If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
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
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
Thank you,
Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American
