The current “Covid-19” pandemic is more appropriately a SARS pandemic, and specifically the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This is a virus that is very similar to the earlier SARS pandemic around 2004. Interestingly, when I gave my TED talk on epidemics and pandemics in 2017 the first pandemic that I mentioned was SARS. That virus was one that jumped from bats to humans and was spread rapidly from China to Germany and Great Britain by a businessman who flew to Berlin, then on to London. It spread rapidly by air travel until it was a global disease. The difference in 2004 was that the virus was quickly controlled by quarantining areas that the virus appeared and using face masks to prevent the spread of the airborne virus.
The 2019 novel corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) was a totally different scenario. The virus had spread from bats to pangolins and then on to humans. How exactly this all happened is still somewhat of a mystery. The major problem with this pandemic was that it was not controlled in the early stages, allowing it to spread rapidly. And, unlike the first SARS pandemic this was much more deadly.
Since I had spent so much time researching epidemics and pandemics, which lead to my TED talk, I was immediately drawn to following the progression of this viral pandemic. In the last year and a half I have read many hundreds of scientific articles on numerous aspects of this virus. Every month I scour through Emerging Infectious Diseases, the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Science and other journals trying to understand all of the nuances of this virus.
Currently, the delta-variant has become the dominant form of the virus in the United States. This variant is more easily transmitted in humans, and is contributing in the rise of new cases in the USA and a rapid increase in the number of deaths. Until a greater n umber of citizens are vaccinated we will all be wearing masks and avoiding close spaces for at least the rest of 2021 and perhaps into 2022.
Get vaccinated, wear your masks and treat each other with respect.
Michael's Place 