The COVID-19 pandemic, driven by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), has spread rapidly around the world. Some people (and even global leaders in the USA and Brazil) mistakenly believe that COVID-19 infection is just seasonal influenza as they produce similar symptoms. You might have even tried to convince some of your relatives that COVID-19 infection is different to that of seasonal flu. You also know that COVID-19 is more contagious and deadlier than seasonal influenza.

In this blog post, I will be taking a different tack on the issue. I will be comparing the viruses themselves to show you how COVID-19 is similar and different to seasonal influenza. This blog post will describe what these viruses are, where they come from and how they infect and cause disease. I hope that this blog post will give you a new way to persuade other people that COVID-19 is different from seasonal influenza.

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The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, has massive global ramifications. As of 1st April 2020, the pandemic has produced 858,785 cases with 42,151 deaths. The pandemic has stretched hospitals and public health systems in developed countries such as Italy and the United States and also affected local and global economies with travel restrictions, falling stock prices and rising unemployment. Researchers around the world are studying the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 infection to develop treatments and vaccines that can stop the pandemic. In particular, researchers are looking into how the immune system responds to COVID-19 infection.

Recently, researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia published an article which described, for the first time, how the immune system responds to COVID-19 infection. In this study, researchers tracked the immune response of a patient who was hospitalised with COVID-19 infection but later recovered. They found that the patient was able to mount an effective immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that persisted even after the virus was eliminated.

I like this article because it describes very simply how the immune system responds to COVID-19 infection. In addition, the article is quite short and contains results that, with further explanation, anyone can interpret and understand. In this blog post, I will explain how the immune system works and how this relates to what researchers found in their study. I hope this blog post will ignite your interest in the immune system and how it responds to COVID-19 infection. Who knows, you might even start reading and understanding some academic articles on COVID-19 infection!

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