The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

We were stepping, it seemed, quite confidently from basic immunology to applied immunology. And then, biblically, we tumbled. On January 19, 2020, a thirtysomething man, just off a flight from Wuhan, China, walked into a clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a cough. To read that first case report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March that year, is to experience an ascending chill: “On checking into the clinic, the patient put on a mask in the waiting room.” Who stood next to him in that room? How many people had he infected in the past days? Who was sitting across the aisle on the flight from Wuhan to Seattle? “After waiting approximately twenty minutes, he was taken into an examination room and evaluated.” Was the doctor who examined him masked? The nurse who checked his temperature? Where are they now? “He disclosed that he had returned to Washington State on January 15 after traveling to visit family in Wuhan, China.” On January 20, a nasal swab and an oral swab (and subsequently, stool samples) were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both tested positive for a novel coronavirus: SARS-COV2. On the ninth day of his illness—and the fifth day of hospitalization—his condition deteriorated. His oxygen levels dropped to 90 percent—decidedly abnormal for a young man with no prior lung condition. A chest X-ray revealed hazy, opaque streaks across his lung, signaling a deepening pneumonia. His liver function blood tests revealed ...