A digitally colored
electron microscope image
of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Bridging Corona
As the dust from the stampede (swe: panikrusning i flock, speciellt större klumpiga djur) of bewildered politicians and overconfident billionaires settles, we begin to discern (swe: skönja) the new world shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A few weeks ago the Coronaviridae Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses concluded that the COVID-19 virus is so similar to the SARS-CoV virus, responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2002‒2003, that they decided to name it SARS-CoV-2 — just adding a version number. The SARS outbreak infected 8 096 and killed 774 patients, a fatality rate close to 10 %.
PHI’s strong financial position together with government initiatives are projected to bridge the financial effects of the coronavirus well into 2021 with the current organization, if not all the way through 2021.
Fortunately, SARS-CoV-2 seems to be significantly less deadly than its predecessor (swe: föregångare), with a fatality rate of “only” a few percent. However, the terrifying prospect of a global pandemic rapidly killing up to several hundred million people and the unprecedented (swe: exempellösa) economic havoc (swe: haveri) this would result in certainly justifies the extreme precautions that have been implemented across the world.
To bridge the corona pandemic and to harness (swe: förvalta) the opportunities created by it, we at PHI are closely following the announcements made by the Swedish government. Thankfully, PHI’s strong financial position together with government initiatives are projected to bridge the financial effects of the coronavirus well into 2021 with the current organization, if not all the way through 2021.
We will know more closely, as the dust continues to settle to reveal the full range of government initiatives available to us and all other companies affected by the corona pandemic, or more precisely: the pandemic of the disease COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Peter Egelberg
CEO and founder
References
- PHI Interim Report 3 (2019-05-01 – 2020-01-31)
- The species Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus: classifying 2019-nCoV and naming it SARS-CoV-2, Nature Microbiology (2020)
- Q & A on COVID-19, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (2020)
- Summary of probable SARS cases with onset of illness from 1 November 2002 to 31 July 2003, WHO (2003)
- Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus MERS-CoV, WHO (2019)
- Images: flickr.com/photos/nihgov and phil.cdc.gov
