By Woojin Choi, Winter 2020.
Science-related events rarely remain on the news cycle for more than a day or two. In 2018 a Chinese scientist used the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 system to genetically alter a human embryo’s genome. The world of science responded swiftly, calling it “unethical, too far!” Within a week of the news breaking, the public mostly forgot about the story completely. News cycles come and go, but one thing that seems to stay on the minds of the public is the deadly outbreak of a new disease.
There have been numerous epidemics in our world’s recent history. The Ebola epidemic around 2014; the Zika Virus in 2015. The news of a deadly outbreak scares the world, and rightfully so. It’s been estimated that from October 2019 to January 2020, the seasonal flu alone infected more than 10 million people, resulting in more than 10,000 deaths. [1] At the recent turn of the decade, a new disease was beginning to quickly emerge in one of the most populous cities in Central China – and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
On December 1, 2019, the first known patient infected with the 2019 novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) presented symptoms related to the deadly virus. [2] Since then, there have been more than 80,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across more than 25 countries. [3] It’s been more than three months since the COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan, China, and it has spread like wildfire throughout China and also outside its border. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization classified the outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, emphasizing the urgency of the situation. [4]
From all the news about the widespread effects of COVID-19, one may wonder how such seemingly random outbreaks start in the first place. After all, the flu comes around every season, and the common cold never seems to go away. So why is it that, every once in a while, there are uncontrollable outbreaks, such as SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and now COVID-19? In the case of coronaviruses, a family of viruses named after their structural resemblance to a crown or a sun’s corona, one of the reasons for its potential for outbreak lies in its zoonotic origin. This means that the disease can lay dormant in wild animals as reservoirs until the disease gains the ability to jump from these wild animal hosts to humans through biological changes such as mutations. The important event in zoonosis, which can give rise to an epidemic, is when a virus first successfully replicates in the human body. Once this occurs, the virus is able to adapt to the human system and grow stronger, even spreading to other humans. The uproar of zoonotic diseases are incredibly unpredictable and thus difficult to combat, because in most cases, the human body has not encountered the biological agent before and cannot counteract it, as seen with HIV and the Ebola virus, both of which are zoonotic. [5]
To make matters worse, there have been many negative social and economic consequences due to the disease. The epidemic has stunted China’s economy by crippling its workforce, straining the variety of international economic relationships it shares with those outside of China. [6] As a comparison, the SARS coronavirus epidemic resulted in a $40 billion (USD) hit in the world’s economy back in 2003, and with China’s economy being larger now than ever before, it has been estimated that the economic effect of COVID-19 may be larger than before. [7] The world’s fear of this possible pandemic has been reflected in the shifts of the stock markets. Furthermore, aside from the economic impact, there have been negative social implications that have resulted from COVID-19, such as unfairly blaming the Chinese for the rise of the situation.
More racist prejudices have arisen recently, due to people incorrectly assuming that the virus is somehow “Chinese” or “Asian.” There have even been baseless scientific claims that COVID-19 is some sort of engineered “Chinese bioweapon.” A preprint manuscript (not yet peer-reviewed) published in the science-journal server BioRxiv recently claimed that certain structural parts of the COVID-19 virus were similar to “key structural proteins of HIV-1” – the group further claimed that the similarities were “unlikely to be fortuitous in nature.” [8] In other words, the group suggested that the COVID-19 was a purposefully Chinese-engineered virus with design cues from HIV, rather than the product of a naturally occurring event. This groundless claim instilled more fear in a world that’s already on edge, so a large number of scientists quickly denounced the pre-print’s dangerous claim, with Professor David R. Liu of Harvard University (Chemistry) tweeting that “A fearful world does not need to fuel conspiracy theories with bad analyses.” [9] The group that published the pre-print has since withdrawn its work, apologizing for causing concern and stating it would re-analyze its data. [10] Professor Liu later tweeted a link to a published statement of support from scientists, quoting that deviations from the truth “do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.” [11]
These tweets from Professor Liu made me realize the important role of science within society, especially during these chaotic times. The world is counting on science to work – right now, as soon as possible. The masses of sick people in the hospitals are expecting that science can heal them. Those around the world affected by the economic hit are hoping that science will be able to put an end to this epidemic. The public is relying on science to give them the facts behind this disease, not letting the news catch onto some unsubstantiated theory.
The entire world is counting on science to fight back this disease – and win. After all, “thoughts and prayers” likely won’t put an end to this deadly epidemic; science can and will. The COVID-19 epidemic has highlighted the massive responsibility that science holds within today’s society. People may often take science for granted, but during this epidemic, the world is placing all of its bets into science at this critical moment, and the world may not realize it.
[1] “2019-2020 U.S. Flu Season: Preliminary Burden Estimates.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, February 28, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm.
[2] Huang, Prof. Chaolin, Yeming Wang, Prof. Xingwang Li, Prof. Lili Ren, Prof. Jianping Zhao, and Yi Hu. “Clinical Features of Patients Infected with 2019 Novel Coronavirus in Wuhan, China.” The Lancet 395, no. 10223 (January 24, 2020). https://doi.org/10.3410/f.737258313.793570717.
[3] Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e 9ecf6.
[4] “Statement on the Second Meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee Regarding the Outbreak of Novel Coronavirus (2019-NCoV).” World Health Organization. World Health Organization. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-the-second-meeting-of-the-internati onal-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-(20 19-ncov).
[5] Warren, Cody J., and Sara L. Sawyer. “How Host Genetics Dictates Successful Viral Zoonosis.” PLOS Biology. Public Library of Science. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000217.
[6] Gunia, Amy, and Abhishyant Kidangoor. “How the Wuhan Coronavirus Reveals China’s Impact on the Global Economy.” Time. Time, January 31, 2020. https://time.com/5775027/wuhan-coronavirus-global-economy/.
[7] Daurat, Cecile. “The Coronavirus Is Infecting the Global Economy. Here’s How.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. Accessed February 25, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-31/the-global-economy-is-getting-infected-by-the-virus.
[8] Pradhan, Prashant, Akhilesh Mishra, Parul Gupta, Praveen Kumar Tripathi, Balakrishnan Menon, James Gomes, Perumal Vivekanandan, Bishwajit Kundu, and Ashutosh Kumar Pandey. “Uncanny Similarity of Unique Inserts in the 2019-NCoV Spike Protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag.” bioRxiv. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, January 1, 2020. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.
[9] Liu, David R. (davidrliu). “The mere claim that such short inserts support nCoV origins “unlikely to be fortuitous in nature” [sic] is already highly suspect. This is a classic case of searching for lost keys only under a lamppost. A fearful world does not need to fuel conspiracy theories with bad analyses.” Jan 31, 2020. 6:15 PM. Tweet.
[10] Pradhan, Prashant, Akhilesh Mishra, Parul Gupta, Praveen Kumar Tripathi, Balakrishnan Menon, James Gomes, Perumal Vivekanandan, Bishwajit Kundu, and Ashutosh Kumar Pandey. “Uncanny Similarity of Unique Inserts in the 2019-NCoV Spike Protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag.” bioRxiv. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, January 1, 2020. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1#comment-4779677688.
[11] Liu, David R. (davidrliu). “ “Scientists…overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife… Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.” “ Feb 19, 2020. 11:09 AM. Tweet.