Covid-19

What is Covid 19?

Covid 19 is a viral infection that causes a variety of symptoms, most commonly upper respiratory problems but it may also affect the function of other internal organs. First diagnosed in 2019 in China, it quickly spread across the globe, becoming a pandemic that affected every continent.

What Are the Symptoms of Covid 19?

Part of the reason that Covid 19 spread so rapidly, is because many people infected with the virus were asymptomatic but still had a viral level high enough to spread the disease to others. For those who did develop symptoms, the illness usually started with upper respiratory problems including:

• A dry cough
• Wheezing
• Fever
• Loss of sense of smell and/or taste
• Chest congestion
• Shortness of breath

If the infected person was not able to fight off the infection, it would begin to damage other organs sometimes resulting in multiple organ failure.

What Is the Cause of Covid 19?

Covid 19 is a virus. A person can contract this virus by breathing it in or coming into contact with it and then touching their eyes, nose or mouth.

Can Any Complications Arise If Left Untreated?

For many people, no treatment is necessary. Some that contract Covid 19 suffer relatively mild symptoms and recover on their own within a week to 10 days. For others, and for reasons that are not yet entirely clear, even when treated, the symptoms of Covid 19 continue to worsen and sometimes lead to death. Generally speaking, the young and healthy stand the best chance of beating this virus on their own, but there have been cases where even healthy individuals have suffered the more severe version of this illness.

What Medications Treat Covid 19?

When Covid 19 was first discovered there were no effective treatments except to treat the symptoms. Now there are antiviral medications, like Paxlovid and Veklury and vaccinations such as Pfizer and Moderna, that have been approved by the FDA to treat or prevent sever infections of COVID 19.

Common medications may include