“Know your enemy,” advised Sun Tzu in The Art of War. This axiom rings true not only for military strategists, but also for your immune system: your body can 'know' the flu, either from a previous infection or from a vaccine.
This acquaintance makes it easier to defeat the flu than the new coronavirus that caused the current pandemic.
In addition to a lack of immunity, failed tests and unproven treatments make the new coronavirus pandemic a new and distinct problem from the influenza outbreaks that researchers have worked on for decades.
No herd immunity.
During influenza season – even severe – most of the population will not get sick. Your immune system can recognize a viral enemy from a previous infection and drain antibodies to fight the infection. Or you could get a flu shot, a dose of dead flu viruses that trains your body to ward off a live attack.
According to Abigail Carlson, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Washington in St. Louis, people with immunity, whether from infection or injection, help protect society from influenza.
“When a virus infects them, it hits a dead end,” Carlson told Business Insider. 'They don't get sick, they don't transmit it. And they stop the virus in its path. '
This protective process is called herd immunity. While not ideal – tens of thousands of Americans die from the flu every year – herd immunity tends to keep the flu at levels that hospitals can handle. This is not the case for the new coronavirus.
'There is little or no herd immunity' to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, Carlson said.
Without herd immunity, humans are ideal hosts for the coronavirus, which has spread across the globe in a matter of months.
More than 236,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 5,600 deaths were reported in the United States on Thursday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University.
It will take more than a year to develop a new coronavirus vaccine, according to Otto Young, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Researchers are still looking for how best to create a vaccine against the new coronavirus, whether using active viral particles, inactivated or synthetic compounds.
Problems with testing and treatment.
The failed COVID-19 testing rollout has also made the US less prepared for the disease than for the influenza pandemic, Young said. To find out if a patient has a viral illness such as influenza or COVID-19, researchers look for the virus genes in a swab from a patient's nose or mouth.
For influenza, this testing process is reliable. Although the virus mutates, most of the changes affect proteins on its outer surface that bind to your cells, causing an infection. Flu tests target the more stable genes that code for proteins within the virus envelope.
On the flu side, “we have PCR tests that check all strains,” Yang said, adding that the same flu testing procedures are used every year.
The World Health Organization developed an effective protocol in January, but the US decided to develop its own and then was slow to produce and distribute it. The lack of testing makes it difficult for researchers to understand how widespread the disease is.
Patients who test positive for the new coronavirus have no choice but to get sick. Antiviral drugs that help fight the flu are less effective for COVID-19 patients, Young said.
'There is currently no confirmed treatment for SARS-CoV-2.' Some doctors are using antimalarial drugs to fight the coronavirus, but the effectiveness of such treatment is still unclear.
Keep your distance.
The new coronavirus pandemic poses many barriers compared to the flu. However, Ian and Carlson see cause for optimism as we wait for the vaccine, because so many, though not all, take social distancing seriously.
“You really see people doing their best to stay at home, to stay away from others,” Carlson said. 'It will work. Things will get better and this pandemic will really pass. '
This article is published by Business Insider.
Sources: Photo: AFP / File / Thibault Savary
