COVID-19: Fact or fiction?

 COVID-19 only seriously impacts the elderly 

 Although the elderly will likely require hospitalization if they contract the virus, COVID-19 can also impact people with underlying health conditions, like autoimmune disorders or obesity. Even young adults have been shown to be hospitalized with COVID-19; everyone’s body reacts differently to the virus, which is why this is a huge threat to the health of the entire population. 

 I do not need to complete quarantine if I have a negative COVID test.

 Imagine it’s Thanksgiving and you ate so much food for dinner but you don’t feel full enough yet so you eat dessert too. An hour later, you feel sick because of how much food you ate. At the time you were eating dessert, there wasn’t enough digested food in your stomach to tell your body to stop eating even though you consumed enough food-it just wasn’t digested. In the same way, you can have the COVID-19 virus in your body but not enough of the virus to be detected yet by the COVID-19 test and you can be falsely declared negative. You are not negative because you have the virus in your body: it’s just that at the time you were tested, you didn’t have viral levels high enough to detect COVID-19. For this reason, it’s important that you follow through with your quarantine and monitor your symptoms even after recieving your COVID-19 test result!

 COVID-19 is no worse than the flu 

 The flu and COVID-19 have many things in common: they’re both viruses and share some symptoms, such as headaches and fever. However, COVID-19 is more contagious which means it can be spread more easily to other people. Also, COVID-19 can cause more serious illnesses such as lung injury and blood clots. 

  Masks prevent the spread of COVID-19

 Think of masks as a door to your mouth and nose. When your front door is closed, people from the outside can’t enter your house and people inside the house can’t leave. In the same way, when you wear a mask, the door is closed so droplets from your mouth or nose cannot exit the mask. Without a mask, there’s no door that separates these droplets from your surroundings. So, wearing a mask is important to keep the droplets behind the door and not spread to other people 

 COVID-19 is a virus

This means it is basically an agent that enters a host body and makes that body sick. You can’t see it because it’s so small, but when it enters your body and cells, it can replicate the sickness-causing genes it has to make your whole body sick. Because you can’t see the virus, it’s really important to wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze so you do not spread the virus. 

 COVID-19 can be spread through touching surfaces of infected objects

Imagine you spilled water on a desk and your friend touches the desk and then touches their face. Now, their face is wet because of the water on the desk they touched. The same thing applies for the virus: if an object has the virus on it because an infected person sneezed on the object, if you touch the object and then your eyes, nose, or mouth, you can become infected also. This is why practicing good hygiene and constantly washing your hands and avoiding touching your face is important to prevent the spread of COVID-19.