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Asked by anon-251721 on 24 Apr 2020.
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Anabel Martinez Lyons answered on 24 Apr 2020: last edited 24 Apr 2020 3:23 pm
Viruses can travel from person to person in a number of ways. The most common are through the air, through touching surfaces of objects and in fluids of infected people like sweat, saliva, and blood. Viruses don’t make us sick when they are just on our skin since our skin acts an a physical barrier. Viruses have far more of an effect when they are on the inside of us in our bloodstreams. That’s why we are recommended to wash our hands with soap for 20 seconds frequently, especially when we have been outside of our own homes or after touching something that has not been in our home. The best way to prevent spread of this coronavirus is to keep apart 2 m (about the length of 2 shopping trolleys) from people that you don’t live with, and to immediately wash your hands for 20 seconds with warm, soapy water after you’ve been outside or touched anything not in your home. Hope that helps! For more advice on how to prevent spreading or getting the virus, see here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/.
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Delma Childers answered on 24 Apr 2020:
1. For a very specific set of viruses, you can catch them from direct contact with someone carrying the virus, but remember this is only for very specific cases. For instance, cold sores and some warts are caused by viruses and are spread by direct skin contact.
2. You can breathe respiratory viruses (cold, flu, coronavirus) in from droplets in the air, but you have to be very near someone for this method of transmission to work well. That’s why current advice is to stand at least 2 meters away from people that don’t live in the same house with you.
3. Most often, you can catch a virus by touching something contaminated with that virus and then touching your face (eyes, nose, or mouth). This is why we make such a big deal about handwashing. The best way to stop the virus getting into your body is to wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds before touching your face. And this advice isn’t specific to coronavirus. Other viruses, like rotavirus or norovirus (they cause diarrhea and bad stomach pain), can quickly spread this way.
Every virus has a set of proteins on their surface that act like a key and lets them enter different types of cells in our body. Respiratory viruses, like colds, flu, and coronavirus, can get into cells within our nose, the back of our throats, and our lungs. Other viruses can infect skin cells and some of my least favourite viruses can infect the cells lining our intestines. HIV was a such a deadly virus decades ago because it can enter and disable important immune cells (T cells), which made people highly vulnerable to other infections.
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Claire Donald answered on 29 Apr 2020:
How viruses get into your body depends on the virus.
If its a respiratory virus, like the new coronavirus, they are spread by droplets from infected people sneezing and coughing. The virus can get into our bodies through our mouth or nose if we have touched something contaminated and then touch our face.
Viruses like Ebola can be spread by coming into contact with infected body fluids like blood or sweat.
Gastric viruses such as norovirus are transmitted by the faecal–oral route, which can involve infection if you don’t wash your hands after going to the toilet.
Some viruses can be spread by animals. For example Rabies can be spread by the bite of an infected dog. I work on viruses spread by mosquitoes such as dengue or Zika.
However the virus reaches the body, it has to get into your cells to cause disease. It uses a ‘lock and key’ system. Your cells have proteins (locks) on the outside of them. The virus also has proteins (keys) on the outside of it which are complementary to the proteins (locks) on specific body cells e.g. if its a respiratory virus it wants to get into cells of the respiratory tract (like the lungs). The virus can attach to the complementary proteins on the body cells and get in.
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