Is 2020 going to be the year of the COVID?

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 —previously known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19. Credit: NIAID-RML

It’s only been two and a half months into 2020, and the world is already in turmoil.

The new year quite literally kicked off in flames, with wildfires tearing through vast swathes of Australia in January. Just as fresh images of singed, bewildered koalas began to fade from our minds, Malaysia’s barely 24-month-old liberal government was toppled by a rebellion from within. And before the political drama of the Sheraton Move could even settle, the world was hit with something far worse—a once-in-a-generation global pandemic that broke out in March.

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