With the very public responses from governments, restrictive rules, and panic buying of paper goods and nonperishable food it has become increasingly easy to become very worried and stressed about COVID 19.
However a very important factor is almost entirely hidden in the public discussion, we are designed to survive. Not only are we designed to survive but we are designed to get increasingly better at surviving. God build each of us with a sophisticated self learning increasingly effective defense against Coronavirus and disease in general. It is called our immune system.
God designed our immune system with multiple backup processes and alternate attack methods that give our bodies more than a fighting chance. Here is a short summary:
There are at least three processes our body uses to destroy viruses including COVID 19: Cytotoxic cells, Interferons and Antibodies.
Cytotoxic cells. This is the process by which your body kills cells infected with a virus. One way your body does this is using histocompatibility complex proteins which display portions of the virus inside the cell on the outer surface of the cell. That enables circulating Cytotoxic T cells to “read” the virus contained in that cell. Once the Cytotoxic T cell recognizes the other cell contains a virus it releases cytotoxic factors which act as a poison and kill the cell and the virus it contains.
However some viruses have the ability to block the cell they have infected from displaying the warning “virus inside” sign on the surface of the cell they have infected. In such cases God has given our body what is referred to as natural killer cells. These cells detect when other cells are not displaying enough information about what is inside them. When they discover a cell with reduced displayed information it releases poisonous substances which kill the cell and destroy the virus inside.
A second way your body is designed to stop viruses is through Interferons. Interferons are small proteins which a virally infected cell release to literally interfere with the virus reproducing inside it which slows the reproduction of the virus. Additionally, the Interferon proteins also warn nearby cells of the presence of the virus. Those cells than increase the amount of information displayed on their surfaces to alert Cytotoxic T cells and natural killer cells of the nearby virus so they can destroy the virus infected cell.
Antibodies are a third tool God has built into our immune system to fight viruses. Antibodies work by attaching themselves to the viruses. By binding with the viruses, Antibodies do several things. First they neutralize the virus, making them incapable of infecting cells. They can also work together and agglutinate viruses into a big clump which makes it easier for other immune cells to find them and destroy them. Antibodies can also trigger phagocytic cells to engulf and destroy the viruses, a bit like PAC man eating virus dots.
In addition to the basic components of our immune system God designed our immune system to learn from previous encounters with viruses and other infectious agents. Certain types of lymphocytes develop into memory cells which can live for years or even decades.
When a virus or other infectious agent invades our body it triggers changes in some of the lymphocytes so that they become memory cells that recognize that specific virus from then on. Whenever that virus enters our body again the memory cells trigger a faster and more efficient immune response to destroy the viruses faster. This learning capacity is the reason we don’t get chicken pox and measles a second time and why vaccinations can prevent infections. In other words God designed our immune system to get faster and stronger over time.
While the statistics from the Centers for Disease Control report a grim reality that many people are getting sick and some are dying, those same statistics also demonstrate the protective abilities God designed into our immune system.
Note: these statistics are current as of March 24, 2020 on the Centers for Disease Control website.
First the bad news. A report from China indicates serious illness occurs in about 16% of infection cases. In the United States 80% of all deaths from the Coronavirus occurred in people age 65 and older with the highest percentage amongst people 85 years and older. People with chronic diseases, and especially those affecting our heart, lungs, or immune system, are at greater risk for severe illness if infected.
It is currently unclear exactly what the mortality rate or chance of death is, if infected.
Basic math can give us a starting point but cannot give us a completely accurate rate. In one report on the CDC website 44,795 cases of infection were reported in China as of February 11 2020. At that time 1117 people had died from the virus. Those figures result in about a 2.5% mortality rate. However, The Guardian in a March 24 2020 article referenced the chief medical officer of Great Britain Chris Whitty as saying he believes the mortality rate to be about 1% or lower. However they also quote the chief of the World Health Organization has reported a 3.4% mortality rate. Interestingly I was unable to find any stated mortality rate posted on the CDC website.
Whether the mortality rate is a little less than 1% are closer to 3.5% many people have and will die.
However the flip side of those same statistics is actually pretty encouraging. Even at the 3.5% mortality rate, that still means over 96% of people who become infected live. That is because of the immune system that God built into us which enables our body to recognize, suppress, and destroy the invading virus. Added to the 96% of people who recover are those who never become infected. As you can see your odds of actually dying from the Coroniavirus are very small.
So breathe, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. God designed and built into you an intelligent capable and powerful defense system against the Coronavirus and any other infections that may try to destroy you.
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References taken on 3/24-26/20
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summary.html
https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/immune-disorders/biology-of-the-immune-system/acquired-immunity
