It may be a little bit late now, yet very few people have I seen ever spoke about how similar, yet uniquely different SARS and COVID-19 really are. So let’s do a quick run down.

First of all, SARS is a coronavirus. COVID-19 is a coronavirus, and coronaviruses usually come from the same host, which includes humans. In fact, the coronavirus family is accountable for 10-30% of human upper respiratory tract infections (heathline.com). The host with the most coronavirus diversity is bats.

When and animal transmits germs (or the virus) to a human, this is called zoonotic transmission. When a coronavirus somehow makes a jump from host to host, namely, animal to human, our immunity system doesn’t recognize the attacking virus and we are left defenseless.

So that’s the jist of it, now you may understand why wet markets can be such a dangerous practise. I mean the first outbreak of SARS (which stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome) was back in late 2002, Guangdong, China. The disease is thought to have originated from bats, passed on to the civet cat, and then to humans.

SARS and COVID-19 are the same in these ways;

• Fever
• Cough
• shortness of breathe
• Body aches and pains (common in SARS, uncommon in COVID-19)
• Headache (common in SARS, uncommon in COVID-19)
• Diarrhea (uncommon for both)

SARS differs in a way that when affected, it’s more common that you will feel discomfort or ill, commonly reffered to as malaise. Some affected individuals may experience chills.

COVID-19 gets to be a little more tricky to identify, with some symptoms may be a stuffy nose, a headache, sore throat, nausea, cough and fatigue. This just seems like you’re just “run-down” or “over-worked”, and well that also may be true, so is the fact that you a terminator for those aged over 60.

The quicker you treat these symptoms, the less amount of the virus do you have to fight and deal with. Both cases originated from China, and both cases had the Chinese government acting very sly.

The Bad News

COVID-19 transmits more easily than SARS. The problem with COVID-19 is the way it presents itself, has a high concentration of viral load in the throat and nose of the infected. So masks are much more important to have if you are the type to get “run down” more often than not.

Because there are no vaccines out there, social distancing is our best preventative measure, I have also read that the droplets expulsed through coughing can also carry the disease, and contaminate surfaces. Now you understand why that customer who coughed all over the produce in a supermarket got gorilla slapped to the ground.

So really you may hate the social distancing you may think that this virus is not that big of a deal, and it may not be to you. Then this isn’t about you, this is about those whom are too weak or are vulnerable to the disease. This is about your grandparents, or your friends grandparents, or maybe even yours or their parents.

Wear a mask, stay away from each other, it will be okay sooner rather than later. To better understand why these measures are in place, just take a look at the preventionary methodology that was used for SARS. If you have Netflix, there is the Coronavirus episode of Explained is coming April 26th. That show already had predicted this happening, and who was there?

Bill Gates.