COVID Exposed
What is COVID
Evil Spiky Ball
A virus can’t live on its own. It needs another living cell. The outer surface of a virus, the shell, has different attachment points. The attachment points act like a key to open the cell. When the virus finds a cell it can open, it hooks on and drops inside. Normally a virus’s key works only on a few kinds of cells.
Hijacked!
After it drops inside, it hijacks the cell. Instead of the cell keeping itself alive, it now works for the virus. The virus’s instructions replace the cell’s, and the cell begins making copies of the virus. These copies pop out of the cell when they are ready. Eventually, the cell dies because its resources went into making copies of the virus.
Immune response
The worst effects of a virus often come from the body’s reaction. The body senses an intruder and sends workers to contain the virus and to stop the hijacked cells from making copies of the virus. The worker cells call helper molecules to flood the area. This causes inflammation, which normally begins healing the damage. If the inflammation spins out of control, it damages normal, healthy cells.
How it Spreads
COVID, like most viruses, spreads through droplets. Unlike bacteria, many of which can live on a surface indefinitely, a virus needs a living host to survive more than a day or so. You can get COVID from a surface, but it’s not common.
Spreading The Virus
Every time we breathe, we breathe out water droplets. If we have a viral infection in our throat, some viruses stick to the water droplets. Most droplets are tiny---1,000 droplets side-by-side is 1 cm. When we shout, laugh, sing, and especially cough or sneeze, the droplets come out thick and fast. Most of these droplets quickly fall to the ground, and few reach more than 3 feet from our mouths.
Floating on Air
Some of the smallest droplets can float for hours. These particles accumulate in a stale indoor area, similar to how smoke behaves. Being in the same room as an infected person for hours, even more than 6 feet away, can result in an infection.
Get Less Virus
One of the keys to not getting sick or very sick is limiting the number of virus units you pick up. A single virus is unlikely to make you sick; 10,000 likely will. That seems like a lot, but it’s easy to send out 1,000 virus-infected droplets a minute.
What COVID Does
Disease Progress
Once you have been exposed to enough virus to get infected, it takes between 2—10 days for symptoms to appear. Some people never get symptoms but still spread the virus. A person is not immediately contagious when infected. Once enough virus copies have been made, then it is possible to spread it to others.
Disease Progress
Normally, symptoms appear in 5 days after infection. If things go bad, hospitalization can happen within another 5 days, and in the worst cases, death follows in about 10 days. There are treatments that help with COVID. Steroids, a strong anti-inflammatory, lower the risk of dying from COVID, and other drugs and therapies seem to assist in recovery.
Who Dies
COVID does not kill all equally. The risk of dying increases dramatically with age. Compared to those in their 20s, those in their 40s are 10 times more likely to die from COVID if infected. That jumps to 220 times for those in their 70s. See the table below.
Age Increased Risk of Death
School age 15 times lower
20s Base
50s 30 times higher
70s 220 times higher
85+ 630 times higher
Young vs. Old
Compared to school-age children, someone 85 is 10,000 times more likely to die if infected with COVID. Half of the people who have died in Canada from COVID are over 84. That age group makes up 2% of the population but half the COVID deaths. About 3/4 of all the COVID deaths were residents of seniors’ homes.
School Age
For school-age children, ordinary flu causes more deaths. Total COVID deaths among school-age children in the US as of September was 55. In 2018, in the US, 528 children died from ordinary flu. Ten times as many children died from flu in 2018 than COVID in 2020. Hospitalization for school-age children is no more likely with COVID than flu.
Conditions That Add Risk
A few conditions increase the risk of complications from COVID. The main ones are being overweight, diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease. These are all conditions that affect small blood vessels. Asthma, which increases the risk of flu complications, does not increase the risk of hospitalization from COVID. Having more than one risk factor multiplies the risk. (See table) Also, being a man increases the risk of death by 25%.
Condition Increased risk of hospitalization
Obese 4.5 times higher
Kidney disease 4 times higher
Overweight 3 times higher
Diabetes 3 times higher
High blood pressure 3 times higher
Excess Deaths
Overall, in the US, the country with the most COVID deaths, over the period of the pandemic, COVID deaths are 15% above normal. In the worst-hit places during the peak, COVID became the leading cause of death. In places with lower COVID death rates, such as the province of BC, there were more deaths from drug overdose than from COVID, suicides, murders, and car accidents combined. It can be misleading to focus on COVID deaths alone.
Other than Death
COVID has effects other than death. It can cause organ damage to any organ with a supply of fine blood vessels. It seems to particularly affect the heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver. Particularly with the heart, COVID appears to cause damage to heart muscle cells. The long-term effects are unknown.
What COVID is Doing
Second Wave
Many countries are now getting a second wave of cases. So far, the second waves have been much less deadly than the first. France, Spain and the UK are getting more cases than they had in the first wave, but only a fraction of the deaths. It is unknown if this is due to the virus mutating to a less deadly form, better treatments, heathier people getting infected, or better testing finding more of the cases than in the first wave.
The Swedish Model
Compared to other countries, Sweden followed a different COVID plan. They never closed elementary schools or restaurants. High school and college went online. They encouraged work from home and limited gatherings to 50. They took measures they could keep in place for a long time. Like most nations, nursing homes were the main locations of death. The per population death rate in Sweden is about twice as high as Canada, but lower than the US, UK and many European countries. Now, they don’t use masks, even on public transit. They have not seen a big second wave and currently only have about a COVID death a day. Tests show that about 25% of the population of Swedish cities have had COVID.
Immunity
Some scientists believe that part of the population has preexisting immunity. This natural immunity would come from being exposed to a virus similar enough to COVID that your body can recognize the invader quicker. COVID is a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are common as many colds are caused by coronaviruses.
Regional Variation
There is a large variation in how bad COVID outbreaks are. Most European countries had bad outbreaks. So far, no East Asian country has had a big outbreak. Japan, with the oldest population in the world, did limited testing, no lockdowns, and a short school closure, yet it has a small outbreak. Japan even opened their baseball stadium in July, allowing 5,000 fans to watch games live, and the famously crowded subways are operating near full capacity. Yet, Canada’s death rate is 20 times that of Japan.
Outlook
With around 300,000 new cases around the world every day, COVID will be here for a long time. Daily new cases in Canada will likely rise through the fall, but so far, the new deaths from COVID are much lower than at the peak. At the peak, Canada was losing 200 people a day. As of September, the deaths per day are under 10.
Compared to Other Pandemics
Globally, COVID has killed a million people, far short of the 40 million killed by the Spanish flu. Given that the global population in 1918 was about a quarter of what it is now, the Spanish flu killed at 100 times the rate of the current COVID outbreak, and was much deadlier for 20—35 year-olds. But the COVID outbreak is not over. It may kill another 1 million people, which would put the global death rate close to the 1958 Asian flu and 1968 Hong Kong flu, both of which killed about a million people at a time when the population was half the size.
What to Do
Strengthen Your System
Taking zinc can boost your immune system. One of the weird symptoms of COVID is the loss of taste and smell. This is a known result of being low in zinc. Zinc is a key mineral for immune health. Another thing to consider is Vitamin D, which is known to have some antiviral properties and is important for a strong immune system. Vitamin D levels may play a part in why the flu is worse in winter.
COVID Tools
It is a good idea to have a thermometer on hand. That way, if you start to run a fever, you can be sure to isolate and get tested quickly. A blood O2 meter can also be helpful. This is a fingertip device that measures your blood oxygen level. A lower blood oxygen level from COVID means you should go to the hospital. O2 meters are available for around $25.
Mask Tech
The N95 masks are often used in industry to filter out 95% of dust, assuming a tight seal. They also filter out most droplets. Masks that look like surgical masks are less effective than full medical-grade masks. Still, any mask will reduce the number of droplets you spew out, protecting others from potential infection.
Sanitize This
Sanitizing food after you go shopping is not required. Put your groceries away as you normally would. After a day in the cupboard, it is extremely unlikely a package would still carry enough virus to get you sick. But do wash your hands after you put all your groceries away and before you eat, just like your mother told you to. If you bleach or Lysol your counters, be sure to rinse them off before prepping food on them.
The Old Solution
The proven way to reduce the spread of COVID is limiting the number of people you see. Quarantining has been a tool against infectious disease for thousands of years because it works. That doesn’t mean you should isolate yourself, but reducing the number of different people you see is wise, especially if your risk is higher.
Future
A vaccine might end the pandemic, but even with a vaccine, COVID could pass around for years. An annual COVID vaccine could become part of a preventative health program, together with a flu shot. There are at least 9 vaccines under development around the world. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines could be ready by November and available by the end of the year if they prove effective and safe.
Action Plan
The older you are, the more care you should take. It is impossible to live a zero-risk life, but choose your actions carefully, knowing that some involve more risk. The best precautions are the same ones used 100 years ago. Limit larger gatherings where prolonged close contact makes spread more likely. Wear a mask when you go out. Stay healthy and social. Keep in contact with friends and family. This too, shall pass.
