Research Paper On Coronavirus
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a mutated strain of the coronavirus. Coronavirus belongs to the same family as that which we refer to today as the common cold. SARS can be diagnoses by multiple methods of blood testing or by CT scan (x-ray of the chest). The disease is believed to have sprung up in China in late 2002, it was first identified in the Guangdong region of China in February of 2003. At the time it was dismissed as a common cold with flu-like symptoms. The virus quickly spread to multiple regions of Asia. Other cases were later documented in several other counties, these included a fairly significant outbreak in Toronto, Canada and four cases in the UK. By July of 2003 the pandemic was brought under control, public policies
…show more content…
8,098 cases were reported world-wide 774 of those infected died. SARS killed about 10% of its hosts. It was later determined that the virus was passed on directly from small mammals to humans in Asia. It was narrowed down to feral cats as being the animal which the virus jumped to a human host. The people of China and other Asian countries sometimes eat cat where it is seen as a delicacy. What started as a few cases in an isolated region in China quickly spread, soon the disease was seen as an epidemic and the symptoms of this new illness were categorized accordingly.
Symptoms of SARS include cough, difficulty breathing, fever over 100.4°F (38.0°C), chills/shaking, headache and muscle aches. Some less common but still just as serious symptoms can include dizziness, a sever cough that produces phlegm (thick form of mucus), sore throat, runny nose, …show more content…
Although SARS was not as fatal as similar viruses such as HIV (which still plagues the world today) and the avian flu (bird flu), it was fatal to an estimated rate of 14% to 15% of all patients that contracted the disease according to the World Health Organization (WHO). When the first cases of SARS popped up in China the media coverage of what would later become an epidemic was minimal. At the same time that SARS spread the Chinese media geared its attention toward political issues such as military affairs in North Korea and the war in Iraq. During 2003 China; and in some ways still to this day, was under communist rule, this meant that the main news station was CCTV (China’s state-run television station). Main stream media in the United States is typically owned by private companies so it is influenced by the station owners rather than the government. American news coverage can still be biased at times despite this fact, depending upon what channel an individual is watching. However state-run stations can be particularly biased, for this reason SARS was at first declared a local medical story and nothing that was taken very serious in the Chinese media. Because of this lack of coverage the virus spread in silence, as a result the economics system in some ways
8,098 cases were reported world-wide 774 of those infected died. SARS killed about 10% of its hosts. It was later determined that the virus was passed on directly from small mammals to humans in Asia. It was narrowed down to feral cats as being the animal which the virus jumped to a human host. The people of China and other Asian countries sometimes eat cat where it is seen as a delicacy. What started as a few cases in an isolated region in China quickly spread, soon the disease was seen as an epidemic and the symptoms of this new illness were categorized accordingly.
Symptoms of SARS include cough, difficulty breathing, fever over 100.4°F (38.0°C), chills/shaking, headache and muscle aches. Some less common but still just as serious symptoms can include dizziness, a sever cough that produces phlegm (thick form of mucus), sore throat, runny nose, …show more content…
Although SARS was not as fatal as similar viruses such as HIV (which still plagues the world today) and the avian flu (bird flu), it was fatal to an estimated rate of 14% to 15% of all patients that contracted the disease according to the World Health Organization (WHO). When the first cases of SARS popped up in China the media coverage of what would later become an epidemic was minimal. At the same time that SARS spread the Chinese media geared its attention toward political issues such as military affairs in North Korea and the war in Iraq. During 2003 China; and in some ways still to this day, was under communist rule, this meant that the main news station was CCTV (China’s state-run television station). Main stream media in the United States is typically owned by private companies so it is influenced by the station owners rather than the government. American news coverage can still be biased at times despite this fact, depending upon what channel an individual is watching. However state-run stations can be particularly biased, for this reason SARS was at first declared a local medical story and nothing that was taken very serious in the Chinese media. Because of this lack of coverage the virus spread in silence, as a result the economics system in some ways