COVID-19 vs. SARS: How Do They Differ?
By: healthline
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. The seeded article provides more information than has been provided in the excerpt.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
COVID-19, which is caused by the new coronavirus, has been dominating the news lately. However, you may have first become familiar with the term coronavirus during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003.
Both COVID-19 and SARS are caused by coronaviruses. The virus that causes SARS is known as SARS-CoV, while the virus that causes COVID-19 is known as SARS-CoV-2. There are also other types of human coronaviruses.
Despite their similar name, there are several differences between the coronaviruses that cause COVID-19 and SARS. Keep reading as we explore coronaviruses and how they compare to each other.
What is a coronavirus?
Coronaviruses are a very diverse family of viruses. They have a large host range, which includes humans. However, the greatest amount of coronavirus diversity is seen in bats.
Coronaviruses have spiky projections on their surface that look like crowns. Corona means “crown” in Latin — and that’s how this family of viruses got their name.
Most of the time, human coronaviruses cause mild respiratory illnesses like the common cold. In fact, four types of human coronaviruses cause 10 to 30 percent of upper respiratory tract infections in adults.
A new type of coronavirus can emerge when an animal coronavirus develops the ability to transmit a disease to humans. When germs are transmitted from an animal to a human, it’s called zoonotic transmission.
Coronaviruses that make the jump to human hosts can cause serious illness. This can be due to a variety of factors, particularly humans’ lack of immunity to the new virus. Here are some examples of such coronaviruses:
SARS-CoV, the virus that caused SARS, which was first identified in 2003
MERS-CoV, the virus that caused Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which was first identified in 2012
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, which was first identified in 2019
What is SARS?
SARS is the name of the respiratory illness that’s caused by SARS-CoV. The acronym SARS stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome.
The global SARS outbreak lasted from late 2002 to mid-2003. During this time, over 8,000 people were sickened and 774 people died.
The origin of SARS-CoV is thought to be bats. It’s believed that the virus passed from bats to an intermediate animal host, the civet cat, before jumping to humans.
Fever is one of the first symptoms of SARS. This may be accompanied by other symptoms, such as:
cough
malaise or fatigue
body aches and pains
Respiratory symptoms can worsen, leading to shortness of breath. Serious cases rapidly progress, leading to pneumonia or respiratory distress.
How does COVID-19 differ from SARS?
COVID-19 and SARS are similar in many ways. For example, both:
- are respiratory illnesses caused by coronaviruses
- are believed to have originated in bats, jumping to humans via an intermediate animal host
- are spread by respiratory droplets produced when a person with the virus coughs or sneezes, or by contact with contaminated objects or surfaces
- have similar stability in the air and on various surfaces
- can lead to potentially serious illness, sometimes requiring oxygen or mechanical ventilation
- can have worsening symptoms later on in the illness
- have similar at-risk groups, such as older adults and those with underlying health conditions
- have no specific treatments or vaccines
However, the two illnesses and the viruses that cause them are also different in several important ways. Let’s take a closer look.
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The World Health Organization named the disease COVID-19 on February 11. We will never know to what extent politics influenced naming the disease COVID-19 rather than SARS-19. If the outbreak of respiratory disease had been named SARS-19 instead of COVID-19 then the early response may have been more effective. The less technical administrative response would have focused more attention on the experience obtained from the 2003 SARS outbreak. While there are technical differences between COVID-19 and SARS, the current respiratory disease outbreak bears many similarities to the 2003 SARS outbreak and is requiring the same sort of response.
Yes, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is novel, new, and not seen before in the human population. And, yes, there are differences between the SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV strains of viruses. But the world has some experience dealing with outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Disease (SARS).
The initial response to the outbreak was more important than technical differences between the viruses. And we may never know how much the name influenced that initial response.
I have one question that may have been answered in the source article, but I don't have the scientific knowledge that would enable me to determine it from what I've read. I would assume that knowledge of its genome makup would be a clue.
Is it possible that the coronavirus from which covid-19 develops had been created artificially in a lab, as opposed to developing naturally through species transference?
If the answer to that is that it is unlikely to have been created in a lab, it would be an answer to one of the conspiracy theories recently being circulated those who woufd rather just damn China rather than focus on a solution better reached through cooperation.
Yes, it's certainly possible that SARS-CoV-2 was produced in a laboratory. But that doesn't indicate how likely it is that the source of the virus was a laboratory. Possibility and probability are different things. My understanding is that laboratory production of viruses is a process akin to selective breeding. Hairless cats, as an example, emerged through a natural mutation but the prevalence of hairless cats is a result of selective breeding.
The reason I introduced cats is to ask how prevalent are cats in Hubei Province? Cats are known to be susceptible to coronaviruses. Open air meat and fish markets (wet markets) attract animals and allow pets and feral animals to interact with each other. The open air markets also attract insects which is a food source for bats. So, it is also possible that SARS-CoV-2 emerged in an animal population concentrated around open air meat and fish markets. But that possibility as a source of the virus doesn't indicate how likely open air meat and fishes markets are the source of the virus.
Determining if the SARS-CoV-2 virus was transmitted from animals would require testing the animal population. While it's possible that the virus emerged from a single animal, it is more likely that the virus has spread throughout the animal population if that is the source.
Finding the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus would be as much a process of elimination as it would be a process of confirmation. The first step would be to trace spread of the virus back to a source. So far, from available reporting, that tracing leads back to Wuhan. But I don't know if sufficient information is available to trace to a source within Wuhan.
That is one possibility among many possibilities. Determining the actual source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus will require eliminating possibilities.
What we do know is that the pandemic began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, with a very high degree of confidence. And we also know with a high degree of confidence that the Chinese government has engaged in efforts to minimize the political fallout resulting from Wuhan being the general source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Chinese politics has hampered global response to the pandemic. As a result, the reliability of information coming out of China is highly suspect. Even if the Chinese government shares information, there will always be suspicion of the reliability of that information. The rest of the world is less likely to accept the Chinese government eliminating possibilities. All the possibilities will remain as likely sources of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The Chinese government screwed itself. And no amount of philanthropic pandering is going to change that.
China lied, people died. Yeah, that may be an over simplification but that also states the facts as they are.
The Chinese government may have thought the disease would be similar to previous SARS outbreaks and formulated a political response based on that assumption. But politics cannot overcome reality.
Reality always wins in the end. The Chinese government may fall because of the initial political response to the pandemic. Xi Jinping is treading on politically thin ice.
Seems to me that's the favoured possibility of those who are defensive of Trump's mishandling for so long.
Medical epidemic staff from the WHO organization were on the scene January 20th. I suppose they're not to be trusted as well.
Information from China was circulated directily to other countries and also published in international medical journals in January. But let's just ignore that.
For more than a month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been offering to send a team of experts to China to observe its coronavirus outbreak and help if it can.
Normally, teams from the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service can be in the air within 24 hours.
But no invitation has come — and no one can publicly explain why.
The World Health Organization, which made a similar offer about two weeks ago, appears to be facing the same cold shoulder, though a spokeswoman said it is just “sorting out arrangements.”
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Let's also ignore that China was arresing doctors in January for suggesting the virus existed? And ignore that in January about human to human transmission. And ingore that China refused to share samples of the virus with international researchers. And ignore that China allowed millions to leave Wuhan and travel around the globe after it knew it was the center of an outbreak. Let's just ignore that if China had even acted as little as three weeks earlier, experts estimate 95% of the global cases would never have occurred.
But hey, after they tried to hide and lied about the virus's existence for months and exported it to the world, they engaged in limited cooperation after they could no longer hope to contain the secret.
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The problem is China is making that almost impossible. As the Times explained back in February:
A major epidemiological failure by China is that the Wuhan authorities appear to have closed and disinfected the seafood market that was the outbreak’s early focus without swabbing individual animals and their cages and without drawing blood from everyone working there. That would have provided a wealth of information about which animal might have been the source of the coronavirus and which people had become infected but survived.
And now, of course, they've ordered that all research into the origins of the outbreak be cleared by the CCP before it's published. Given the way China is acting and what facts we do know (the lab was not secure) occam's razor suggests it was accidently leaked from the nearby lab, and China doesn't want to admit that because of the need to save face.
Maybe it's because during the height of the trade war, someone defunded the CDC Resident Advisor position in Beijing and Dr Linda Quick was recalled and not allowed since, to talk to journalists.
But most likely, knowing a few proud Chinese persons, ( son in law and his mother )
they are insulted by the White House's and WHO's accusations of conspiracy and malicious intent.
Doesn't really matter where the truth eventually falls out.
Saving face is extremely important in "Eastern" culture.
As long as the world is stubbornly accusatory, the Chinese will do nothing.
ey are insulted by the White House's and WHO's accusations of conspiracy and malicious inten
So pride is a good reason to kill thousands in your book. Nice.
When did the WHO accuse China of conspiracy? Since they were being denied access at the same time the WHO was praising China's response, please justify your claims with actual facts.
s long as the world is stubbornly accusatory, the Chinese will do nothing.
So it's the world's fault China lied and covered up the outbreak.(even though the WHO lied for China) The world should understand China can't behave responsibly and shouid treat China like a spoiled two year old, otherwise it will have a tantrum. Sounds like Rudyard Kipling to me.