Case study: COVID-19
During one bus ride which lasted less than two hours, people traveled and only one of them had coronavirus, without knowing it. After this short trip, 39 other people were infected and 9 of them developed a severe case of pneumonia. Tested with RT_PCR test of throat swab samples, patients show mild to severe cases of infection. What happened with patients who suffered a severe case of pneumonia?
“Severe pneumonia was defined as mild pneumonia plus 1 of the following criteria: (1) respiratory distress with a respiratory rate ≥ 30 times per minute;
(2) oxygen saturation ≤ 93% at rest; (3) oxygenation index ≤ 300 mmHg (1 mmHg = 0.133 kPa); (4) respiratory failure requiring ventilation; (5) refractory shock; and
(6) admission to the intensive care unit for another organ failure.”
( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7337874/)
Here is described treatment for those patients:
“All patients were given interferon-α2b (5 million units twice daily, atomization inhalation) and lopinavir plus ritonavir (500 mg twice daily, orally) as antiviral therapy. All patients with the severe disease received preventive anticoagulant treatment with low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) 5000 IU/day by subcutaneous injection for 7 days. No patients died during the observation period.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7337874/)
After three days of temperature absent and better results of lungs CT, patients were discharged.
The promising result was that even though a primarily infected person was not wearing a mask, not all travelers were infected (not even those sitting close to him but randomly sitting people). We can’t see some specific order in infectivity but for sure it is connected with previously explained coronavirus immunity.
After almost 10 months of the pandemic, we can see that wast majority of patients who survived infection had a mild case and it is another promising fact. Is it time to realize that virus has gone through the majority of our population and unfortunately, took many victims but also, many survived.
Data show that those who survived suffered loss of motor abilities along with other consequences and it took months to recover.
The most severe cases were treated with steroids and 4 in ten cases survived thanks to this treatment, along with antiviral drugs (explained in previous texts).
Yet, there was no magic recipe to help all people at the same time with the same ingredients because this virus is of such versatile nature and highly adaptive to every particular genome.
What is left to see is how will people react during incoming months, after all, cautions taken, and all isolations done. Hopefully, the virus will be weakened after “running trough population” or it will be successfully treated with the incoming vaccine. Right now, things look better:)
