We’re currently battling a global pandemic unlike any we’ve seen in over a century. But it’s also not the first modern virus we’ve faced.
, like blood, sweat, and urine, rather than through the kind of particles produced when someone sneezes or speaks. Unless you’re nursing patients or tending to their body after they’ve died, it’s unlikely you’d acquire the infection.
Ebola also tends to cause pretty severe and identifiable symptoms, such as fever and fatigue followed by vomiting and diarrhea. Not only can infected people not spread the virus until they’re sick, but once they become sick, they’ll know it. “If you want to see illnesses which are controllable, they all have transmission very much tied to symptoms, and this includes SARS and Ebola,” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “If you’re in an Ebola zone, you can be pretty sure whether or not the person you’re talking to is a potentially risky contact.”
This makes it easier to isolate infected individuals and protect health care workers to limit the spread, which is what occurred in the 2014-2016 outbreak. It’s a striking difference from COVID-19, which, and even when people get sick, some people might have symptoms so mild that they’re not sure they have COVID-19 in the first place.
In each of these cases, the viral outbreak lacked one of the key components that COVID-19 has that allowed it to tip over into a global pandemic. “SARS-CoV-2 is kind of a perfect storm,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University who specializes in infectious diseases.COVID-19 can be mild enough that some people who have it don’t know they have it.
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