Covid-19: Just the Facts

This story is a summary of the information you need to understand Covid-19 and how it affects you. It is accumulated from multiple sources as a means of fact checking.

• Prevention and Detection: Masks and Testing
• Symptoms: Acute Symptoms, Asymptomatic, and Presymptomatic
• Recovery: Long-Term effects and Immunity
• More Resources

Summary

• Wear a mask, anything is better than nothing
• Immunity is not necessarily guaranteed
• Rapid Tests indicate most contagious
• Be wary of long-term effects

Prevention and Detection

The human Covid-19 is primarily spread by person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets generated by breathing, sneezing, coughing, etc (see La Rosa et al. 2020 and ECDC). This is why masks are a useful tool in preventing spread and why testing involves extraction of fluids from the nose and/or throat.

Masks

Despite the ongoing discussion that masks do not really help, research shows that masks cut down the chances of both transmitting and catching Covid-19, even if it is just to reduce the amount of viral dose that you are exposed to (see Nature, Ghandi et al. 2020). While the virus particle is very small, it is actually transported via “pathogen-transporting droplets and aerosols”, which are larger. These larger particles spread…