The Invisible Siege

The once-in-a-century pandemic caused by COVID-19 - the third deadly coronavirus to emerge in the past twenty years - fixed humanity's gaze on the virus's present and immediate future. But the story of this pandemic extends far further back than many realize. In this fascinating narrative, epidemiologist Dan Werb traces the rise of the coronavirus family and society's desperate attempt to counter its threat. In the process, he weaves another kind of family history: that of a group of scientists who foresaw the danger and spent decades working to stop a looming pandemic. When virologist Ralph Baric began researching coronaviruses in the 1980s, the field was a scientific backwater - the few variants known to infect humans caused little more than the common cold. But when a novel coronavirus sparked the 2003 SARS epidemic,