Coach Shares Research on Corona Virus History

Our thanks to Coach Paul for his research into the coronavirus world. You may be surprised how long this family of viruses has actually been around.

The History Of Coronavirus

The starting point from a historical perspective is understanding that Coronavirus is not new. Scientists have been aware of it for nearly 60 years, but it is in the last 50 years that it has accumulated wider recognition. Most people became aware of Coronavirus in 2003. That outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome became known as SARS (SARS-CoV). Coronavirus is a large family of viruses that cause respiratory diseases.

SARS (SARS-CoV) affected mainland China & Hong Kong. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome MERS (MERS-CoV) caused an outbreak in Saudi Arabia & eventually 27 other countries. The numbers infected were relatively small. MERS was transmitted from the Dromedary Camel (Arabian Camel). SARS, MERS & COVID-19 were all unknown to science prior to the three outbreaks. SARS & MERS were contained due to a combination of human intervention & natural circumstances that have never been linked. These three forms of Coronavirus all have the potential to create remarkably high mortality rates as we have witnessed with COVID-19. Many scientists believe these three forms will never leave the human population but continue to cycle.

The International Committee for the Taxonomy of Viruses has approved then naming of more than forty coronaviruses most relating to infected animals. This COVID-19 outbreak has raised the number of identified coronaviruses that have infected the human population to seven. Four of these are community acquired & have circulated through the human population continually over vast periods of time.

All coronaviruses are Zoonotic meaning they always start in an animal then, mutate, recombine, or adapt via other host animals to then be passed onto human hosts. Alternatively, an animal coronavirus can be passed direct to a human host from the originating animal. It is speculated that when coronavirus first enters a new host the severity of the disease is significantly increased at the start of the new round of adaptation between the virus & new host. This theory holds that only after a lengthy period of adaptation & co-evolution could the new host adapt enough to the virus to be able to fight it off more effectively resulting in minor symptoms.

The four forms of community acquired coronavirus would have been an animal transmission to a human host, but this would have been a distant historical event. Coronavirus that have been circulating human to human for numerous generations loses its potency & as mentioned above a mild cold is the general outcome.

Two of the four community acquired coronavirus being (hCoV-OC43) & (hCoV-229E) were both discovered in the 1960’s. Between them they are responsible for 10% – 30% of all common colds & minor flu symptoms in the world’s population in the five+ decades to present day. The common cold & flu are in the coronavirus family so many of us have had & carried a coronavirus on multiple occasions!

Our Guest Blogger is Paul Barry from Brisbane Australia where he works as a coach & consultant in High Performance Sport. He can be contacted by email. pbelitecoach@gmail.com