If there were a pageant for viruses this year, the undoubted winner would be the debutant COVID-19 virus which has captured global attention like no other. Emerging in Wuhan in China, it has swept across countries and continents with speed and stealth, to bring global travel, trade and economy to a shuddering slowdown.
Deriving its name from its resemblance to a crown, the coronavirus family includes both the inconvenient but innocuous common-cold virus as well as the sinister SARS virus. The COVID-19 virus, the most recently known member, has revealed itself to be more threatening than its cold-causing cousin, but far less menacing than its killer kinsman SARS. However, it is the ease and speed with which this highly infectious virus spreads that has led to more deaths than from SARS, within a mere two months of its emergence.
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