The Observation Deck

This is part of the CVOID-19 News From 05.17.2020

This pull and the link are well worth the read. News and headlines from around the world for today.

Profile of a killer: the complex biology powering the coronavirus pandemic - Now, as the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic surges, researchers are scrambling to uncover as much as possible about the biology of the latest coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2. A profile of the killer is already emerging. Scientists are learning that the virus has evolved an array of adaptations that make it much more lethal than the other coronaviruses humanity has met so far. Unlike close relatives, SARS-CoV-2 can readily attack human cells at multiple points, with the lungs and the throat being the main targets. Once inside the body, the virus makes use of a diverse arsenal of dangerous molecules. And genetic evidence suggests that it has been hiding out in nature possibly for decades.But there are many crucial unknowns about this virus, including how exactly it kills, whether it will evolve into something more - or less - lethal and what it can reveal about the next outbreak from the coronavirus family.“There will be more, either out there already or in the making," says Andrew Rambaut, who studies viral evolution at the University of Edinburgh, UK.Of the viruses that attack humans, coronaviruses are big. At 125 nanometres in diameter, they are also relatively large for the viruses that use RNA to replicate, the group that accounts for most newly emerging diseases. But coronaviruses really stand out for their genomes. With 30,000 genetic bases, coronaviruses have the largest genomes of all RNA viruses. Their genomes are more than three times as big as those of HIV and hepatitis C, and more than twice influenza’s.Coronaviruses are also one of the few RNA viruses with a genomic proofreading mechanism - which keeps the virus from accumulating mutations that could weaken it. That ability might be why common antivirals such as ribavirin, which can thwart viruses such as hepatitis C, have failed to subdue SARS-CoV-2. The drugs weaken viruses by inducing mutations. But in the coronaviruses, the proofreader can weed out those changes. Mutations can have their advantages for viruses. Influenza mutates up to three times more often than coronaviruses do, a pace that enables it to evolve quickly and sidestep vaccines. But coronaviruses have a special trick that gives them a deadly dynamism: they frequently recombine, swapping chunks of their RNA with other coronaviruses. Typically, this is a meaningless trading of like parts between like viruses. But when two distant coronavirus relatives end up in the same cell, recombination can lead to formidable versions that infect new cell types and jump to other species, says Rambaut.

Read more here:
http://econintersect.com/pages/contribu ... B_CBcKRcd4

State of Ohio
262,759 - Total People Tested

27,923 - Total Cases, Up 449 cases, 21-Day Average is 570

4,921 - Number of Hospitalizations in Ohio, Up 51 cases, 21-Day Average is 83
1,305 - Number of ICU Admissions, Up 5 cases, 21-Day Average is 17

1,625 - Total Deaths, Up 15 deaths, 21-Day Average is 23



United States
1,526,134 - Total Cases, ↑ 18,361 (1.22%)
16,366 - Number of ICU Admissions
90,931 - Total Deaths, ↑ 818 (0.91%)
344,805 - Recovered
1,090,398 - Active Cases

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