Spillover

Spillover (Audiobook) by David Quammen. Spillover is the phenomena in which a disease originally endemic to other animal species spills over to humans. Most times it infects a few individuals and disappears, but it eventually becomes endemic to humans as well. The book describes many diseases including hendra virus, AIDS, ebola, influenza, coronavirus, lyme, etc.

One interesting fact I learned is that a disproportionate number of diseases originate in bats (even when transmitted via horses, monkeys or ticks). The author also makes the eerie observation that sick people from these diseases show visible symptoms, making it easier to avoid them and prevent spread, but if a disease were to spread asymptomatically we would have a hard time (this book was written before the Covid pandemic).

This entry was parsed from an older retrospective post.