Comment: That's because it IS 'the flu', you morons!
(At least, it's one of the many viruses - which includes Influenza Type A and Influenza Type B - that goes into making up the millions of people who every year come down with what can only be broadly labelled 'influenza-like illnesses'.)
Normal
Their research, published in Nature Medicine journal on Tuesday, shows people are recovering from the new virus like they would from the flu.
Determining which immune cells are appearing should also help with vaccine development, experts say.
Comment: Vaccines against the flu don't work. Never have done, and probably never will.
Globally, authorities have confirmed more than 160,000 cases of the coronavirus and about 6,500 deaths.
"This [discovery] is important because it is the first time where we are really understanding how our immune system fights novel coronavirus," said study co-author Prof Katherine Kedzierska.
Comment: Yeah, except that anyone with any common sense left already knew that.
The research by Melbourne's Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity has been praised by other experts, with one calling it "a breakthrough".
What has been found?
Many people have recovered from Covid-19, meaning it was already known that the immune system can successfully fight the virus.
Comment: Which means that, for those people, this coronavirus is no longer 'novel'. Which is what happens every winter. 'Old' viruses mutate, the body sees them as 'novel', then it fights it, usually wins, and now the body is immune.
But for the first time, the research identified four types of immune cells which presented to fight Covid-19.
They were observed by tracking a patient who had a mild-to-moderate case of the virus and no previous health issues.
The 47-year-old woman from Wuhan, China, had presented to hospital in Australia. She recovered within 14 days.
Prof Kedzierska told the BBC her team had examined the "whole breadth of the immune response" in this patient.
Three days before the woman began to improve, specific cells were spotted in her bloodstream. In influenza patients, these same cells also appear around this time before recovery, Prof Kedzierska said.
"We were very excited about our results - and the fact that we could actually capture the emergence of immune cells in the infected patient prior to clinical improvement," she told the BBC.
Comment: It's what happens in hundreds of millions of people every winter!
More than a dozen scientists worked around the clock for four weeks to deliver the analysis, she added.
How does this help?
Identifying when the immune cells kick in can help "predict the course of the virus", said Prof Bruce Thompson, dean of health sciences at Swinburne University of Technology.
"When you know when the various responses take place you can predict where you are in the recovery of the virus," Prof Thompson told the BBC.
Australia's Health Minister Greg Hunt said the finding could also help "fast-track" a vaccine and potential treatments for infected patients.
Comment: But why would it if the body is doing that by itself?
Who are these people who discover the wonders of nature for the first time then IMMEDIATELY assume they can improve on it??
We really need to get THEM contained, isolated and under study, before they break civilization and kill us all.
Prof Kedzierska said the next step for scientists was to determine why the immune response was weaker in worse cases.
"It is really key now to understand what is lacking or different in patients who have died or who have really severe disease - so we can understand how to protect them," she said.
Comment: You cannot 'protect them' all because a number of them are MEANT to move on from this life.
In January, the institute became the first in the world to recreate the virus outside of China.
The centre has since received additional funding from the Australian government as well as donations from businesses and Chinese billionaire Jack Ma.
And its Wuhan flu.