Here’s what to know about coronavirus

Brian Babcock
Staff Writer

COVID-19, otherwise known as “Coronavirus” has spread to every continent except Antarctica and sparked panic across the globe.

The virus originated in Wuhan, China, and has since infected at least 100,000 individuals and caused more than 3,400 fatalities, as of Friday, according to reports from the Associated Press.

What is COVID-19?

COVID-19 is a strain of the coronavirus that has not been previously identified, said Susan Cerniglia, communications manager for the Washtenaw County Health Department,

“Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that generally cause the common cold. So take that to mean that a lot of the illnesses are mild . . . that said, at times, there are strains that can cause severe illness,” said Cerniglia. “One of the other things that can happen is that strains can mutate and jump [from an animal] to a human.”

Cerniglia explained that this “jump” from animal to human doesn’t happen often, but in this case it most likely did.

“What they think happened, and this hasn’t been confirmed totally, but has happened before with Coronaviruses, is that this particular strain was most likely infecting an animal host and then it changed and started making people sick,” Cerniglia.

The spreading between people continued due to a lack of immunity to the animal-based illness, said Cerniglia.

How to protect yourself

The most important preventative method the Washtenaw County Health Department recommends people practice is handwashing because peoples’ hands touch everything, providing a prime medium for illness to spread.

Sreelatha Ponnaluri teaches microbiology as a part-time instructor at the college and also works as an infection preventionist at the University of Michigan Hospital. She advocates for greater measures to be taken to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“Wash your hands, stay away from sick people and cover your cough,” said Ponnaluri. “There’s a concept called social-distancing where you should stay away, about six feet, from somebody who is coughing because the virus can’t spread greater than six feet.”

What is the fatality rate?

According to Ponnaluri, the virus has a low fatality rate and the majority of people infected have only a mild case.

“The data that we have is skewed in that we only know the people that test positive [for severe cases]. We know out there that 80 percent of the cases are mild cases . . . which means there are people who just have a mild cough or a mild fever. A lot of them don’t necessarily have to go to a health care system to get tested,” said Ponnaluri. “Looking at our numbers right now, we say that about 2% of people who get COVID-19 end up with death. That could actually be an overestimation because we really don’t know how many mild cases there are, so our denominator is probably much lower than it should be.”

The majority of the deaths that have occurred have been in people 70 years and older.

“The younger generations and kids aren’t really getting sick with COVID-19, so it’s more of a severe disease with that 70 and over population,” Ponnaluri said.

Ponnaluri points to weaker immune systems and comorbidity with an already present disease, such as cancer or type-II diabetes, in elderly demographics as a contributing factor to the virus’s severity.

Impact on students

Isabella Snowwhite is a first-year student at WCC whose family has been directly impacted by the virus. Her sister, Katherine, a student at Central Michigan University studying abroad in Italy experienced an abrupt change in plans when the virus showed up in Italy.

“She had to come back and had a day to leave Rome. She isn’t sure how the quarantine thing is going to work,” Snowwhite said. “She doesn’t know where she’s going, we don’t know where she’s going.”

Currently WCC is working to keep students safe on campus. A separate webpage was created to publish updates, said Linda Blakey, vice president of student and academic services. As of now though, the college is following the Washtenaw County Health Department’s protocols in regards to handling the spread of the virus and future precautions, Blakey said.

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