Humans have been afflicted by a series of coronaviruses in additon to deadly flu strains.
I was reading the news on my phone.
That lead me to write this.
It appears that violence and harassment are increasing as the COVID-19 pandemic deepens.
The violence against immigrants is particularly distressing.
Bigotry and fear are no excuse for behaving like jackasses and worse.
If you want to know why read this.
SARS
Many of you have heard of SARS, a viral infection before COVID-19 which we are suffering through right now.
The SARS pandemic ran from 2002 to 2004.
The outbreak originated in Foshan, China and infected over 8,000 people and caused 774 deaths worldwide.
Images from Wikipedia
MERS
Since SARS there has been MERS.
SARS was designated SARS-CoV-2 . MERS was designated CoV.
It too was a coronavirus.
Mortality was about one-third of diagnosed cases.
Camels have been shown to have antibodies but there is no scientific proof of how they got infected or how it spread to humans.
It’s spread outside of a hospital is rare.
But image a 1/3 death rate!
By the numbers: Information from WHO with links in blue Image World Health Organization
CORONAVIRUS
Why are they called coronaviruses?
H1N1
SARS was mainly in the East and MERS in Saudi Arabia and the East.
The most recent pandemic to affect the United States was the H1N1 “swine flu”. In 2009 it aflicted over 60 million people in the United States.
The COVID-19 is not in that category.
The swine flu hit the younger people hard. I remember standing in line with my sons waiting to get the vaccination shot.
Here we are
Another coronavirus. Where do they come from?
Pangolins
These are pangolins rescued from poachers. They are a luxury ingredient in Chinese and Philipine medicinal potions.
In February 2020 Chinese researchers identified that Pangolins match 98 percent of the cells in the COVID-19 virus. Later the number was rechecked and it dropped to 90.3%.
Scientists will have to searching for the culprit.
Thanks for stopping.
Craig
dabbler duck buttscom.wordpress.com 