The new coronavirus is a killer with a crowbar, breaking and entering human cells with impunity. It hitchhikes across continents carried on coughs and careless hands, driven by its own urgent necessity to survive. The persistent social climber claims its victims around the world by riding on moments of the most innocent of human interactions—a shared laugh, a conversation, an embrace. Taken on its own terms, SARS-CoV-2 is the infectious disease success of the past 100 years. Doctors long expected the advent of such a virus, but even so, the shrewdness of the coronavirus caught many by surprise, and goes a long way to explaining how the world has struggled to contain it ever since.

Source: Wall Street Journal September 07, 2020 17:15 UTC