How does the COVID-19 pandemic compare to other infamous viral infections that have plagued us in modern times? It’s a question that’s been asked repeatedly in social media circles in recent weeks as people struggle to gain a better understanding of what we are facing.
Recently, I received an answer that was terrifying.
The subject was raised during a March 18 webinar featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He is the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who was described recently by the Washington Post as the “grandfatherly captain of the coronavirus crisis”.
Dr. Fauci was asked by the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association to put the virus in historical context. His response:
In my 40 years at the NIH, I’ve never seen anything like this. It is totally unique. We’ve been through emerging infectious diseases and in some cases crises, like we had with the anthrax scare back in 2001, Ebola virus, the early years of HIV, the scares of influenza pandemics. But nothing of this magnitude.
HIV evolved slowly, even though it turned out to be a terrible affront to human civilization, with a lot of suffering and death. Many other threats didn’t materialize here. Although there was a lot of concern about Ebola, there was never the serious concern of a widespread outbreak in the US, although there have been several devastating epidemics in African countries.
The comparison inspired me to look back at the US experience with HIV, anthrax, and Ebola hemorrhagic fever. (Influenza is covered here.)
HIV: A slower trajectory, harder to contract
I remember the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS pandemic well. I followed it through the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a small, square newsletter from the CDC that sparked many of my ideas as a fledgling science writer.
The first entry in the June 5, 1981, MMWR was unusual.
“5 gay men with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in LA, reported from October 1980-May 1981.”
Nearly a year later, on May 11, 1982, as cases had quietly mounted, “New Homosexual Disorder Worries Health Officials“ ran in The New York Times. The article referred to “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency,” or GRID, a term circulating at the time.
Image Credit: Xiao Yijiu/Associated Press
News This Week
New Book! NanoMedical Brain/Cloud Interface – Explorations and Implications
New book from Frank Boehm, NanoappsMedical Inc Founder: This book explores the future hypothetical possibility that the cerebral cortex of the human brain might be seamlessly, safely, and securely connected with the Cloud via [...]
Miller School Researchers Pioneer Nanovanilloid-Based Brain Cooling for Traumatic Injury
A multidisciplinary team at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has developed a breakthrough nanodrug platform that may prove beneficial for rapid, targeted therapeutic hypothermia after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Their work, published in ACS [...]
COVID-19 still claims more than 100,000 US lives each year
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers report national estimates of 43.6 million COVID-19-associated illnesses and 101,300 deaths in the US during October 2022 to September 2023, plus 33.0 million illnesses and 100,800 deaths [...]
Nanomedicine in 2026: Experts Predict the Year Ahead
Progress in nanomedicine is almost as fast as the science is small. Over the last year, we've seen an abundance of headlines covering medical R&D at the nanoscale: polymer-coated nanoparticles targeting ovarian cancer, Albumin recruiting nanoparticles for [...]
Lipid nanoparticles could unlock access for millions of autoimmune patients
Capstan Therapeutics scientists demonstrate that lipid nanoparticles can engineer CAR T cells within the body without laboratory cell manufacturing and ex vivo expansion. The method using targeted lipid nanoparticles (tLNPs) is designed to deliver [...]
The Brain’s Strange Way of Computing Could Explain Consciousness
Consciousness may emerge not from code, but from the way living brains physically compute. Discussions about consciousness often stall between two deeply rooted viewpoints. One is computational functionalism, which holds that cognition can be [...]
First breathing ‘lung-on-chip’ developed using genetically identical cells
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and AlveoliX have developed the first human lung-on-chip model using stem cells taken from only one person. These chips simulate breathing motions and lung disease in an individual, [...]
Cell Membranes May Act Like Tiny Power Generators
Living cells may generate electricity through the natural motion of their membranes. These fast electrical signals could play a role in how cells communicate and sense their surroundings. Scientists have proposed a new theoretical [...]
This Viral RNA Structure Could Lead to a Universal Antiviral Drug
Researchers identify a shared RNA-protein interaction that could lead to broad-spectrum antiviral treatments for enteroviruses. A new study from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), published in Nature Communications, explains how enteroviruses begin reproducing [...]
New study suggests a way to rejuvenate the immune system
Stimulating the liver to produce some of the signals of the thymus can reverse age-related declines in T-cell populations and enhance response to vaccination. As people age, their immune system function declines. T cell [...]
Nerve Damage Can Disrupt Immunity Across the Entire Body
A single nerve injury can quietly reshape the immune system across the entire body. Preclinical research from McGill University suggests that nerve injuries may lead to long-lasting changes in the immune system, and these [...]
Fake Science Is Growing Faster Than Legitimate Research, New Study Warns
New research reveals organized networks linking paper mills, intermediaries, and compromised academic journals Organized scientific fraud is becoming increasingly common, ranging from fabricated research to the buying and selling of authorship and citations, according [...]
Scientists Unlock a New Way to Hear the Brain’s Hidden Language
Scientists can finally hear the brain’s quietest messages—unlocking the hidden code behind how neurons think, decide, and remember. Scientists have created a new protein that can capture the incoming chemical signals received by brain [...]
Does being infected or vaccinated first influence COVID-19 immunity?
A new study analyzing the immune response to COVID-19 in a Catalan cohort of health workers sheds light on an important question: does it matter whether a person was first infected or first vaccinated? [...]
We May Never Know if AI Is Conscious, Says Cambridge Philosopher
As claims about conscious AI grow louder, a Cambridge philosopher argues that we lack the evidence to know whether machines can truly be conscious, let alone morally significant. A philosopher at the University of [...]
AI Helped Scientists Stop a Virus With One Tiny Change
Using AI, researchers identified one tiny molecular interaction that viruses need to infect cells. Disrupting it stopped the virus before infection could begin. Washington State University scientists have uncovered a method to interfere with a key [...]
