Second interview with Deaf PhD student studying zoonotic diseases on COVID-19

 THE DAILY MOTH:
 Hello, Lorne.

FAROVITCH:
Thank you for having me here.

THE DAILY MOTH:
About the coronavirus -- how does it function? What does look like when it gets on a cell, and how does it spread?

FAROVITCH:
That disease is called COVID-19. The virus is called SARS CoV-2, which is the current illness that’s spreading. From now on I will use that sign to refer to SARS CoV-2. How does the respiratory infection spread? It begins by the virus entering the body, and as you can see in pictures, the virus has spikes. It perfectly fits with the cells in our lungs. It’s a perfect match with our cells. This part of the cell is ACE2, short for “angiotensin-converting enzyme 2”, or ACE2 in short. Our cells have many different kinds of cell receptors all over with different names. One of them is ACE2. That’s what the SARS CoV-2 perfectly fits in. Some receptors have different shapes that may be curved, small, wide, or so on. They are all different. There have been many different kinds of illnesses from the coronavirus. When those other viruses connect to cells, there isn’t a perfect match. They don’t align perfectly and bounce off, which means there is a lower risk of that illness spreading. Now, the SARS CoV-2 is a perfect match and sticks to cells well. That means they require less of a virus load to really start causing illness. The illness can spread easily even if only a few cells are exposed. After the virus finds a cell receptor with a perfect match in size, it will enter the cell and use its “factory” that makes DNA, RNA, and protein. It will break in and make more of itself. To visualize it, it’s like… for example, a cell is like a house. The virus is trying to rob the house. The virus goes to that house, and the front door is locked. The virus doesn’t have the key, so it tries to enter another door through the garage. It doesn’t have a key either. It goes to the back door and has the right key! So it uses that key to enter. When the virus enters the house, it’s the perfect opportunity to rob things like food, sleep, rest, and make more energy. It’s the same concept as copying more of itself to spread and enter other cells. That cycle repeats throughout the body. That’s why it takes time like from one week to two weeks to finally show symptoms. It takes time to replicate itself and spread across the body.

THE DAILY MOTH:
At the time we had our previous interview, we thought that if you have no symptoms like coughing, a cold or a fever, that means even if you have the virus inside you, you can’t be contagious. But now we realize that’s not true. Even though you might not have a cough or cold, you can still spread it to others. Can you explain why that is a big difference and how our understanding of it has changed?

FAROVITCH:
Right. In our previous discussion about how the virus might be contagious and how it spreads, we talked about the question of whether a person is able to spread the virus to others even if that person doesn’t have any symptoms and isn’t sick. We thought that wasn’t possible. Now, we realize that it is possible. People who get sick but show no symptoms like sneezing, coughing or other symptoms still can spread the virus to others. Why did that understanding change? Research. We kept researching and collecting data. At the time, we did not have enough data and had to make predictions and hypotheses. Nothing was confirmed yet. Now there are many more cases and we have enough data to understand that it is contagious even if there are no symptoms present. That means it is important for us to be careful and practice social isolation. Even if some people like myself might not be sick and feel fine, we still could be carriers. Elderly people are most at risk. Elderly people’s immune systems are weak, and their white blood cells aren’t able to operate as efficiently due to older age. They’re slower and weaker, which makes it harder for them to fight the virus. Younger people’s white blood cells are much more active and can fight it away more effectively. Many cases of the virus have been mild and not serious. Most of the serious cases involve people with weak immune systems like old people or people who have another infectious disease or already have a disease. Those people are more at risk.

THE DAILY MOTH:
For the COV-19, how long can it live outside of our human body? How long can it survive on a surface or in the air?

FAROVITCH:
I found one recent scientific publication that studied the virus. It found that the coronavirus can stay in the air more than three hours. Tests have been conducted comparing how long the virus can stay on steel, copper, and plastic. On plastic and steel surfaces, the virus is able to survive longer than three days. On a cardboard or copper surface, the life span of the virus is shortened by half. That means it’s important for us to continue to clean surfaces.

THE DAILY MOTH:
Many people have been tested for the virus. Is it taken through a swab test, a blood test or another way? How do people get tested for coronavirus? Plus, once that test is given to the lab, what does the testing process look like? How do they determine someone is tested positive for COVID-19?

FAROVITCH:
When someone is exposed to COVID-19, at the hospital they will take a nose and mouth swab and mail it to the lab. Lab technicians in the lab will do a PCR experiment, which is polymerase chain reaction. That is an instrument that will search for a specific kind of genome that is the exact same as SARS Co-2. The test has a design that will look for a match. If a match is found, it will make more copies of the virus and that tells you whether the coronavirus is there or not. If there is no match, then it won’t be able to copy more and that means that person is not positive for COVID-19.

THE DAILY MOTH:
This is now a global pandemic. This has happened a few times before in history. What lessons can we learn from those to apply to today and our future?

FAROVITCH:
We can learn many things from history and the many diseases that have spread. The important thing to emphasize here is that vaccines really work. It’s important. In history, there have been many very serious diseases that spread everywhere, and they were cured or went away from vaccines. Now we are working on developing a vaccine. Once it’s available, that will help dramatically increase the amount of cases we have. Remember, it’s easy for us to forget that and let history repeat itself. The main important thing we can take from our history is how we won against those diseases. We have to work together, not just on a community level. We have to focus on our country and world, too. The coronavirus happened in China first, but does that mean it’s China’s fault? It’s not. It just so happened that a bat had it, and it spread. It could have happened here, but it happened there. Does that mean China is dangerous? Does that mean we shouldn’t eat Chinese food? No. The key point here is that it’s important for us all to unite and support one another.

THE DAILY MOTH:
Thank you.

[For our first interview in February, go to this link: https://www.dailymoth.com/blog/deaf-phd-student-on-zoonotic-diseases
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