There are three different plagues, not one, that can result by being infected with Yersinia Pestis:
1) bubonic plague that you get when bitten by a flea that has Yersinia Pestis,
2) pneumonic plague when you breathe the Yersinia Pestis, and
3) septicemic plague when the Yersinia Pestis infects your blood.
During the plague, the first person in a household to get it was bitten by an infected flea and often survived. I don't remember what the mortality rate of the bubonic plague was, but I think it was about 50 or 60%.
Everyone else in the household was in much more serious trouble. They would be infected by breathing in the aerosolized droplets from the one with the bubonic plague and would get pneumonic plague which has a mortality rate of something like 90% (or maybe more), if I remember correctly.
Could we be seeing something similar with covid-19? There have been reports that you can get it from breathing in the virus, but it is more likely to be gotten from direct contact with surfaces. Could it be that those with the more serious symptoms from it have gotten it from breathing it in while the greater numbers of people who are suffering less serious cases of covid-19 be getting it from surfaces?
Perhaps the initial site of the infection is making an enormous difference in the seriousness of the disease.
It might be hard to test this, but could it be that the initial sites of infection be having larger problems. For example, there are a couple of people here who had eye pain as a very early symptom. Is it possible that the virus might have entered the body when they rubbed their eyes after coming into contact with it on a surface? Similarly, a number of people are reporting a loss of taste and smell as the earliest symptoms. What if they acquired the covid-19 virus from a surface and then scratched inside the nose or picked their nose?
After all, the virus is not going to immediately spread through the body. Rather, it will infect those cells that it comes into contact with. If the body has a good immunological response, then as the disease spreads, other sites in the body could be somewhat less impacted as the body ramps up its defenses.
Looking at it this way, if someone acquired the disease by breathing the virus into the lungs so that the first part of the body infected was the lungs, perhaps the disease would have much greater impact in the lungs.
Of course, for those who don't have as good of an immunological response, then it could more easily spread in the body.
Thus, it might be possible to see if the disease is more serious in those where the first symptoms are not around the nose, eyes, or mouth.
So could we be seeing something like this with covid-19? Surely plague is not the only disease where breathing it in results in far worse incomes than getting it from other methods.
Anyway, just a thought that I had this morning.
1) bubonic plague that you get when bitten by a flea that has Yersinia Pestis,
2) pneumonic plague when you breathe the Yersinia Pestis, and
3) septicemic plague when the Yersinia Pestis infects your blood.
During the plague, the first person in a household to get it was bitten by an infected flea and often survived. I don't remember what the mortality rate of the bubonic plague was, but I think it was about 50 or 60%.
Everyone else in the household was in much more serious trouble. They would be infected by breathing in the aerosolized droplets from the one with the bubonic plague and would get pneumonic plague which has a mortality rate of something like 90% (or maybe more), if I remember correctly.
Could we be seeing something similar with covid-19? There have been reports that you can get it from breathing in the virus, but it is more likely to be gotten from direct contact with surfaces. Could it be that those with the more serious symptoms from it have gotten it from breathing it in while the greater numbers of people who are suffering less serious cases of covid-19 be getting it from surfaces?
Perhaps the initial site of the infection is making an enormous difference in the seriousness of the disease.
It might be hard to test this, but could it be that the initial sites of infection be having larger problems. For example, there are a couple of people here who had eye pain as a very early symptom. Is it possible that the virus might have entered the body when they rubbed their eyes after coming into contact with it on a surface? Similarly, a number of people are reporting a loss of taste and smell as the earliest symptoms. What if they acquired the covid-19 virus from a surface and then scratched inside the nose or picked their nose?
After all, the virus is not going to immediately spread through the body. Rather, it will infect those cells that it comes into contact with. If the body has a good immunological response, then as the disease spreads, other sites in the body could be somewhat less impacted as the body ramps up its defenses.
Looking at it this way, if someone acquired the disease by breathing the virus into the lungs so that the first part of the body infected was the lungs, perhaps the disease would have much greater impact in the lungs.
Of course, for those who don't have as good of an immunological response, then it could more easily spread in the body.
Thus, it might be possible to see if the disease is more serious in those where the first symptoms are not around the nose, eyes, or mouth.
So could we be seeing something like this with covid-19? Surely plague is not the only disease where breathing it in results in far worse incomes than getting it from other methods.
Anyway, just a thought that I had this morning.
