Understanding Architecture Of This Particular Coronavirus Can Help Scientists Destroy It

The Washington Post: What Research On Coronavirus Structure Can Tell Us About How To Kill It
Like any virus, the novel coronavirus is a germ that tries to burrow into a cell and turn it into a virus-replicating factory. If it succeeds, it can produce an infection — in this case, a respiratory disease. The type of cells a virus targets and how it enters them depend on how the virus is built. This virus gets its family name from a telltale series of spikes — tens or even hundreds of them — that circle its bloblike core like a crown, or corona. Virologists know from studying its close cousins, viruses that cause SARS and MERS, that the spikes interact with receptors on cells like keys in locks, enabling the virus to enter. (Berkowitz, Steckelberg and Muyskens, 3/23)

The Washington Post: The Science Of Why Coronavirus Is So Hard To Stop
Viruses have spent billions of years perfecting the art of surviving without living — a frighteningly effective strategy that makes them a potent threat in today’s world. That’s especially true of the deadly new coronavirus that has brought global society to a screeching halt. It’s little more than a packet of genetic material surrounded by a spiky protein shell one-thousandth the width of an eyelash, and leads such a zombielike existence that it’s barely considered a living organism. (Kaplan, Wan and Achenbach, 3/23)

Stat: Seeking Covid-19 Answers, U.S. Doctors Turn To Colleagues In China 
Even as the Covid-19 outbreak has already overwhelmed some U.S. hospitals, in many cities anxious physicians feel more like coastal dwellers who learn that a tsunami has formed miles offshore: It hasn’t hit them yet, they know it’s going to, and they are desperate for information about how to survive it.Now, fed up with what they see as inadequate and confusing directives from public health authorities, many physicians are trying to get on-the-ground advice directly from colleagues in countries that were the first to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic. (Begley, 3/24)

Stat: Doctors Warn An Inability To Smell Could Be A Symptom Of Covid-19
Health care workers are calling attention to a potential new symptom of a novel coronavirus infection: the loss of one’s sense of smell. Clinicians in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world have reported, anecdotally, that some patients infected with the virus experience anosmia, or an inability to smell. (Brodwin, 3/23)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Symptoms Could Include Lost Sense Of Smell, Doctors Warn
But a team of British ear, nose and throat doctors on Friday raised the possibility of a new indicator of the coronavirus, one they say has been observed globally, even in patients who are otherwise asymptomatic: anosmia, a condition that causes the loss of sense of smell. In a statement, they warned that adults experiencing recent anosmia could be unknown carriers of covid-19, and urged them to consider self-isolation. “All of this evidence is accumulating very rapidly, but there’s nothing yet robustly in print,” Claire Hopkins, president of the British Rhinological Society, said in an interview. “Since then, I’ve had colleagues from around the world saying: ‘That’s exactly what we’re seeing.’ They’ve been trying [to raise awareness], but it hasn’t been picked up.” (Brice-Saddler, 3/24)

The Washington Post: What It’s Like To Be Infected With Coronavirus
Ritchie Torres, 32, a New York City councilman from the Bronx, first had nothing more than a “general sickly feeling.” Then came a bad headache. He felt terrible. But for Torres, the worst effects of covid-19 so far have been mental: “It is psychologically unsettling to know I am carrying a virus that could harm my loved ones.” The Rev. Jadon Hartsuff, 42, an Episcopal priest in Washington, D.C., felt drained after a Sunday service on Feb. 23. He took a nap. No big deal — the service can be tiring. The next day at the gym, his muscles ached. He became fatigued, feverish, slightly dizzy. “I kept telling people I felt spongy,” he recalls. “Like a kitchen sponge.” (Achenbach, Guarino and Cha, 3/22)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Adds Peril To The Already At-Risk: ‘If I Get This Stuff, It’s Going To Kill Me.’
Isolated in her third-floor apartment, Maria Sweezy knew her coronavirus situation was more precarious than most, but what she saw on her phone Sunday morning left her unsettled and fighting panic. A woman she had befriended at a camp for children with Type I diabetes was dead — along with her baby. Everyone suspected the coronavirus, which can have more adverse symptoms for diabetics. Messages streamed into Sweezy’s phone from people she had met as a camp resident and counselor, some sharing pictures of their friend — including one that included Sweezy, as a dark-haired teenager, grinning. (Wootson, 3/23)

CNN: Coronavirus Prevention: Why Soap, Sanitizer And Warm Water Work Against Covid-19 And Other Viruses 
Tired of washing your hands for 20 seconds each time? Fingers starting to prune or feel like sandpaper? Please don't stop. The world is counting on you to help stop the spread of Covid-19, the deadly new disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. (LaMotte, 3/24)

Kaiser Health News: Does Everyone Over 60 Need To Take The Same Coronavirus Precautions?
She knew it wasn’t a good idea and her daughter would disapprove. Nonetheless, Barbara Figge Fox, 79, recently went to four stores in Princeton, New Jersey, to shop for canned goods, paper towels, fresh fruit, yogurt, and other items. “I was in panic mode,” said Fox, who admitted she’s been feeling both agonizing fear and irrational impulsivity because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Graham, 3/24)

The New York Times: These Doctors Have Specialties. Fighting Coronavirus Wasn’t One Of Them.
Dr. Scott Isaacs has worked as an endocrinologist for more than two decades, focused on the medical needs of adults with diabetes in the Atlanta area. He never expected to be serving on the front lines of a pandemic. For weeks, his phone has been ringing off the hook. His diabetes patients, a high-risk group for coronavirus infection, want to know: How can they get tested? How can they stockpile extra medication? And can he write to their employers to recommend they work from home? (Goldberg, 3/23)

The New York Times: When Coronavirus Closes Your Lab, Can Science Go On?
In recent weeks, coronavirus led to the shutdown of many university campuses and other institutions for research and learning in the United States and around the world. There’s always work that you can do from home. But parts of the scientific process can only be completed in the lab, or at another location where fieldwork or other hands-on research occurs. What’s a scientist to do when it’s time to put some of their experiments on the shelf? (3/23)

The New York Times: Coronavirus And Social Distancing: Take Steps To Counter The Loneliness
Two years ago, when Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the former surgeon general of the United States, started researching his book, “Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World,” he never anticipated how relevant the topic would be now that it is about to be published. The coronavirus pandemic and resulting advice — stay home if at all possible, avoid convening with others and refrain from close contacts even on the street — has intensified the harm inflicted by factors that already isolate people and rendered many of the antidotes to isolation moot. (Brody, 3/23)