How Contagion Works by Paolo Giordano

Author:Paolo Giordano
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635576856
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Flying

We are not marbles. We are human beings, filled with dreams and neuroses. We are, most of all, filled with commitments. We travel more frequently and farther afield than any past generation, and we exchange words and goods with such a large number of people that it would leave our ancestors baffled.

If we’re harboring a nasty cold, the virus moves with us, inside us, and is scattered a little here, a little there, in Milan, in London, at the supermarket where we shop every few days, at our parents’ place where we had lunch last Sunday. The contagion is impartial, especially if it happens through coughs and sneezes, and is even more effective if the majority of the Infected remain asymptomatic. Just like bees carry pollen around, so we carry our anxieties and our pathogens.

In 2002, SARS-CoV made its debut in a market in Guangdong, a province in the south of China. A doctor was infected while in the hospital and carried the virus to a Hong Kong hotel. Two women contracted the virus in the hotel and traveled to Toronto and Singapore, where other clusters appeared. Following other routes, the contagion touched Europe too, with limited consequences at the time.

Flight traffic has changed the fate of viruses, allowing them to colonize even more land even farther away. But it’s not only thanks to flights. There are trains and buses, cars and these new electric scooters. The simultaneous movement of 7.5 billion people: that is the coronavirus transport system. Fast, comfortable, efficient – just the way we like it.

In times of contagion, our efficiency is also our downfall.

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