Breathless Quotes

“The more numerous we become, the more crowded, the more interconnected, the more demanding of resources, the more invasive of wild places, the more disruptive of richly diverse ecosystems—the closer we stand to the epidemic threshold for any new virus that probes us as a possible route to greater evolutionary success.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“the epistatic fucking cirque du soleil of this virus is discombobulating.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“L'immunità di gregge è come l'"immunità" dai fulmini se si va in giro su un campo da golf durante un temporale: probabilmente colpirà qualcun altro, o un albero.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“L'idea che i virus siano senza eccezione dannosi, che facciano sempre e solo male, non è circoscritta ai non specialisti. L'eminente biologo britannico Peter Medawar, in un famoso libro del 1983 scritto insieme alla moglie Jean, affermava che "non si conosce nessun virus che faccia del bene: come è stato giustamente detto, un virus è 'una cattiva notizia avvolta in una proteina'". Si sbagliavano, al pari di molti altri scienzati dell'epoca, perché nel 1983 era un po' troppo presto per scoprire l'impronta dei virus nei genomi e distinguere la loro funzione. Rimane un'opinione ancora abbracciata, comprensibilmente, da chiunque abbia una conoscenza dei virus che è limitata a cattive notizie come il Covid-19, l'Aids e l'influenza. Oggi tuttavia si sa che molti virus fanno del bene. Quello che è avvolto nel capside proteico è un dispaccio genetico - un messaggio in bottiglia - che può rivelarsi una buona o una cattiva notizia, a seconda dei casi.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“But the high extinction rate among viral lineages, which they saw in their simulations, implied that “spillover of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses may be frequent, even if pandemics are rare.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“SARS-CoV-2 emerged in December 2019 as two distinct lineages, which seem to have come from two different sources.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“The Snohomish case probably did not spark the outbreaks in California, Connecticut, and elsewhere. Rather, that case was likely a dead end, with no onward transmission, thanks to quick, firm containment measures taken in Washington.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“these animals “should be removed from wet markets to prevent zoonotic transmission.” No pangolins breathing on the pork. No pangolins weeping on the shrimp.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“When you have Malayan pangolins, abducted from elsewhere in southern Asia, trafficked across the border, sobbing out their last breaths at a rescue center in a major Chinese city, something is wrong, and not just for the pangolins.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“Three weeks passed, without resolution, carrying the effort into February. Then came the pangolins.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

“If you were to google the words “Fauci contradicts Trump,” as I recently did, you too might get 58,400 results.”
― David Quammen, Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus