Dear Anita

I just plugged the numbers (32,000/3.2 billion) into a scientific calculator and the result is 0.00001. So the coronavirus is 0.00001 times smaller than the human genome.  I hope that a vaccine is developed sooner as well because quarantine is hurting the economy a lot with businesses closing down and stock market declining. Coronaviruses typically affect birds and mammals such as humans (bats are mammals as well) and they can cause diseases ranging from the common cold to the current coronavirus. Coronaviruses often cause illness during winter and early spring months. According to medicalnewstoday.com article, humans who catch a cold due to coronavirus may catch the same one again in four months because coronavirus antibodies (help fight infection in a person’s immune system) do not last for a long time. In addition, the person’s immune system antibodies may be ineffective against a different strain of coronavirus because the coronavirus is a RNA virus that can mutate.  The World Health Organization says that people over the age of sixty and people with weakened immune systems have more likely chance of getting severe symptoms of the current coronavirus.

“What to know about coronaviruses” March 23, 2020; medicalnewstoday.com

The current coronavirus breaks into human cells by using a spike protein (S-protein) that is on the outer membrane of the virus cell and the coronavirus uses the spike protein like a key to fit into a doorknob of the ACE2 receptor in respiratory cells allowing the coronavirus to enter the human body. This was discovered by scientists studying how coronavirus enters the human body, discovery in Feb. 19 and published in March 4th in the journal Science.

That is why the new drug APNO1 that Chinese scientists are working on may be helpful with combatting the coronavirus since the APNO1 drug may help block the virus from getting to the ACE2 receptors in the respiratory cells and make the virus less virulent.

“Scientists figure out how new coronavirus breaks into human cells” livescience.com