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Coronavirus: What's still not known about COVID-19

Feb 20, 2020
The rise in kovat 19 cases has raised more questions for doctors about how the virus spreads now to learn more about why doctors find the fight against covin 19 so challenging. Now we are joined by Dr. John Connelly is an infectious disease specialist who attended the World Health Organization meetings in Geneva. Conley joins us now from Calgary, sir, thank you for taking the time. Let's start with your assessment of those meetings at the World Health Organization,

what

are the most critical factors in the fight against kovat 19? The meeting developed eight immediate actions, from examining elements to provide information rapid diagnostic tests to analyzing

what

therapies might be available what new treatments might be available what the animal reservoir is what the most effective protective equipment is and then how to best communicate it, those are the immediate objectives that have been established from the meeting and At this moment, what do we know about this virus?
coronavirus what s still not known about covid 19
How did it come to be? How did it become what it is now and what is it mutating into? Do we have an idea of ​​any of that? We know from published material that the virus is very similar to an Asian bat

coronavirus

, so in that sense it is not that different from the growth of the virus that caused SARS and the one that caused the Middle East respiratory disease, both of which had its origin in bat populations and one of the questions is whether there was an intermediate animal vector, such as the Asian anteater, like the camel, was the intermediate vector in the Middle East at this stage.
coronavirus what s still not known about covid 19

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coronavirus what s still not known about covid 19...

What are the biggest challenges in the fight against this virus? The biggest challenge is transmission efficiency. It is somewhat different from the SARS and MERS

coronavirus

. we have a more efficient means of transmission and that seems to be one of the difficulties and we combine that with the fact that there were a large number of people gathering in Wuhan and China and Bay province at that time because it was during the period on vacation there was a possibility that it could be transmitted to secondary and tertiary Jesus and we saw that happen and then it spread from there.
coronavirus what s still not known about covid 19
You mentioned China, of course, it is the epicenter where the virus appeared and where it is spreading. where most of the cases and deaths are located, but there is

still

quite a bit of skepticism about the information coming from China, including some high-level US officials within the White House administration expressing concern that perhaps China is not being as direct as I should. They are not taking the necessary steps that they need to take. What is your assessment of how China is communicating about this and handling the issue? From my perspective, there are several people who connected via video.
coronavirus what s still not known about covid 19
There were also some Chinese colleagues who attended the meeting. meeting in Geneva and, from my point of view, they are being relatively frank. I know several colleagues who work at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and they are good scientists, so from that perspective I think the information we are getting should be relatively reliable, so what are the next steps I assume are being taken? giving globally to combat this virus? The next steps are to be able to develop milestones and timelines with specific research questions to be able to try to answer some of the gaps that were identified.
At this global summit that was recently held in Geneva and we hope to see it towards the end of the month, active work is being done. I've already been on email this morning with my colleagues in my section to be able to see when laying out the research agenda, you know, sir, the head of the World Health Organization made an interesting comment at that summit that governments around the world spend millions, potentially billions of dollars each year, to fight terrorism and yet the spread of the next big pandemic. could wipe out so many more people; it could be much deadlier and much more economically and politically devastating.
From his perspective, what will it take for governments to make this a top priority? I think we are seeing some of that happening. There have already been investments from several countries, the Blenda Foundation and Bill Gates and there are expressions of interest from other governments, so hopefully there will be some solidarity and consolidation of resources coming forward. to be able to provide the necessary funding to move the agenda forward and based on what you're seeing now, this is the ultimate question in terms of the numbers, the direction they're going. Are you optimistic about whether this is under control or if it's going to get really bad? worse before we can get it under control at this point, I would say I would be cautiously optimistic, we've had a couple of days of low case count numbers.
I know last week it happened and people were predicting the end of this for April and then all of a sudden there was a jump so I think we need to see its steady reduction over many days in the number of new cases that are happening but optimism cautious won't be the word I would say right now, okay, so let's get on with it. thank you very much for your time dr. Connelly you're welcome

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