[WorksAsIntended]

With all the modern photo technology we have, why is it not possible (yet) to get a photo of the virus ? All we get are hand-drawn images or a fussy red blob with spikes on it that look like WW2 water mine.

I know that there exists ways to take pictures through a microscope with certain attachments but are those viruses so small ? I tried to find out something about the SIZE of that virus and all I can get are world statistics and stuff like that.

Anyways...… just curious.... happens when you are in the 70s and are locked in for over a week

It is not possible with a normal camera setup, because of the wavelength of visible light. A virus is smaller than the vidible wavelength of light, so without many tricks (rather complex stuff going on in sub wave length microscopy) it is not even possible to see it at all, let alone its structure.
So you need a very expensive, setup, need to seperate a single virus, maybe pre treat it (for some electron microscopes necessary).
However, what for? Of course the people who segmented the RNA will have visualized parts of the RNA, but those pictures are really boring.
Those symbolic pictures are much more pleasing for the audience.
A virus is somewhere between 10nm and 200nm, visible light starts at roughly 400nm.

[aslyfox]

some things re hard for me to " visualize "

How to Convert Nanometers to Meters:
How to Convert Nanometers to Meters: Example Problem

Nanometers are a unit most commonly used to measure wavelengths of light. There are one billion nanometers in one meter. The most common wavelength of the red light from a helium-neon laser is 632.8 nanometers.

[sbh]

there are scientific studies going on, based on what I have read, to try to determine whether any immunity is actually gained by surviving the infection and whether there is some way of using such immunity as a vaccine or treatment
...

Hoping for the best.

[WorksAsIntended]

some things re hard for me to " visualize "

What truly should be taught at school is this simple table

pico -12
nano -9
micro -6
milli -3
kilo 3
mega 6
giga 9
peta 12


Btw, most red lasers are not at 632.8nm anymore. Red HeNe lasers are, but laser pointers using laser LEDs are usually closer towards 650nm. These days the diodes are much more common.

[bertwert]

pico -12
nano -9
micro -6
milli -3
kilo 3
mega 6
giga 9
peta 12

You're short a few...

[ramseybuckeye]

Sadly, for some people in the world threats do not become real until they hit close to home. For some ,Corona virus will not be a real threat until they or someone they care about is very ill, possibly on a ventolator or dead. Unfortunately in the meanwhile these people will continue to contribute to its spread.Viruses love unwitting vectors.The photos of beaches in Florida are mind blowing.. its a viral buffet. For a state with a huge retired population its going to get bad fast there.


Its telling how many of the original downplayers of this pandemic in politics, talk and news shows, and blog sphere have switched their tune as time has gone by and what seemed like over blown became something that could harm them as well. Whats truly sad is the damage this did to the initial response to an emerging disease in the USA.

We maybe intelligent beings but sometimes we would be best served by not thinking we are above basic biological principles. Why a pandemic is inconceivable to some people makes no sense to me. Historically they have happened before and they will happen again. That will not change but if people get on the same page with this one we maybe able minimize its impact on human lives.

you are so right. And unfortunately some of the news networks sensationalize everything and from experience people see that as "the boy who cried wolf", tending to think they are overreacting as usual.

Another thing that is concerning to me is that some people with no symptoms are getting tested, that's Ok if they stay away from people, but I don't think they are. I think they get a false sense of safety and possibly let up their guard.

[WorksAsIntended]

You're short a few...

Well, I named the usually relevant ones. Although I have to admit, that there are three on the list I needed to look up. But if you start like this, there should be more. At least Ångström, as it is the heavily used in atom physics.

[aslyfox]

By Carolyn Y. Johnson and
Lena H. Sun

March 21, 2020 at 9:25 a.m. CDT
Health officials in New York, California and other hard-hit parts of the country are restricting coronavirus testing to health care workers and people who are hospitalized, saying the battle to contain the virus is lost and we are moving into a new phase of the pandemic response.

As cases spike sharply in those places, they are hunkering down for an onslaught, and directing scarce resources where they are needed most to save people’s lives. Instead of encouraging broad testing of the public, they’re focused on conserving masks, ventilators, intensive care beds — and on getting still-limited tests to health care workers and the most vulnerable. The shift in tone and strategy — coming after weeks of clamoring for greater testing capacity — signals another tipping point in the U.S. response to the virus, a change other states are likely to embrace as disease counts climb.

Health officials’ message to the public is to stay home and practice social distancing. Some go so far as to warn that widespread testing at this point could threaten the U.S. response by burning through precious supplies just as a tidal wave of sick people descend on the system — a message at odds with administration announcements that millions of test kits are finally becoming available.

Coronavirus tests should go only to health care workers and hospitalized in hard-hit states, say officials - The Washington Post

[photoptimist]

Perspective

185,197 Deaths caused by water related
diseases this year

802,572,830 People with no access to
a safe drinking water source[COLOR="Silver"]

Perspective:

If COVID-19 is not stopped then at its current rate of growth, it will have killed 185,197 in about 17 days from now. Moreover, without measures to halt the spread, it won't stop there.

It will go on to kill another 185,197 in the subsequent 4 days. (Total death toll 370,000 within 3 weeks)

It will go on to kill another 370,000 in the subsequent 4 days. (Total death toll 740,000 within 3.5 weeks)

Without measures to halt the spread, the disease will chew its way through most of the world's urban population and some of the rural population, too.

And here's the kicker, latent infections and developing infections ensure that even if we take all the steps to halt it immediately, the death toll will continue to sky-rocket for at least a week or so as the existing infected people get sick, get sicker, and die. Waiting until confirmation that "it's bad" ensures that it will get a lot worse.

Note: these numbers may actually under-estimate the projected death toll because during the initial phases, the hospitals can cope with case load. When the number of sick people is low, everyone gets the treatment they need and less than 1% die. But if the case load grows, the hospitals can't cope and then 5% to 8% die as has happened in Wuhan, Italy, and Iran.


I'm not minimizing the problem of safe drinking water, it's a sad crisis, too. But it is simply and deeply wrong and dangerous to compare a chronic problem that has zero chance of rapidly spreading (unless COVID-19 knocks the utility grid off-line) to an acute problem that is rapidly accelerating.

So to put it in perspective:

802,572,830 People with no access to a safe drinking water source and about 0.02% die each year.

7,771,392,113 People are susceptible to COVID-19 and about 0.3% to 1.0% will die if the disease is allowed to spread unchecked. If allowed to spread, COVID-19 is 150X-500X worse than unsafe drinking water.

[devouges]

You're short a few...

I like this one..... cool.... easy to remember. Well.... I will find out tomorrow I guess )

[luftfluss]

Somewhere in the world there is a modern-day Aesop, writing a fable...

[photoptimist]

With all the modern photo technology we have, why is it not possible (yet) to get a photo of the virus ? All we get are hand-drawn images or a fussy red blob with spikes on it that look like WW2 water mine.

I know that there exists ways to take pictures through a microscope with certain attachments but are those viruses so small ? I tried to find out something about the SIZE of that virus and all I can get are world statistics and stuff like that.

Anyways...… just curious.... happens when you are in the 70s and are locked in for over a week

As others have said, the virus is only 0.000050 to 0.000200 mm across. It's much smaller than a wavelength of light which makes it all but invisible to optical photography. One would need 200,000X magnification to fill a 35 mm frame with even the largest examples of this virus.

To get those kinds of magnifications, scientists use various kinds of electron microscopes. They use high-energy electron beams (which coincidentally have extremely small effective wavelengths) to image very tiny objects. To get the highest resolution images, the sample must be flash-frozen and chilled to below -269°C (-452 °F) to minimize the thermal damage caused by the ultra-high energy electron beam.

It's tricky stuff!


The best way to think about the virus is that it's a tiny tiny USB flash drive with only 7.5 kB of memory stuffed inside a tiny tiny sphere of velcro. The "hooks" on the velcro match the "fuzz" of ACE-2 (Angiotensin converting enzyme 2) on the surfaces of lung cells (as well as heart, kidney, and other cells). Once the virus-ball sticks to cell, it uploads the data, takes over the cell, and makes the cell pump out about 100 to 1000 more virus particles before the cell dies or is killed by the immune system. Rinse & repeat until the immune system either defeats the virus or the patient dies.

[savoche]

Take care, everybody, and try to find some normalty in these times of uncertainty.

[sbh]

Take care, everybody, and try to find some normalty in these times of uncertainty.

Very good one!

[gaweidert]

Perspective:

If COVID-19 is not stopped then at its current rate of growth, it will have killed 185,197 in about 17 days from now. Moreover, without measures to halt the spread, it won't stop there.

It will go on to kill another 185,197 in the subsequent 4 days. (Total death toll 370,000 within 3 weeks)

It will go on to kill another 370,000 in the subsequent 4 days. (Total death toll 740,000 within 3.5 weeks)

Without measures to halt the spread, the disease will chew its way through most of the world's urban population and some of the rural population, too.

And here's the kicker, latent infections and developing infections ensure that even if we take all the steps to halt it immediately, the death toll will continue to sky-rocket for at least a week or so as the existing infected people get sick, get sicker, and die. Waiting until confirmation that "it's bad" ensures that it will get a lot worse.

Note: these numbers may actually under-estimate the projected death toll because during the initial phases, the hospitals can cope with case load. When the number of sick people is low, everyone gets the treatment they need and less than 1% die. But if the case load grows, the hospitals can't cope and then 5% to 8% die as has happened in Wuhan, Italy, and Iran.


I'm not minimizing the problem of safe drinking water, it's a sad crisis, too. But it is simply and deeply wrong and dangerous to compare a chronic problem that has zero chance of rapidly spreading (unless COVID-19 knocks the utility grid off-line) to an acute problem that is rapidly accelerating.

So to put it in perspective:

802,572,830 People with no access to a safe drinking water source and about 0.02% die each year.

7,771,392,113 People are susceptible to COVID-19 and about 0.3% to 1.0% will die if the disease is allowed to spread unchecked. If allowed to spread, COVID-19 is 150X-500X worse than unsafe drinking water.

Well, somewhere near 40% of the people who get it will never show symptoms of it. This is skewing the data quite a bit. Only people with severe symptoms are being tested. In Italy over 99% of the people who have died had pre-existing medical conditions. In fact they have generated excellent stats related number of pre existing condition to probability of death.


In the US somewhere near 680 people die each day from mistakes made by medical professionals. (Study done last year by Johns Hopkins medical school.) These are admitted mistakes and according to the report, their stats say that the actual number may be 100,000 deaths higher. Yet, I see no alarm over that report.