Deadlier than the deadliest: The greatest species war against aninvisible army

By Gayan Sanjeewa, PhD.(28-Mar-2020)

As of now, humankind is at war against an invisible devil army named SARS-CoV-2or better known as the Novel Coronavirus. Every wrong step, every wrong move we take can lead to fatal injuries. Unless we understand the enemy, their strategies and the scale of thiswar we are in, we could quite possibly suffer catastrophic losses. Every second, every action matters a great deal. This will be one of the greatest battles among two species in the history of our planet, at least in the modern era. It is a fatal combat between one of the simplest species and one of the most complex species in the living world. 

Who are the two sides of this battle?

Side 1: SARS-CoV-2 (a virus species)

Simple and parasitic:The viruses are small infectious particles that live a ‘borrowed life’. In fact, it doesn’t even have many characteristics of living organisms which keep them on the fence between living and non-living. They are ‘obligate parasites’,meaning that they can’t complete their life cycle without a host. Many hypotheses on viral origin predict that they have been on earth for billions of years. While all other living beings are made from cells, viruses do not have cells. Rather they live inside another living cell andwhen they comeout, they only have the genetic material (DNA or RNA) and anouter coating (capsid) made up of proteinsand lipids. Viruses can infect all forms of life including animals, plants and even unicellular organisms such as bacteria.

Strength in numbers:It is predicted that if all the viruseson earth (~1 × 10³¹) were laid end to end, they would stretch for 100 million light-years. It is estimated that the number of viruses on earth is larger than the number of stars in the observableuniverse. If that is not mind-blowing, the rate of viral infectionsin the oceans removes 20–40% of all bacterial cells each day.

Invisible: Viruses are smaller than human cells and even smaller than bacteria. It is so smallthat you can’t even see them under the lightmicroscope. Only the electron microscope can be used to observe them. Thus,the attack is always a surprise to us.

Masters of hijacking:Viruses have evolved to hijack and live. They are capable of hijacking anything they want once they are inside a living cell. Viruses are equipped with very sophisticated tricks to hijack the cell. During a typical viral infection, only the commander (DNA or RNA) enters the cell. Then it will either trick or force the cellular machineries to produce what the commander wants.

But the current great battle is not with all viruses. This battle is with only one member named SARS-CoV-2. Nevertheless, it has most of the typical characteristics described above. They are roughly about 1/10000 of a millimeter. One virus particle can infect one human cell and then trick the cell to produce many more viruses. Once done, the virusescome bursting out of the host cell, effectively destroying it. Thus, by infecting one person, the virus creates thousands of new soldiers (new virus particles).

Side 2: Human (a species of mammals)

Complexed:Arguably humans are the most complicated species on earth. Obviously, it is a bias statement as you and I are both humans. Humans have a very complex genome with ~ 3 billion base pairs. We have a very strong immune system. Most of all, we have a brain which can think and change the environment around us better than in any other species. Perhaps it is the most powerful object that we inherited from evolution.

Master of intelligence:With our brainpower, we have utilized the laws of nature to create tools, systems, and environments to help us better survive in this world. We can instantly communicate betweenone side of the world to the other. We have developed means of transportation that enable us to move resources and people around the world relatively quickly. We have developed a complex socio-economic ecosystem that helps us to organize and exchange these resources. We can even modify viruses (the enemy itself)for therapeutic purposes. The inquisitive nature of the human mind has got us walking on the moon. No other species on earth can even come close to what we have achieved with our brainpower.

Strategiesof our enemy

Our enemy uses two main strategies.

1. Invisible platoon camouflaged like Guerrillas. A significant percentage of the corona virus-infected people are asymptomatic yet contagious. Thus,these people are walking around spreading the virus but are unaware of it and so are the people who are getting infected.
2. Deadly effective squad like special forces. Virus particles that infect the elderly population and the people with underlying health conditions cause life-threateningsituations if not death.

This time around, these two platoons are working together to gobeyond their regular cellular level hijacking to take over our economy and our day to day life as we know it.Our fast-moving economy, crowdedtransportation, better connectivity, crowded gatherings-they all work unwillinglyfor the fast-spreading of the virus.Thus, our enemyis deadlier than most of the deadliest viruses with very high mortality ratesthat we have seen before.

Ways to defeat

There are two majorstrategies we can deploy.

1. Medicine (a nuclear weapon):In this war,very powerful medicine with high efficacy and safety would be equivalent to a nuclear weapon. A vaccine oran effective antiviral drug can instantly do a drastic damage to the coronavirus army. Scientists all over the world are working around the clock at an unprecedented pace. The synthesis of the first vaccine was accomplished in a world record time. Many clinical trials have already been initiated. New innovations are being tested every day including drug repurposing and antibody treatments. However, it takes time to make such powerful solutions. A powerful weapon like vaccine takes more time to carefully test to ensure they don’t backfire on us.
2. Social distancing (a siege):Probably the biggest weakness of our enemy is that it can’t live outside of our body for too long.Social distancing effectively sieges the virus and cutoff its movements and supplies. In an ideal scenario,if all of us self-isolate for several weeks, the virus will have nowhere to go and will be fullycontained. However, it’s only a hypothetical scenario that is not practical in modern society. If we completely stop moving for too long, the running engine of our economy will shut down and our society will suffer colossal losses. Thus,unfortunatelywe can’t use the social distancing weapon in its full capacity.If we use this weapon too aggressively while damaging the enemy, we will also suffer significant collateral damage. Damage to the economy would result in weakening our capacity tofight. Therefore, governments around the world are deploying this weapon to varying degrees.

Therefore, the best strategy would be to usesocial distancing with a delicate balance between the impact to our own socio-economic ecosystem and the enemy itself. By doing so we can buy enough time to better prepare (to increase the healthcare capacity) and develop that powerful nuclear weapon (therapeutics/vaccines). If we are going to fight using the social distancing weapon for now, a detection strategy via massive-scale testing and sophisticated surveillance systems is utmost important. Though our enemy is invisible, scientists have long ago developed the platform to detect them. They are still working hard to improve these testing strategies to increase the efficiency, especially to shorten the time to get test results.

Most of all, we desperately need all hands on the deck. Unless we unite and every person doestheirpart,we will suffer huge losses. One way or the other, the war will be over. That’s how this battle of natural selection happens every day among species in the biological world. However, we can’t afford to lose our loved ones. So, we must win this war. Thus, we need every one of us to fight. We survived on this planet for about 200000 years and have evolved from African savannaall the way to modern society. Along this journey, we may have fought with thousands ofviruses, bacteria, and many other species. Once this COVID-19 war is over, our society would not be the same, it would be much better prepared and equipped to fight against the next viral enemy. That’s who we are. We fight together, we learn, we adapt and evolve! Thus, we can win this war and we should do it together. The brain is our most powerful gear. Let’s use it properly and go win this war.