Vital to stop the spread of the virus to take pressure off NHS

THE WORLD has changed dramatically in the last couple of week and unprecedented actions have been taken by the government in an attempt to delay the spread of COVID-19.

A virus is a small infectious agent that only replicates inside the living cells of an organism. Thus viruses can infect micro-organisms, bacteria, plants and animals.

Some viruses trigger virtually no symptoms, whereas others can cause diseases that can be fatal. Antibiotics are of no use whatever against them.

Viruses basically consist of genetic material in the form of either DNA or RNA, surrounded by a coat of protein, lipid or glycoprotein. They are entirely parasitic and cannot reproduce without first infecting a host.

The coronaviruses belong to a large group that cause symptoms ranging from the common cold to severe respiratory diseases.

Other coronaviruses have caused problems major diseases in the past. MERS caused Middle East respiratory syndrome and SARS caused severe acute respiratory syndrome.

COVID-19 is genetically distinct from either of these as it has 85 per cent similarity with the bat SARS-like coronavirus, from where it is thought to have come.

The naming of the virus as COVID-19 was to deliberately avoid the pejorative names given to past virus epidemics such as Spanish flu or swine fever. Unfortunately, this was lost on President Donald Trump.

The coronaviruses are RNA viruses, so their RNA is enclosed in a protein membrane and envelope giving it a spherical appearance.

They are covered in little spikes like a World War

Two floating mine. These spikes give the spheres a hazy appearance under the electron microscope that looks like a corona, hence their name.

In the same way that the spikes of a floating mine were the triggers for an explosion, these coronavirus spikes are so dangerous because they latch onto specific enzyme receptors on the surface of cells, which then allows them to enter the cell.

Once inside, they take over the cell’s DNA and force it to make huge numbers of copies of the virus, until they are released from the cell. This is how it spreads through the system.

It is vital that we delay the spread in order to take some of the pressure off the NHS and give time to develop tests, drug treatments and a badly needed vaccine.