupers, lock down millions, and bring the world to its knees is too potent to be made by humans.

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Once SARS-C0V-2 enters, it resides in the nose and throat for 2-3 days, before descending into the lungs. Air sacs in the lungs get inflamed and are unable to gather oxygen as they should. Symptoms can differ. Dry cough, low fever, shortness of breath, loss of sense of smell or taste, toes becoming red and inflamed, even something similar to a heart attack, delusion and disorientation.

An important fact is 35% of the infected people feel nothing, but they continue to spread it. (If it is a microscopic Xerox machine, not all photocopies are the same). The others can get pneumonia, internal drowning sensation and can become desperate for oxygen. One doctor describes its ferocity as breathtaking and humbling. The novel coronavirus can damage the walls of the heart, attack the lining of the blood vessels, induce strokes, seizures, inflammation of the brain, and damage kidneys.

Some patients experience the cytokine storm. When the virus invades the body, the immune system becomes alert and starts the fight. The frontline soldiers are protein molecules called cytokines. Usually a strong immune response defeats the intruder and the immune system is supposed to sheathe the sword. In young healthy patients, this is what happens. But in some serious patients, the immune system is over reactive and keeps fighting, even when the virus is gone. That misguided zeal attacks multiple organs, including the lungs and liver. In those patients, it is the storm that kills, not the virus.

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After reading the cytokine storm description, I wondered whether it can apply to our response to the pandemic. Will the protracted lockdowns, simultaneous crushing of demand and supply, promising disproportionate fiscal and monetary stimuli turn out to be cytokine storms – an overreaction that can kill even when the virus is gone?

Ravi