Coronavirus

Coronavirus. That’s the word on the street. What is Coronavirus? Are we going to die from it? Should we worry? I hear these questions on a day to day basis and still am not entirely sure what this virus entails. Coronavirus is a respiratory virus has never before been encountered! Something unique to the disease is that it was transmitted from an animal to a person, a zoonotic virus, but it is also able to spread from person to person. The outbreak was first identified to be in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China and it is continuing to spread to other countries including eleven confirmed cases in the United States.

The Coronavirus is believed to have originally come from a bat. Some common signs and symptoms of the virus are a fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Don’t these symptoms sound similar to influenza? The incubation period of this disease is about two to fourteen days. That means that people do can be spreading this disease for up to fourteen days without knowing it!  According to WHO, this disease is of international concern. Researchers currently do not know much about the virus and there has not yet been a vaccine to help prevent the disease.

Due to the severity of this disease, the United States has taken it into concern. They issued that no one should be traveling to China due to Coronavirus. Thank goodness a travel warning was issued because since there is little information known about the disease, we do not know what could happen. It’s better to be safe than sorry, right? Let’s prevent this novel virus in America by staying away from those who are sick and washing our hands on a daily basis.