"The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic"--
Scientists have warned for decades that the next big pandemic would be caused by a changeable new virus - very possibly a coronavirus - but such warnings were ignored for political or economic reasons. This book takes readers inside the frantic international effort to understand and control SARS-CoV-2 (aka COVID-19), peering over the shoulders of the scientists who led the chase and found the way to fight the virus. The author shows how new viruses emerge from animals into humans as we disrupt wild ecosystems, and how these viruses adapt to the human hosts - sometimes causing global catastrophe. -- Adapted from jacket.