Two years later, coronavirus evolution still surprises experts. Here’s why.

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Scientists and physicians continue to be amazed by how quickly the virus evolves, what it does to the human body, and how it moves through species. Photo: Pexels

 

(Priyanka Runwal/ National Geographic) — Raul Andino knows his pathogens. For more than 30 years the University of California, San Francisco researcher has studied RNA viruses, a group that includes the virus that causes COVID-19. And yet he never imagined he’d witness a pandemic of this scale in his lifetime.

“The magnitude of it and the implications of it are still hard to comprehend,” Andino says.

Although experts in his field suspected a pandemic would occur, “it’s hard to know when,” he says. “It’s similar to an earthquake—you know the earthquake will happen, but normally you don’t think about it.” (…)

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