Contagion

The Science of Pandemics

Rick Edwards

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838952396
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

From the bestselling authors behind Science(ish) and Hollywood Wants to Kill You...

A fascinating free ebook about the science of viruses - all told through the Hollywood blockbuster Contagion.

Viruses can spread faster than fear - but where do they come from? What makes them so powerful? And how do we stop them spreading like wildfire?

With wit and intelligence, Rick Edwards and Dr Michael Brooks explore the science of pandemics, from the Black Death to the Coronavirus. Packed with illustrations and fascinating facts, Contagion is a captivating handbook to the real science behind the greatest public health emergency of recent times.

1

Hollywood Wants to Kill You… WITH A VIRUS!

‘DON’T TALK TO ANYONE! DON’T TOUCH ANYONE!’

– Contagion (2011)

In Contagion, a flu-like virus arises in Hong Kong. A visiting American businesswoman becomes infected just before she heads home, and brings the virus with her – to devastating effect. Before long, she and her son are dead, and the authorities responsible for disease control soon realize they are facing a lethal pandemic.

Of the myriad ways in which Hollywood has imagined us dying en masse, the idea of a global pandemic is perhaps the most terrifying. That’s because it is one of the most realistic. Global health experts have hailed Contagion’s plot as a highly plausible scenario if we’re unlucky enough to come up against the wrong virus. Pay attention: this film could save your life.

How Do Viruses Work?

Contagion’s tagline is ‘nothing spreads like fear’, but that’s not really true. Viruses, arguably, spread faster. In the face of a pandemic, making people afraid enough to avoid all risk of catching the disease is half the battle. Unfortunately, viruses have evolved to win the battle. That’s why they spread faster than fear.

Viruses are extraordinary things. We say ‘things’ because we don’t know what they are, exactly. Biologists don’t agree on whether they are alive – viruses sit right on the line between chemistry and biology, and they sit in a very menacing pose.

Perhaps the best way to think about viruses is as computer programs written in DNA, the molecule used to replicate biological machines (sometimes it’s a related chemical, RNA). The program goes something like this:

1 Roam around until you find a molecular machine capable of replicating your DNA/RNA strand.

2 Take over that machine.

3 Replicate your DNA/RNA and create protein shields to protect it.

4 Assemble everything into a new virus particle.

5 Get out of there.

6 Go to point 1.

Viruses aren’t evil, as such. They don’t mean to do you harm. It’s just that executing the steps of this program inevitably causes you harm because the molecular machine they are looking for exists inside your cells. It’s the act of breaking into the cell, taking over the machine and getting out again that leaves a trail of devastation in its wake. We’re not saying they’re sorry about it, but it’s also nothing personal: viruses are actually indifferent to you. You’re not tasty (see Chapter 3) or a threat (see Chapter 4); you’re just useful and expendable.

It’s probably worth noting early on that we could also be talking about bacteria when we talk about Contagion. After all, they are deadly too. The Black Death that swept through Europe in the Middle Ages was the work of bacteria, not viruses, and it was as devastating as any viral outbreak has ever been. But at least we have some defences against bacterial infection these days.

Those defences are known as antibiotics. While it’s true that some of our antibiotics are useless against some of these organisms (and some of these organisms are resistant to all of our antibiotics, which is dreadful in its own special way), we have NO technological weapons that kill viruses. None. We have some antivirals which can inhibit their spread, and our immune system can fight them to an extent, but there is no silver bullet against a viral infection. That’s why, when you have a cold, your doctor tells you to just rest and please stop asking for antibiotics. It’s the best hope you have of deploying your body’s natural defences to maximum effect.

Ironically, viruses do have defence mechanisms that work against us. The main one is stealth. That DNA they are ruthlessly working to replicate is contained within a protein ‘capsid’ shell that your immune system doesn’t actually recognize as a foreign body. The first your body knows about its presence is when a lollipop-shaped crowbar on the capsid shell pries open a cell wall.

Take the influenza virus. You might have heard scientists talking about H1N1 or H5N2: the ‘H’ is the lollipop-shaped crowbar. The molecule is called haemo-agglutinin, and it can take lots of different forms, each of which is designated with a number. The 1918 ‘Spanish’ flu, for instance, was H1. In 1968, we saw H3 create a flu epidemic in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Authors
• Title
• Copyright
• Introduction
• 1 Hollywood Wants to Kill You… With a Virus!