To the Editor:
Why is Coronavirus a bigger deal the the seasonal flu? It has to do with RNA sequencing..i.e.genetics. Seasonal flu is an “all human virus.”
The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around every year.
You get immunity two ways, through exposure to a virus or by getting a flu shot.
Novel viruses come from animals. The WHO tracks novel viruses in animals, sometimes for years for mutations. Usually these viruses transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1)(birds in the case of the Spanish flu).
But once one of these animal viruses mutates, and starts to transfer from animals to humans..then its a problem. Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity. The RNA, sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it so, we cant fight it off. Now sometimes the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human for years but when it finally mutates so that it can transfer from human to human, once that happens we have a new contagion phase. H1N1 was deadly..but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. Its RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too.
Now here comes this Coronavirus. It existed in animals only, nobody nows for how long, but one day in Wuhan China, in December it mutated and made the jump from animal to human. At first only animals could give it to a person. But here’s the scary part. In just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Coronavirus not being a human virus took off like a rocket. It’s a lung eater and its already mutated again, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strains, and strainL which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.
Robey Schnessel
Village of Polo Ridge