The more people wear masks, the less the virus spreads. While the Trump administration urged reopenings and threatened to withhold pandemic aid if states did not comply, Democrats raised concerns about schools turning into hot spots for infection. That Was 2020 Coronavirus The 13 Biggest Lessons We've Learned About The Coronavirus So Far "Itâs an extraordinary virus, the likes of which Iâve never, ever seen, and Iâve been doing this now for almost 40 years,â Anthony Kids are far less likely to get seriously sick. In the early months of the pandemic, doctors, and nurses looked for three key symptoms to best identify people potentially sick with COVID-19: fever, cough, and shortness of breath. People then stockpiled cleaning supplies, microwaved their mail, and wiped down their groceries, prompting a CDC warning about how using disinfectants on food packaged in cardboard or plastic wrap is unsafe. “I’ve never seen a virus that on the one hand has no symptoms in one person but on the other hand can be absolutely deadly for another person. Another one focused on India concluded about 5% of infected people in the Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh regions drove 80% of cases. The result was a deadlier pandemic, one that has already claimed more than 320,000 lives in the US. A February report on 72,000 Chinese patients for example found a death rate of 8% for patients in their seventies, and 15% for those older. Whether these are truly new “strains” of the virus that are actually more dangerous or just ones that have taken over because of superspreader events — genetic lottery winners — is unclear. Even by February, scientists reported more than 5,700 variants of the original Wuhan, China, virus were in circulation. Since COVID-19 attacks many organs in the body, people with kidneys, hearts, or other organs already burdened by illness or obesity face higher risks of dying or of severe illness. Esses Cookies nos permitem coletar alguns dados pessoais sobre você, como sua ID exclusiva atribuída ao seu dispositivo, endereço de IP, tipo de dispositivo e navegador, conteúdos visualizados ou outras ações realizadas usando nossos serviços, país e idioma selecionados, entre outros. For this reason, the steroid dexamethasone, which tamps down the immune response, has become the go-to response for severe cases, shown to cut mortality by a third in patients on ventilators. Additionally, a mix of observational and modeling studies published this year suggest wearing masks can cut down COVID-19 transmission on planes and other indoor settings, such as homes and restaurants, especially when combined with social distancing and handwashing. "Brighter days are coming," Biden said, "but it’s going to take all the grit and determination we have as Americans to get it done.". The CDC’s early guidance suggested that pregnant people and fetuses didn’t have an elevated risk in response to COVID-19 infections. The political blame has added to tensions with China’s leaders, who have not revealed any more about the origins of the virus since March. 7. To help keep this news free, become a member and sign up for our newsletter, Incoming. If a doctor checks a symptomatic patient in person for the virus, they aren’t just looking at the lungs anymore, according to Megan Ranney, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Brown University. Superspreaders are driving infections. One interesting, but still unproven, theory is that more widespread wearing of masks means that people are now, more often, getting a lower initial dose of the virus. Likewise, we now understand that patients are most infectious around the time they first develop symptoms rather than days later when they are hospitalized.