COVID 19 produces a viral load 1000x higher than SARS

There's a lot of news and research about Covid-19, but I stumbled across this article which caught my eye.

Researchers examined the viral load in 9 patients in Germany:

"In SARS, it took 7 to 10 days after onset until peak RNA concentrations (of up to 5x10⁵ copies per swab) were reached," the researchers wrote. "In the present study, peak concentrations were reached before day 5, and were more than 1,000 times higher."

In a different study mentioned in this article, researchers found 97.5% of symptomatic patients develop symptoms within 11.5 days (which means the recommended quarantine period of 14 days is on target):

"The researchers estimated the median incubation period at 5.1 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.5 to 5.8 days). They found that 97.5% of patients who have symptoms do so within 11.5 days of infection (CI, 8.2 to 15.6 days)."

Also, in case anyone hasn't seen this yet, here is a map from Johns Hopkins University showing the distribution of Covid-19 in the US:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

I'm a nerd for geography, so I have been watching this map since the US got its first case. It is interesting to think that we have the technology to track the evolution of this virus in almost real time.



Article link: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/03/study-highlights-ease-spread-covid-19-viruses

Zac Truesdell, potluck 4/14