10 facts you should know about coronavirus

By Victor Akuma

Coronavirus! I am sure you’ve heard that word for several times. But do you know much about the killer virus ravaging the world?

The COVID-19 outbreak which has proven to be a mystery to health experts across the globe according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), is increasingly closing in on all countries of the world.

Below are 10 facts you need to know about the virus.

1. The word corona is a derivative of the Latin word ‘corona’, which means crown, because they are encased by a spiked shell which resembles a royal crown.
2. The popular COVID-19 which is often used interchangeably with coronavirus stands for Corona Virus Disease 2019 because it is predicated on the fact that the virus outbreak started in 2019 — the last quarter of the year to be precise.
3. SARS-CoV-2 which is the prevalent type of coronavirus presently, stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2. It was given the name by researchers because it is a different type of Corona and was first discovered in the Wuhan lab.
4. MERS, another type of coronavirus which affects human beings stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
5. Before the Wuhan SARS-CoV-2, there exist six other types of Corona virus which can affect humans. MERS is also among these six
6. People with Type A blood group are more likely to catch and die from coronavirus than those with Type O, study by Chinese health practitioners claim.
7. The coronavirus pandemic has infected almost 200,000 people and killed more than 7,800 worldwide. More than 3,000 deaths were in China, followed by Italy, which has the highest number of death cases outside China.
8. Has coronavirus affected human lives before now? Yes it has, in the same country (China), in 2002. That was when the SARS-CoV-1, the first type of the virus was discovered.
9. Once someone has caught the COVID-19 virus it takes between two to 14 days or even longer, for such person to show any symptom. The virus may still be passed on by the carrier at this time without even knowing he or she has the virus.
10. Can people naturally recover from the virus? Yes. The vast majority of patients will recover from this without any issues and many will need no medical help at all, according to a research carried out by WHO.These are some of the facts that explains the magnitude of what the world is facing.