Institute of Medical Physics, School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Center for Applied Genomics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Viruses. 2020 Oct 29;12(11):1226. doi: 10.3390/v12111226.
There is a current pandemic of a new type of coronavirus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The number of confirmed infected cases has been rapidly increasing. This paper analyzes the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 in comparison with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and influenza. COVID-19 is similar to the diseases caused by SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV virologically and etiologically, but closer to influenza in epidemiology and virulence. The comparison provides a new perspective for the future of the disease control, and offers some ideas in the prevention and control management strategy. The large number of infectious people from the origin, and the highly infectious and occult nature have been two major problems, making the virus difficult to eradicate. We thus need to contemplate the possibility of long-term co-existence with COVID-19.
目前正流行一种新型冠状病毒，即严重急性呼吸系统综合征冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）。确诊感染病例数量迅速增加。本文通过与严重急性呼吸系统综合征冠状病毒（SARS-CoV）、中东呼吸系统综合征冠状病毒（MERS-CoV）和流感进行比较，分析了 SARS-CoV-2 的特征。从病毒学和病因学角度来看，COVID-19 与 SARS-CoV 和 MERS-CoV 引起的疾病相似，但在流行病学和毒力方面与流感更为接近。该比较为疾病控制的未来提供了新的视角，并为预防和控制管理策略提供了一些思路。该病毒起源时传染性极强，且具有高度传染性和隐匿性，这两个问题成为了两大难题，使病毒难以根除。因此，我们需要考虑与 COVID-19 长期共存的可能性。
