June 1, 2020

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Virus Mutations Reveal How COVID-19 Really Spread

Globe-trotting humans were the culprits 

By Mark Fischetti & Martin Krzywinski

Martin Krzywinski

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The world struggled to understand how COVID-19 spread during the pandemic’s first four months, but genetic sequences of the coronavirus reported by laboratories tell the real story—when the virus arrived in each place and where it came from. The sequences, which advance from left to right in the graphic, show that the virus jumped from an animal to humans in China, humans transmitted it to one another within China, then people traveling from there spread it globally person to person. The virus had not mutated significantly as of March 31, 2020; human contact created the pandemic, not a wildly evolving pathogen. Mapping the spread also substantiates actions that could have best mitigated it: faster, wider testing in China; earlier, stricter global travel bans and isolation of infected people; and more immediate social distancing worldwide.

Credit: Martin Krzywinski; Source: Nextstrain (enabled by data from GISAID) HTTPS://NEXTSTRAIN.ORG/NCOV

Read more about the coronavirus outbreak from Scientific American here, and read coverage from our international network of magazines here.

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Mark Fischetti was a senior editor at Scientific American for nearly 20 years and covered sustainability issues, including climate, environment, energy, and more. He assigned and edited feature articles and news by journalists and scientists and also wrote in those formats. He was founding managing editor of two spin-off magazines: Scientific American Mind and Scientific American Earth 3.0. His 2001 article “Drowning New Orleans” predicted the widespread disaster that a storm like Hurricane Katrina would impose on the city. Fischetti has written as a freelancer for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian and many other outlets. He co-authored the book Weaving the Web with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, which tells the real story of how the Web was created. He also co-authored The New Killer Diseases with microbiologist Elinor Levy. Fischetti has a physics degree and has twice served as Attaway Fellow in Civic Culture at Centenary College of Louisiana, which awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2021 he received the American Geophysical Union’s Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism. He has appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN, the History Channel, NPR News and many radio stations.

More by Mark Fischetti

Martin Krzywinski is a staff scientist at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Center.

More by Martin Krzywinski
Scientific American Magazine Vol 322 Issue 6This article was published with the title “How COVID-19 Spread Like Wildfire” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 322 No. 6 (), p. 80
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0620-80
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