The Mississippi Department of Health now has confirmed 10 positive cases of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus spreading around the world in what the World Health Organization has classified as a pandemic. There are still no confirmed cases in Pike County.
Mississippi had 10 confirmed cases as of Sunday — three in Forrest County, two each in Copiah, Hinds and Pearl River counties and one in Leflore County. The Clarion Ledger reported Sunday that one of those cases was a Jackson State University student who was being isolated at home. Another was a University of Mississippi Medical Center student. The first case was reported in Forrest County on Wednesday. Four new cases were confirmed over the weekend.
State heath officials said they had conducted 90 coronavirus tests at the state health lab as of Friday. Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center had tested nine people as of Friday afternoon. None of the local tests came back positive, hospital officials said.
Meanwhile in Louisiana, cases spiked, from just a handful early last week to 91 as of Sunday, state health officials reported. Most of those were from the New Orleans area, where St. Patrick’s Day revelry ensued Sunday despite Gov. John Bel Edward’s call for residents to avoid large crowds, The Associated Press reported. One COVID-19 death was reported in Louisiana on Sunday, a 53-year-old Orleans Parish resident who had underlying medical conditions.
There haven’t been any confirmed cases through the hospital in McComb, Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center Infection Preventionist Tammy Bacot confirmed. But doctors have tested fewer than ten patients for the virus.
States around the country started to implement public school closures and the cancellation of events that would attract mass-gatherings, college and universities canceled classes and postponed athletic events and professional sports leagues suspended their seasons, and hysteria has reached a fever pitch.
So what exactly is COVID-19, how does it work and why is it dangerous?
COVID-19 is a novel form of coronavirus, the family of viruses that caused an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003. This outbreak is thought to be tied to infected bat saliva, meaning the initial transmission of the disease was zoonotic, or species to species.
Coronaviruses are aptly named because the nanoscale particles have protein spikes on one end that slightly resemble the spikes on a crown.
But just because it’s new doesn’t mean doctors don’t have an understanding of its biochemistry.
Viruses infect healthy cells by attaching to them without being detected by the body’s immune system. They’re stealthy structures that aren’t alive in a biological sense, like bacteria, and they work to hijack healthy cells, turning them into virus reproduction factories.
This particular virus prefers to attach to receptors on respiratory cells, which is part of why the disease can progress toward serious illnesses including bronchitis or pneumonia.
Viruses attach to the healthy cells through a lock-and-key method, whereby a spike on the structure of the virus and made of a protein attaches itself to the ACE2 cell receptor, according to research conducted by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The study found that COVID-19 shares other genetic similarities to the virus that caused the outbreak of SARS in the early 2000s. The molecular bond between the protein spike on the SARS virus and the receptor cell looks structurally similar to the bond between the COVID-19 virus and the ACE2 receptor. However, the actual bond is fulfilled by different amino acids.
After the protein is bound to the cell receptor, the membrane surrounding the virus physically combines with the membrane of the healthy cell, completing the hijacking of the cell and establishing a virus factory.
When the virus is able to infect one individual cell, it will use that cell’s mechanics to produce copies of itself at an exponential rate, spreading throughout the body and infecting more healthy cells.
An interesting aspect of the surface chemistry of COVID-19 is just how tightly the virus clings to healthy cells and the affinity of the virus to make those bonds. Research cited in the Texas paper suggest COVID-19 binds to receptor cells much more tightly than other viruses of its kind.
This behavior is by no means exclusive to the recent outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus discovered months ago by doctors in China.
That’s a good thing because doctors understand the way viruses, including strains of influenza and the common cold, interact with the body and how to best treat symptoms. There is no “cure” to these sorts of illnesses and the development of a genuine antidote would be, arguably, the most important advancement in the history of medicine.
A vaccine for the virus would probably come along the lines of annual influenza vaccines. The vaccine would include an inactive strain of COVID-19 that could introduce the virus to human immune systems to train them to activate white blood cell defenses by creating proteins called antibodies.
But the understanding of the binding mechanism the virus uses to attach to human receptor cells could open up an opportunity for development of a drug that could physically or mechanically block that binding, rather than encouraging an immunity to the virus like vaccines.
While there’s plenty of misinformation regarding the virus out in circulation, there are a number of precautions that people should take in order to stay healthy. The biggest risk of COVID-19 isn’t to people with healthy immune systems — it’s to those who don’t.
Important to remember is that a person can carry the virus without exhibiting any symptoms and can further spread the disease during that time, creating a hazard for other people.
These suggestions are particularly relevant now, but are also steps that should always be taken during flu season to prevent illness.:
• Wash your hands with soap and water and use hand sanitizer when you don’t have access to soap. Hand sanitizer isn’t as effective at keeping your hands clean as soap. Sanitizer is made of isopropyl alcohol or ethanol and a gel such as aloe vera or vegetable glycerin and is a effective at sterilizing skin, but much more of it is needed to effectively remove germs from your hands. Soap sanitizes your hands and physically removes all lingering particles.
• Cover sneezes and coughs. Tiny droplets present in sneezes and coughs can fly over 25 feet through the air and are the main method of transmission of the virus.
• Keep a distance of at least six feet from other people and stay home from work or school if one feels sick.
• The Centers for Disease Control and the Mississippi Department of Health recommend avoiding or canceling events that will attract over 250 people.
• The situation is rapidly evolving, and there will probably be confirmed cases in Pike County at some point, but there are also many effective ways to make sure people remain healthy.
