Coronavirus keeps spreading; droplet precautions to take.

The 2019 novel coronavirus (which scientists have designated specifically on their scaling research as 2019-nCOV) is often labeled a beta coronavirus. This is due to its rapid development in Asia, specifically in China. WHO gave the virus its current designation of COVID-19 just two months ago. The disease is what is known as a zoonotic virus that uses mammals such as camels, bats, and rabbits, plus domesticated animals such as pigs, as its gestative host. It is called a ‘corona’ type virus because of its starburst appearance under an electron microscope.

The disease is of primary importance to health care workers because of its quick adaptation of the human genome as its final resting place, or host. It has been directly linked to such innocuous health issues as the common cold, for which the human body has never been able to build up an aggressive enough defense to prevent it from infecting millions of Americans each year. That is why scientists are deeply worried about the novel coronavirus — to the body’s antibodies, it can mimic the common cold virus close enough to keep the body’s defenses from becoming fully active until the infection is too widespread to shut down easily. The novel coronavirus is also a cousin to the SARS virus, which ravaged the lungs of the world just a few short years ago, and is still a health problem in parts of Africa.

The Coronavirus or COVID-19 Droplet Precautions you can take can be seen here:

Contact contagion is a major source of spread, as when one person touches another person, by, say, shaking their hands, giving them a hug or a kiss, or simply rubbing up against them for a second on a crowded bus or in the subway. Secondary contact contagion occurs when an infected person handles an object, such as a pen or a piece of paper, which is then in turn handled by someone else without being sterilized. Finally, droplet contagion can occur whenever a person with the virus sneezes or otherwise propels water droplets into the air; these droplets, which can barely be seen by the human eye, carry enormous amounts of the virus. People standing close to an infected person who sneezes in their direction are in direct danger of becoming infected themselves. So victims of the virus are encouraged to wear a mask, to keep their sneezes from contaminating the air around them