Breathless
David Quammen
Simon & Schuster, $29.99
It was disruptive and deadly when COVID-19 emerged on the global scene in 2020. Researchers discovered the reason for the outbreak in January. It was a coronavirus, which is a cousin to the virus that caused the 2003 SARS epidemic. Echoes of what had happened nearly 20 years earlier — thousands were infected and at least 774 people died before the SARS outbreak was brought under control — sent ripples of anxiety throughout the virology world.
SARS-CoV-2, the new epidemic, was rapidly understood by scientists of all backgrounds. Hospitals all over the globe were quickly overwhelmed and everyday life was disrupted for billions. We now know the words isolation, Quarantine and N95 masks. BreathlessDavid Quammen, science writer, guides readers on a two-year scientific rollercoaster.
The book is a portrait of the virus — SARS-CoV-2’s early days in China, how decades of science helped researchers craft effective vaccines within a year, the arrival of highly mutated variants. It’s not about the societal upheaval or the public health failures (and successes). While Quammen acknowledges the importance of those aspects of the pandemic, he chooses to focus on the “firehose” of scientific studies — both good and bad — that drove our understanding of COVID-19.
He dives deep into one of the pandemic’s most controversial questions: Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from? The lab or nature? Quammen explains the story in great detail. First there were worries that some of the virus’s features appeared engineered. These concerns were quickly dispelled by researchers who discovered the features in viruses from wild pangolins and bats. There was also the possibility that people working in laboratories studying bat viruses might have been accidentally infected, and could have unknowingly spread it to others.
Quammen explains how genetic and epidemiological data can be used to support the hypothesis of an accidental laboratory leakage. That includes recent evidence supporting the scenario that the virus emerged — Perhaps in two jumps — from an Unknown animal at the Huanan Wholesale Market for Seafood in Wuhan, China. He speaks with experts on virus ecology and evolution to share the details of how virologists research, as well the controversy of gain-offunction studies that examine what happens when viruses acquire new traits. Quammen’s conclusion: An accidental lab leak is not impossible. “But it seems unlikely.”
Quammen uses lessons from previous encounters with coronaviruses such as the SARS epidemic and the AIDS pandemic to understand the current situation. 2012 MERS outbreakThe Middle East (SN: 12/28/13, p. 23). Part of His 2012 book SpilloverThe focus was on the SARS outbreak’s bat origin (SN: 10/20/12, p. 30). It is unnervingly prophetic. Quammen wrote that the original SARS coronavirus was most contagious just before symptoms started. SpilloverOfficials would have struggled to stop the spread of the disease. “It would be a much darker story,” he wrote. But that’s exactly what happened with SARS-CoV-2. It is possible to pass the virus on to others without being aware of it. This trait helped COVID-19 spiral out-of-control.
I am a science journalist who has been following SARS CoV-2 since its discovery. BreathlessIt was quite cathartic. My memories from the past few years have become blurred. BreathlessThe pandemic’s scientific story is told in a sweeping scientific narrative that connects puzzle pieces that seemed so strange at the time.
Some readers may feel it’s too soon to scrutinize a pandemic that isn’t even over. But SARS-CoV-2 certainly won’t be the last harmful virus to emerge. Quammen compares the pandemic to the previous coronavirus outbreaks to illustrate how science is constantly improving. One thing is certain, there will be another. “There are many more fearsome viruses where SARS-CoV-2 came from,” he writes, “wherever that was.”
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