Why does COVID make people so sick, so quickly? Israeli geneticist has an answer - The Times of Israel

COVID-19 is so dangerous because the virus uses a three-pronged attack mechanism to stop cells from quickly triggering the immune system, Israeli scientists have concluded.

They offer a portrait of how exactly the SARS-CoV-2 virus behaves once inside human cells — they say it’s the most detailed to date — in an article published on Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

After hundreds of hours in their labs monitoring the virus interacting with cells, they have concluded that the virus mounts a hostile takeover on the cell’s protein-making machinery, and stops it from making proteins needed to galvanize the immune system.

By the time cells overcome the subduing effect of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on their messaging ability, the virus has greatly multiplied.

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