Thank the efforts and the generosity of chinese scientists
COVID 19 is now one of seven most common human coronaviruses(HuCoV:229E,NL 63,0C43,HKU1) including SARS and MERS. By using primers derived from the RNA-sequence published by chinese scientists it has become possible to identify the agent causing influenza-like symptoms and advanced pulmonary disease around the world.
The experience of the Diamond Princess cruise ship (1) tells us that 6 patients of 705 infected persons have died.This amounts to less than 1 %.The cause of death, however, has not been determined by autoptic studies.
Furthermore it is not known which investigational drugs have been used in these patients.
In many cases use of investigational drugs, often together with corticosteroids, antibiotics and sedation drugs, not only may be responsible for clinical findings attributed to the virus.
Use of experimental drugs (2) may contribute however to increase the fear of the population and most importantly of the ICU medical and paramedical personnel that prognosis be bad, no matter what measure can be further taken.
This has also negative consequences for psychology of the population and aggravates the fear especially in those areas wehre COVID-positive cases were found.
REFERENCES
1.Roköv J, Sjödin H, Wilder-Smith A, COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship: estimating the epidemic potential and effectiveness of public health countermeasures Journal of Travel Medicine, taaa030, https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa030Published: 28 February 2020
2.Stebbing J,Phelan A,Griffin I, Tucker C, Oechsele O, Smith D Richardson P.:COVID-19:combining antiviral and anti-inflammatory tretments.Lancet,February 2020