Coronaviruses 

You knew this one was coming, didn’t you? The year 2020 will be a year to remember, and the word coronavirus is now part of our everyday vernacular. While we’re all familiar with COVID-19, most news outlets do not extensively cover the other types of coronaviruses that make up this larger “family.” This is an evolving and growing family, unfortunately, but for now, scientists have divided the coronaviruses that infect people into seven types. They are 229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2. The latter is COVID-19 and the previous two (MERS and SARS) are coronaviruses you’ve likely heard of due to their respective outbreaks in previous years. MERS and SARS are dangerous coronaviruses, but the ease in which it spreads puts COVID-19 in an entirely new category.

All coronaviruses house their genetic material in RNA (ribonucleic acid). Once a virus infects you it attaches itself to your cells. The virus then makes copies of its RNA and this enables it to spread easier. Sometimes this copying process can produce mistakes or mutations in the RNA, and this is a big reason why flu shots are required year after year. The influenza virus mutates frequently so the shot you take this year is likely different from the one the previous year and so on. 

Coronaviruses in general circulate among bats, camels, and cats. They derive their name from the crown-like spikes on their surface. First identified in the mid-1960s, the previously mentioned MERS coronavirus was reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012, and it quickly spread to roughly 25 other countries. MERS originated in camels, and while cases continue to pop up in the Arabian Peninsula, the spread is not overly robust. In fact, in the US there have only been two confirmed MERS cases. 

SARS was another coronavirus that originated in an unidentified small mammal in Southern China in 2002. It spread to nearly the same amount of countries as MERS but since 2004 no human SARS cases have been reported. MERS and SARS had higher mortality rates than COVID-19, but the spread (human to human) was much slower. Both were easier (relatively speaking) to contain while COVID-19 has proven more difficult to ease in transmission. To date, there are roughly 150 plus coronavirus vaccines in development. With a typical vaccine, it takes 10 to 15 years to bring it to the market. The vaccine for the mumps arrived in four years, the fastest ever so far. Most vaccines need to go through a three-stage clinical trial process and are then sent to regulators for approval. Once approval is granted, the roll-out stage can be extraordinarily complex. Deciding which populations should receive it first is a massive undertaking, and while distinct government and federal entities can intervene to speed this process up, it’s not overly nimble. 

A shift has occurred to learning to live with COVID-19 as opposed to pinning our hopes on a vaccine to eliminate it and subsequently “return to normal.” Psychologically this is perhaps the toughest thing to accept with coronaviruses. Our close relationship with animals makes transmission inevitable in some respect, so taking the necessary precautions not to spread or contract a coronavirus is where more attention from a public health perspective is being placed. We all want this to be over, but perhaps “over” is not something that will ever occur.