Dear Janus, Earth Angel and Poet:

You are welcome and thank you for your input. It makes sense that scientists are studying human DNA genome for the purpose of figuring out treatment or a vaccine for the coronavirus, because the virus’s RNA interacts with the human DNA, if I understand correctly, and the result of different interactions lead to different severity of symptoms, from mild to severe. A person’s immune system’s strength often has a lot to do with symptom severity (from zero, to mild, to severe), and the strength of a person’s immune system is greatly influenced by the person’s DNA genome, I figure.

You wrote that “the human genome is 3.2 billion base pairs”. I wonder how many bases make a coronavirus, and I know it’s a single strand virus, so no base pairs.

You wrote that the coronavirus responsible for the current epidemic is called SARS-CoV-2 and the disease is called Covid-19. The first human coronavirus was discovered in the 1960s. There are four types of coronavirus: alpha, beta, delta, and gamma. Only two types, alpha and beta, are coronaviruses that infect humans. The seven human coronaviruses that have been discovered then, are of two types.

The MERS-CoV disease and epidemic resulted in the death of 30% of the people infected, more more deadly than SARS-Cov-1 of the past (nearly 10%)  and the current SARS-Cov-2 (“1-2% of those affected”, you wrote later).

Viruses mutate and that is why it is so difficult to find a vaccine for them- this is why there is no vaccine (or a viral treatment) for the common cold, even though it is so common- the viruses that cause the common cold mutate too  often.

You read in a Healthline.com article, “Treatment for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)” that Chinese scientists have a drug called APNO1 that may help with the current virus but the FDA didn’t approve of it yet. The way the virus enters people’s lungs is by its ACE-2 protein bonding with the human ACE-2 receptor. The drug is supposed to block the virus’s protein from connecting with the human receptor to it.

The older SARS disease in the early 2000s “took eight months to spread to about 8,000 people”, but the current SARS disease took about two months only to spread to 75,000 people.

All in all, the current virus “may spread more easily, but causes less mortality rates”. You wrote that the two coronaviruses responsible for the two SARS, “share 79.5% of their genome and belong in the class betacoronaviruses, and both viruses use the human ACE2 receptor as their way to enter the human lungs.

anita