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A comment on WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency. Parent comment

Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by numpad0 on Thursday January 30, 2020 @09:49PM (#22198543)
Isn’t coronavirus itself a kind of common cold?

I’ve heard that “the common cold” is actually a few completely different infections that isn’t worth strictly classifying for the most, and that coronavirus is one of them. If so, this is “a common cold” except maybe death rates are statistically higher.

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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by lubujackson on Thursday January 30, 2020 @10:02PM (#22198610)
Yes, coronavirus is a broad class of flus. SARS and MERS are both coronaviruses and there seems to be a lot of genetic similarity to SARS.
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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by inferiorhuman on Thursday January 30, 2020 @11:09PM (#22198958)
The flu is the influenza virus, period. The common cold is typically caused by a rhinovirus, but coronaviruses, adenoviruses, and influenza viruses can cause colds too.
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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by trevyn on Thursday January 30, 2020 @11:45PM (#22199142)
But note that “the influenza virus” is a term that includes many genetically distinct mutations.
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Re:WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency by inferiorhuman on Thursday January 30, 2020 @11:58PM (#22199200)
Sure, and there are around 160 known types of rhinovirus, 50 adenovirus types, and now 7 known forms of human corona viruses. Flu refers to a specific family of RNA viruses, common cold is a much more broad term.
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