The Moving and Mutating Coronavirus in Mink - Welcome to Gabriella's site

By Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi, RN, MN

In our environment everything moves and changes continuously. Even things that we wish it wouldn’t like viruses and bacteria. Trees and plants grow and die, the water and air elements around us move constantly. We live in harmony with most of the things around us including viruses and bacteria. We have millions of them in our bodies. We need them to be able to function properly. When our bacteria are out of balance in our bodies, we get sick. There is some ignorance to think that the coronavirus will stop mutating just because we want it to stop. There are thousands of different strains of coronavirus exists. They been around for a very long time. Now that it made the jump between animals and humans again it will be harder to stop the strains that harm us. After all it just wants to survive.

Viruses, Bacteria and Fungi been around for a long time. Their “goal” or programing is to replicate and survive. They do not have a brain or can not control their actions. Yet, they seem to be smarter than us. They find their way into our lives. The question is: can we be smarter than them? I was talking to my mom yesterday and she alerted me to a new COVID – 19 mutation in Mink in Europe. I know it was just a matter of time before it happened. Mink apparently – as it is reported by the BBC and WHO – is susceptible to coronaviruses. It has been known by governments in Europe that there was a mutation in the “cluster 5“in COVID -19 and the relevant information was just released a few days ago. The worry is that this could compromise the vaccines that are being developed now. The WHO released a report 6 days ago about the variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 that was identified in Denmark in September and reported in the beginning of this month. In the 12 cases that have been identified in humans in Denmark there is a combination of mutations that are concerning (WHO, 2020).

As of this moment we had 52,612,545 coronavirus infections and 1,292,258 deaths around the world (Worldometer, 2020). The infection rates are spiking. Questions in my mind are: What have we learned in the past year about the coronavirus? What have we done to prevent it harming us? Have our measures been effective? What have learned from the way we live? Currently there is a lot of efforts and billions of dollars spent on vaccines against the coronavirus strain that we now know as COVID -19. Vaccines are not perfect, and they do not always work. Also, there are many people who are not ready to take the vaccine if when it will become available. We are also having to do our part as humanity to outsmart the viruses and bacteria that wants to harm us. We can develop as many vaccines as we want against the coronavirus that might or might nor work just like the yearly available flu vaccines. We have to change our thinking and the way of our current living, the way we treat our environment including plants and animals if we would like to survive. The question is are we as humans willing to make those sacrifices?

Everything is interconnected around us. The way we live, the way we treat our environment backfires on humanity. What is it that we can do? The Dalai Lama offered a warning yesterday to all of us on NPR to save our environment and one thing we can do to help is stop eating animals (NPR, 2020). Maybe if we can treat animals and our environment better viruses would stay where they belong. In the wild.

What are you willing to do for humanity?

11/12/2020

References:

Helen Briggs BBC News Retrieved on 11/12/2020 from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54867653

WHO (2020) Retrieved on 11/12/2020 from https://www.who.int/csr/don/06-november-2020-mink-associated-sars-cov2-denmark/en/

Worldometer (2020) Retrieved on 11/12/2020 06:42 from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

NPR (2020) https://knpr.org/npr/2020-11/dalai-lama-offers-warning-climate-change