COVID-19 Fact Sheet
Introduction
Coronavirus disease 2019 is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus The disease was first identified in 2019 in Wuhan, China, and has since spread globally, resulting in the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic.
First, the obligatory caveat: There's still so much we don't know about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease that results from the virus. New genetic developments are coming everyday so fast that even the CDC can't keep up.
Disclaimer
Most of this information if not all have complied from verifiable sources, most notably CDC, I am not a doctor or medical professional, the last page will have links to the relevant sources.
Please note that this Virus is new, so you need to keep up to date. ‘what was true yesterday may not be true today’
Purpose
To provide a single compile document of understandable basic information with links to verified and reputable information sources, this document is for in-house use.
As information becomes more freely available this document should become obsolete, however, I may keep it updated for esoteric reasons, this document is dated at the bottom of every page.
Please note that this Virus is new, so you need to keep up to date. ‘what was true yesterday may not be true today’
What is COVID-19
Coronaviruses are large, enveloped, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA viruses with a genome of approximately 30 kb in length, the largest found in any of the RNA viruses, about 1 to 1.2 microns in size.
The genus Coronavirus (so named for their crown shape) belongs to the family Coronaviridae in the order Nidovirales, a family of viruses causing respiratory illness generally found in animals. COVID-19 belongs to the same family of viruses as the common cold virus. Infections with the common cold virus do not produce strong immunity, and the protection is usually short-lived (about 3 months). It is unknown how long resistance to the COVID-19 infection would last. Previously only six Corona-viruses have been identified in humans, including four mild strains which cause the common cold and the more unusual SARS-CoV, the virus behind the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak almost 20 years ago. When a new strain of virus jumps into the population from animals, often through the handling and slaughter of wildlife, it can be dangerous as we have little natural immunity to fight it off. COVID-19 stands for Corona Virus Disease 2019, first officially reported in December 2019, discovered when people working and shopping at a live animal market in the capital of China's central Hubei province, Wuhan, started falling ill. Medical experts have unlocked the virus's genetic code – which is about 75 per cent similar to the SARS virus and in "record time", but a lot is still unknown.
File Name: | COVID-19 Fact Sheet.pdf |
File Size: | |
File Type: | application/pdf |