# COVID19 - what is different and what is not yet understood compared to typical flue viruses ?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/covid19-what-is-different-and-what-is-not-yet-understood-compared-to-typical-flue-viruses/849504>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [March 14, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/covid19-what-is-different-and-what-is-not-yet-understood-compared-to-typical-flue-viruses/849504 "2020-03-14T21:54:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/covid19-what-is-different-and-what-is-not-yet-understood-compared-to-typical-flue-viruses/849504/1 "2020-03-14T21:54:40Z")

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Let’s pick a typical flu virus (pick any from the quad vaccine last year or if you like to be really specific let’s pick the strain _A/Brisbane/02/2018 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus (updated)_)

**So compared to the above strain :**

Q1. What are the things different about this virus in terms of its lifecycle, mutation, survival outside the body, residual effects, etc ?

Q2. What are the things that we don’t currently understand and research is going on to get a better picture ?

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2020, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/covid19-what-is-different-and-what-is-not-yet-understood-compared-to-typical-flue-viruses/849504/2 "2020-03-14T22:40:09Z")

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For starters, coronavirus isn’t a flu virus. The symptoms are similar, but they’re basically unrelated.