Inside STAT: How much of the coronavirus does it take to make you sick?

(ALEX HOGAN/STAT)

Researchers still don't know much of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, it takes to make someone sick. One measure that infectious disease specialists are looking at is called infectious dose — the lower the infectious dose, the easier the virus' ability to infect people. With SARS-CoV-2, researchers suspect that its infectious dose is fairly low, given how quickly it has spread across the globe. Another measure is viral load, or the amount of virus particles in a person once they have become infected with the pathogen. At least one study has shown that Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms have also had higher viral loads of SARS-CoV-2. STAT's Alex Hogan has more in a multimedia explainer here.