Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic is rising at an unprecedented rate. The surging number of deaths every day, global lockdown and travel restrictions have resulted in huge losses to society. The impact is massive and will leave a historical footprint. The Spanish Flu of 1918, which was the last pandemic that had a similar impact, was shadowed under the consequences of World War I. All the brilliance, strength and economies of countries worldwide are aimed at fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The knowledge about coronavirus dynamics, its nature and epidemiology are expanding every day. The present review aims to summarize the structure, epidemiology, symptoms, statistical status of the disease status, intervention strategies and deliberates the lessons learnt during the pandemic. The intervention approaches, antiviral drug repurposing and vaccine trials are intensified now. Statistical interpretations of disease dynamics and their projections may help the decision-makers.
Highlights
The infection caused by novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 has turned into a pandemic
SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped, positive, single-stranded RNA virus [2,3]. It appears that SARS-CoV-2 is an animal coronavirus that originated from a bat and phylogenetically belongs to the genus beta-coronavirus and shares considerable similarities to human coronaviruses responsible for earlier outbreak: SARS and MERS [1,4]
The latest situation reports by World Health Organization (WHO) on the COVID-19 pandemic states that it has already claimed more than 353,334 lives worldwide which is manifold greater than the total amount of fatalities of SARS and MERS combined [3,11]
Summary
The infection caused by novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 has turned into a pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped, positive, single-stranded RNA virus [2,3] It appears that SARS-CoV-2 is an animal coronavirus that originated from a bat and phylogenetically belongs to the genus beta-coronavirus (subgenus: Sarbecovirus) and shares considerable similarities to human coronaviruses responsible for earlier outbreak: SARS and MERS [1,4]. SARS-CoV-2 use angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) mammalian receptor like SARS-CoV for cellular entry for human-to-human transmission [3,4,6]. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, mutation rates are high, including spike glycoprotein that is the ACE2 binding region important for virus entry into the cells. Other highly mutated regions are ORF1ab, ORF8 and NSP-1 alongside the spike glycoprotein region [13] These overwhelming mutations are the leading cause of concern in the process of development of therapeutic interventions. The prevalence and genetic diversity of SARS-CoVs in humans, bats and other mammals and their proximal existence will cause frequent recombination and spillovers and will become the source of future infections as noted by Dr Zheng-Li while describing the genetic evolution of coronaviruses [16]
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