Many of us are shut-in for 3+ weeks already. By this time, your personal "Coronavirus status" should have emerged.
The "Coronavirus status"
(1) Uninfected and never infected.
(2) Infected, asymptomatic
(3) Infected, showing symptoms/feeling sick, but mild and manageable
(4) Infected, with severe symptoms/hospitalized
(5) Infected, and died
(6) Infected, but recovered.
(1) Uninfected and never infected.
Try to keep it up. This "stay at home" order is doing great favor for you. Believe it.
(2)-(5)
Infected people. Now you are playing Russian Roulette.
The outcome may be influenced by some factors that include;
Your age, general health, specific health conditions (diabetes, heart disease, asthma, COPD, etc), habits (smoking), environmental factors (exposure to pollution, high exposure to the virus, etc), genetics, other conditions (sleep, rest, diet, stress, etc) ...many of which you have little control over, but for some you do.
Then, you'll be assigned to one of (2) to (5).
If you are (2) "Infected, asymptomatic", you may not even know you are "positive", but you can spread this highly contagious virus to others. Don't.
Stay at home and isolate yourself.
If you are (3) "Infected, showing symptoms/feeling sick, but mild and manageable", you may be worried if this turns worse and kill you or you infect others.
Stay at home and isolate self. Take good care of yourself and try to get well.
If you are (4) "Infected, with severe symptoms/hospitalized", you can not do much here, other than try to hold out.
Doctors and nurses will try their best to help, maybe with experimental drug or new treatment protocol. You fight for your life.
For (5), I am sorry.
People assigned to (2)-(4) will eventually move to (6), in about 2 -3 weeks for mild cases, and in 3-6+ weeks for severe cases.
For (6) "Infected and recovered" people, there are 3 possible courses. At this moment, we do not know, because this virus is new and there are some uncertainties.
(6)-1: If the "recovery" from COVID19 gives you lasting immunity, you are in the clear. You can resume your life.
(6)-2: If the "recovery" from COVID19 does not give you lasting immunity, perhaps due to weak immunogenicity of the virus or the virus' highly mutational nature, you may catch COVID19 again. It is like dealing with common cold. Go back to the beginning. You may (or may not) have a better starting point with your partial immunity.
(6)-3: If the "recovery" from COVID19 is not exactly "recovery" but only a temporal suppression, you can be "positive" again. Like Chickenpox virus keeps living in you and causing Shingles later, or HSV1 causing cold sore, you may be a silent carrier. Clearly more research is needed. [go back to (2)]
Some people in South Korea are reported to have turned back "positive" after their "recovery". They may either got re-infected [(6)-2], or the virus reemerged [(6)-3]. Either way, it is quite concerning. But don't concern yourself too much, if you are not the few who are actively involved in drug research and development.
Tests to detect active virus in your body (PCR, Abbott lab's rapid test) or to detect antibody in your blood (called serologic test, which will tell your immunity status and suggest your infection history) should be more widely available in some time. Soon we will have better understanding on this viral disease and on how to deal with it.
Our institute is pretty much shut down. Leaving animal maintenance to designated "essential" lab people, I have been "teleworking" from home since 3/23, with weekly Zoom lab meeting.
In this condition, what I can do is (a) write research manuscript from existing data, (b) write review manuscript from literature research, (c) outline and write grant from existing preliminary data, (d) do literature research and expand research horizon (like reading papers on virus studies), (e) expand research with collaboration, and /or (f) learn something new (new subject, technology, methods, etc). Plenty enough.
With (a), we sent out a research manuscript to a journal last week, and I am working on the next research manuscript that had been suspended for a while. But if the reviewers request revision and if some new experiment is needed, we'll get stuck, as no lab work is permitted now. Oh well, we'll see.
