What Would Happen To The World If The Corona Virus Doesn't Stop Spreading And Vice Versa?

This question was originally posted on Quora.com and was answered by Martha Kirtley, B. A. Chemistry, Rice University (1974)



Okay. I’m getting tired of explaining this, but I’ll give it one more try. The human race has been living with the Family of Coronaviruses for thousands of years. There are at least a hundred of them that we know about.

Most don’t affect humans at all, and most of the few that do affect humans only cause a mild upper respiratory disease much like the common cold, unless the person is sick or weakened by something that suppresses the immune system ( like the drugs that prevent rejection of transplanted organs). Those people can become very ill, usually with pneumonia and may even die from the pneumonia.

This new species of Coronavirus is dangerous because 1.) its new and we don’t yet know how it will affect healthy people, 2.) it spreads from person to person easily, maybe even more easily than the common cold, and 3.) we know it can be fatal to the very young, the sick, and the very old.

Because it is a virus, antibiotics will not even slow it down, much less kill it. So until we have enough of an effective vaccine, all we can do to combat it is keep people from spreading it by keeping them separated as best we can, give antivirals and other drugs to help the body’s immune system try to kill it, and watch carefully to see how it affects people.

Most viruses mutate ( change) pretty fast. They either get stronger and learn to kill healthy people ( like the Spanish Flu did back in 1917–1918) or they get weaker and finally fade to nothing more than a mild infection ( like the Spanish Flu did in 1919). So that’s what has to be watched for. And Health organizations like the CDC and the WHO are doing that while researchers are trying to find a good, safe vaccine that can be made in large quantities quickly.

Consider this— there are still people alive who remember the Spanish Flu, and we have extensive records of what happened. We even have samples of the virus that caused it. It killed an estimated 20 million healthy people, most of then in their teens and twenties ( not babies or old people like today’s current flu species). It spread all over the world in less than 2 years in the process of killing that many. Civilization as we knew it then, did not even slow down. No vaccine was ever developed and we had no drugs to fight the complications that actually killed the people who died, so we had no way to fight it. And we did not understand how important quarantine was in such a situation. Today we have those supportive drugs and that knowledge ( hard won and sad as it was, we learned!) And we learned even more from SARS and MERS, both of which are coronaviruses. We are still learning and the more we know, the fewer people will be at risk. Even if it does spread around the world, this species of coronavirus will not destroy civilization.

Edit to update — We now know that young children, unless they have other life-threatening conditions, usually have mild cases of the disease now called Covid-19. Age does not matter in who is infected, only in who gets seriously ill, and that matters a lot. The best way to beat this disease is to slow it down to prevent healthcare workers and facilities from being overwhelmed and “ social distancing” ( in other words stay out of groups of people) is the best way to slow the transmission. So stay out of crowds, practice rigorous personal hygiene ( wash your filthy hands you animals- sorry), and remember that just because you don’t feel sick does not mean you are not contagious. ( dated 3/21/2020).

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