What if opening up schools during the flu season is a big mistake. According to scientists viruses talk to each other. Could the rate of infections be just as big as it was during this upcoming fall school year as it was during the first part of the pandemic? And If viruses are talking to each other maybe the best way to prevent the spread of COVID19 is to to proactively try to prevent getting the common cold.
The accidental discovery could offer new ways to build drugs to defeat viruses.
qz.com
Scientists have caught viruses talking to each other—and that could be the key to a new age of anti-viral drugs
Scientists have discovered that viruses leave messages for other viruses. What makes the discovery remarkable is that scientists expect such communication systems to exist among other kinds of viruses. If true we'll have one more route to attack viruses like HIV and Herpes
January 22, 2017
If viruses talk to each other and leave messages like people do on an answering machine COVID19 might well explode like wildfire when Flu season hits in September and not to mention the common cold. According to the CDC eveyone will catch the common cold atleast 3 times in a calendar year.
Each year in the United States, there are millions of cases of the common cold. Adults have an average of 2-3 colds per year, and children have even more. Most people get colds in the winter and spring, but it is possible to get a cold any time of the year.
Common Colds: Protect Yourself and Others | Features | CDC
Protect yourself and others from the common cold.
www.cdc.gov
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viruses secrete small molecules into their environment that other viruses can pick up and "read." In this way, they can actually coordinate their attack, turning simple messages into a fairly sophisticated strategy.
For the first time, viruses have been found to communicate with one another, leaving short “posts” for kin and descendants. The messages help the viruses reading them decide how to proceed with the process of infection, according to research.
www.sciencedaily.com
Developing a home test kit that allow parents to test their kids for the first sign of a cold would probably ease alot of people's anxiety.
According to healthline.com Common Cold Diagnosis One of the tests Doctors use to test for the common cold is to stick a swab down the throat to take a throat culture. This seems like something that would be easy to replicate in a home kit.
www.newyorker.com
