I am SARS-CoV-2

I am a virus – my name is SARS-CoV-2. I cause the disease you call COVID-19. I exist yet I am not alive. I am many times smaller than you can see. I want to replicate, and I need your help. If I can inhabit your body, you can be my host. Then, if I can infect you, I can multiply. I can get inside of you in two ways. You can breathe me right into your lungs – that’s an easy way. I float through your lungs’ passages on your warm moist breath and I land and attach myself to the lining or to the tiny air sacs. I invade a cell.

Or I can get in the more difficult way. I land on a surface and I wait. I can exist for hours or a few days. If you touch me and then you touch your moist facial openings (your mouth, eyes, or nose) I can get inside of you that way. It should be hard, but you make it so easy. You love to touch all sorts of surfaces. And then you love to touch your face. You don’t even realize that you’re doing this. You call it a habit; I call it entry. 

And your body tries to get rid of me. You cough and expel me from your lungs – thank you. Now I can infect another host. You sneeze, you rub your eyes, and you touch other hosts or surfaces. Thank you again, I can now infect them. Your body warms and gets hot to try to kill me. I can survive your body’s temperature.

It gets worse for you. You get sicker. Your breathing suffers. You expel more and more of me. I like this so I can infect those around you, especially in a hospital. There are many hosts there who are weak. It is easy to infect them. And some of you die; this doesn’t help me. If you all die, then I don’t have hosts. So, I try to infect more but not kill you all; then I can multiply all over again and again and again. 

Thank you for being such welcoming hosts. With your help I will stay as long as I can. I am SARS-CoV-2.