The hunt is on

摘要

LURKING in the air, water, soil and inside every other living creature, viruses have us surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered. For every star in the known universe, there are at least 10 million viruses on Earth. They are so small that more than 100 million can fit on a pinhead. As 2020 has shown, just one of these is enough to bring society to its knees. The covid-19 pandemic offers a grim demonstration of how hard it can be to stop a new infection once it takes hold in the human population.