My series of posts on infectious diseases has, of course, been inspired by Covid-19, the coronavirus currently spreading to every corner of the world. What is a coronavirus, though, and what path will Covid-19 take? Will we tame it with a vaccine, will it mysteriously disappear, or is it here to stay for a while? We know Covid-19 is a novel virus, a pathogen never previously identified in humans. When Covid-19 began to spread around the world, no one was immune to it.
Coronaviruses represent a large family of viruses, including the common cold and other mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses. Over the past few years, three serious coronaviruses, causing severe illness and death, have emerged. In addition to Covid-19, these are Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). SARS appeared in 2002 and disappeared by 2004. MERS was transmitted by camels and first identified in humans in September 2012. MERS continues to cause localized outbreaks.
Covid-19 emerged from China in December 2019 and quickly spread throughout the world. Like the viruses that produce SARS and MERS, Covid-19 can cause serious illness and death, but its extreme virulence makes Covid-19 even more dangerous than its viral cousins. Covid-19 spreads easily between people who are in close contact when one person inhales small, infected droplets produced by the infected person. The droplets can be spread by talking, yelling, coughing, sneezing, or singing. Scientists still aren’t certain how long small aerosol droplets containing Covid-19 remain suspended in air or how far they can travel. Covid-19 can also spread when infected droplets fall onto a surface, and a person then touches the contaminated surface and subsequently spreads the infection to their eyes, nose, or mouth.
No vaccine for Covid-19 currently exists, but we all remain hopeful that scientists will soon develop one. Until then, we can only protect ourselves by following basic public health protocols. These might not seem like cutting-edge science, but they have been the best weapons used to fight infectious diseases through the centuries. By now, we all know them well: Wash your hands, maintain a physical distance from others, and wear a mask to cover your nose and mouth.
Infectious disease experts wait and watch this virus. We would like these experts to tell us what will happen next, but how can they possibly know? The Spanish flu virus mutated partway through its run and became much more deadly in the fall of 1918. Could this happen with Covid-19? Most experts believe it will again peak in the fall, but it shows no sign of slowing now as summer progresses and draws to a close.
We cannot yet write the story about Covid-19. How many people will get sick, and how many will die? How did it start spreading, and could national leaders have stopped it if they ignored politics and acted sooner? Most importantly, how can we better prepare for the next pandemic when it occurs? Will we take a moment and remember to turn around and study the past, or are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes with each pandemic we encounter?
I decided to write one more post about pandemics, and then I promise to move back to covering Kodiak wildlife and life in the wilderness. In my next post, I’ll discuss how plagues have changed history. While researching pandemics, I was fascinated to learn the many ways, both good and bad, that pandemics have shaped our history, and I began to wonder what lasting impacts Covid-19 will leave on the world.
Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
