As we lived through our third and fourth round of quarantine learning and returned to school (masked and now unmasked) it would benefit us to do some research and learning around Covid-19.
You are living historians right now… you are the primary source for your potential children and family. You need to develop some real understanding of the virus and how it behaves as well as understanding how it spread to become a pandemic in short order.
Part One: Zoonotics, Covid-19 and its Causes
Please read through the articles and respond to the questions below. Know that you may need to do some research on your own. Keep track of those references so that you can hand in those as well. There will be a submission box in Teams.
Zoonosis
- What is zoonosis?
- Why are zoonotics on the rise?
- What are zoonosis pandemics? Give a known timeline of the pandemics to date – outline when, where and the virus it dealt with (quick jot style notes). Pay attention to the host animal and the cross over and how it affected the human body.
Washington Post – http://learninghood.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Coronavirus-came-from-bats-or-possibly-pangolins-The-Washington-Post.pdf
https://theface.com/society/zoonosis-science-pandemic-disease-covid-19-sars
Viral Structure
- What is the difference between SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19? What does Covid-19 stand for?
- What structures can be found on the Covid-19 virus – Detail things we know about it.
- How does the structure of the capsid make it difficult for our body to fight?
- How does the virus get into a human cell? How can this be exploited?
- What is the virus’ kryptonite? Explain how it works.
https://www.cleanlink.com/news/article/SARS-CoV-2-And-COVID-19-Whats-The-Difference–25264
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/coronavirus-sars-cov-2-structure/
Take a second to play the the Daily Confirmed cases of Covid-19 since March of last year and the year before… I have included Canada, the US and the World as data lines (it is per million people – that is why the world one is lower!).
Part Two: Ecological Change as a Cause of Disease Outbreaks?
Scientists know that the transmission of many infectious diseases is affected by climatic factors: temperature, humidity, surface water, wind, soil moisture and charges in forest distribution. Disease like malaria are especially influenced by changes in these factors, since they require an intermediate organism like a mosquito to transmit the actual disease. It is predicted that climate change altered weather patterns would affect range (latitude and altitude), intensity and seasonality of many infectious diseases. In general, increased warmth and moisture would enhance the transmission of these diseases.
- Explain the relationship between infectious disease and climatic factors.
- What specific aspect of climate change would affect the intensity, range and seasonality of diseases transmitted by carriers (mosquitos, flies, etc.) and can bats now be included?
- Considering an increase in temperature and precipitation to be the most evident direct affect of climate change, what will probably happen to the geographic distribution of diseases spread by mosquitos? Why? What evidence do we have for this?
- What does urbanization have to do with this?
https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-pandemic-cause-prediction-prevention.html