French magazine: Five things we still don’t know about Coronavirus

Despite the study, monitoring and analysis received by the emerging coronavirus (COVID-19) around the world, some of its effects and characteristics are still obscure.

The magazine Lonoville Observator has identified five things that she said still represent vast gray areas in the world's knowledge of this virus, despite the passage of more than three months since its appearance in China, and despite the large numbers of researchers, scientists and doctors who are studying it day and night.

First: Why is this great difference in severity of symptoms?

Scientists stand stunned in front of this large variation in the severity of the symptoms of this epidemic, why do not show any symptoms, or even no symptoms at all in about 80% of people who develop coronary newborn, according to the World Health Organization, while in other cases causes a significant rise in temperature, but rather Even fatal pneumonia?

"The research conducted since February 2020 shows that the clinical spectrum of infection with this disease can be very heterogeneous," the journal quoted Professor Liu Boon of the Hong Kong Medical College as saying.

During the height of the epidemic in China, this researcher compared with a Chinese team from Nanchang University two categories of people affected by this disease, a group that almost does not affect them, and a group who is severely exhausted, and the results of that study were published in the British Lancet medical journal.

That study showed that severely infected people are "significantly older", and that the concentration of the virus in their samples is "about 60 times higher" than those who can barely feel it.

This raises other questions, such as whether the poor immune response was caused by age or as a result of exposure to higher doses of the virus during infection? Here, the magazine states that work on a different virus, measles, showed that the severity of the disease correlated with the dose of the initial exposure to the virus, and it is unclear whether the same applies to COVID-19.

Second: Is "COVID-19" spread through the air?

It is known that coronavirus is transmitted through physical contact and respiratory tract. For example, it is transmitted through flying saliva spray when a patient coughs, but can it spread in the air, such as seasonal flu? Is there a final answer to this issue?

An American study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has shown that an emerging coronavirus can remain in the laboratory for three hours in the form of particles in the air, but it is not known whether these molecules have the ability to transmit the disease.

"Can this virus live in the air? Will it persist for a long time in the air or on inactive surfaces? This is what we do not know?" This is what the head of the department of infectious diseases of Saint-Antoine Hospital in Paris, Professor Karen Lacombe responds, saying, "We know that we can find the virus in the air, but we do not know whether it is infectious or not."

Third: What is the real number of injured people?

How many people have already been infected with the virus? Regardless of the few countries that have rapidly applied massive screening policies - such as South Korea and Germany - knowing how many people are infected is very relative, and so, the British government estimated the cases in the country on March 17 at about 55,000 when the officially announced number was less than 2,000.

There is no doubt - according to the magazine - that obtaining a clear idea of ​​the extent of the epidemic is extremely important to isolate and care for HIV carriers, and at a later stage it will be valuable to know who actually infected with the virus and who is initially considered immune to it, and this will not be possible until with the arrival of a generation New from so-called serological tests that will target the detection of the remaining immune fingerprint in the blood against COVID-19.

Fourth: Is hot weather a killer of the virus?

Will this virus fade with sunny weather reaching the northern hemisphere? Specialists say this is possible, but it is not certain. Seasonal influenza viruses are more stable in cold and dry weather, which explains their spread in the winter.

US President Donald Trump has predicted that the Coronavirus will disappear in April because of the heat, and a study by academics in Hong Kong showed that the SARS virus - which struck Asia between 2002 and 2003 and is one of the closest viruses to COVID-19 - is resistant Best at low temperatures and low humidity.

But a recent American study from Harvard Medical School confirmed that "climate changes alone will not necessarily lead to a decrease in COVID-19 cases without significant health interventions."

Fifth: Why this virus rarely infects children

Lonophil Observator states that children are much less likely to develop the emerging coronary disease than adults, and if they develop symptoms they are usually mild.

It quoted a Chinese study published in the journal Nature that among ten children with the new epidemic of Corona and a study was conducted to evaluate their interaction with him, none of them developed an acute form of the disease, as their symptoms are limited to sore throat, cough and mild fever.

According to the research, children living with patients are two or three times less likely to be infected with HIV than adults. Why? This is what we don't know yet, says Lonophille Observator.

The same characteristic of the SARS virus was observed in 2002 and 2003, to which Professor Lacombe comments, "There are many things that you do not know that require a lot of humility."