Viruses: What they are and how they spread

Viruses are smaller than the microscope can see. They are infectious agents that replicate only inside the living cells of an organism. Organisms are classified as multicellular animals, plants, fungi, and unicellular microorganisms such as bacteria. Humans are multicellular animals. Viruses are not considered to be living organisms, but their existence is dependent on infecting living organisms, entering their cells and forcing the cells to produce thousands of copies of itself. This is how they replicate. The more they replicate, the greater the chance mutations will occur that will make the virus stronger and more potent. In some ways, they act like parasites.

The SARS-COV2 virus is no different. This is the virus that causes COVID19 disease, and it has mutated to a more infectious and potent form, the Delta variant. A key principle for controlling viruses from causing serious disease is to interfere with its ability to replicate and spread. This is an important role of vaccines. Vaccines work by stimulating our immune systems to recognize a virus or specific parts of it and mount our own natural defense mechanisms against it by making antibodies and stimulating other specialized cells, called memory cells that remember the foreign invader. Vaccinations have been so successful that most people younger than 60 years old in the US, have not experienced large outbreaks of viral diseases and many do not know that these viruses can lead to disability and death.

Smallpox, measles, chickenpox, shingles, rabies, polio, AIDS, Ebola, hepatitis A, B, and C, mumps, genital warts (HPV), and influenza are examples of diseases that are caused by viruses. One in three people infected by the smallpox virus will die. The measles virus is highly contagious and one infected person can easily infect 15 other people and each one of those people can infect 15 more people and so forth! It is forgotten that people can die from the measles. Although the death rate is usually small, those that are most likely to die from measles are children less than 5 years of age. Therefore, vaccination against measles is required by public schools along with vaccinations against polio, hepatitis, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox.

Polio was the scourge of children until effective vaccines were developed in the 1950s. Many people were infected with this easily transmissible virus without developing symptoms (asymptomatic), but in those who developed symptoms the result often led to a lifetime of disability or death. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was caused by the unusually deadly H1N1 influenza A virus. 500 million people, about a third of the world's population at the time, were infected and approximately 50 million people worldwide died in this pandemic.

The SARS-COV2 virus is a newly identified virus that prior to late 2019 had never infected humans. We are learning about this virus as it infects hundreds of millions of people globally. As a result, communication about the virus has not always been clear, which has led to confusion. As more is understood about the virus, previous recommendations may need to be changed. Additionally, the virus's behavior is changing because of its ability to replicate and thus mutate. The Delta variant is 40% more infectious than the original SARS-COV2 virus. A person infected with the Delta variant can infect 5-8 other people and each one of those 5-8 others and so on. This is how surges begin.

So don't be fooled by the notion that it is "just a virus." COVID19 infection can be asymptomatic with no obvious adverse effects, or the same virus can lead to long COVID-19 disease, or severe illness and death. The more opportunity we give it to invade our bodies and replicate, the greater the chance it will mutate to more powerful variants. Vaccines markedly reduce its ability to do this. Please help to end the pandemic by protecting yourselves and your community by getting vaccinated.