World Virus Appreciation Day!
October 3rd is World Virus Appreciation Day, the holiday where we celebrate the wonders of the virological world. If it wants to kill you, today's the day to rejoice in its existence...or at least to be glad that you don't have it. Yet.
I love the existence of this holiday, and-after considerable consideration-have decided that this year, once again, I'm going to celebrate my favorite virus of them all. No, not the Black Death, although it holds a truly special place in my heart. I mean Kellis-Amberlee, the hybrid virus created when the Kellis Flu met up with Marburg Amberlee, fell in love, and started having little zombie-making babies.
Yes, it's a fake virus. No, I don't care, because not only have I spent the last several years working on the virology behind Kellis-Amberlee, but it's been responsible for my learning more about real-world viruses than anyone outside the fields of epidemiology or virology ever needed to know. Seriously! Kellis-Amberlee was created sloppily and in about five minutes; it was refined over the course of almost two years, and involved auditing epidemiology and virology courses, talking to doctors from the CDC, and reading most of a library on infectious diseases.
Because of Kellis-Amberlee, I've learned about cholera (nasty), pandemic flu (actually nastier), Ebola (scary), and yellow fever (scariest bitch on the block). Before I started work on Feed, all I knew about smallpox was that we were missing a bunch of it, and that was probably bad; now I know exactly why that's bad. Miraculously, I sleep pretty well at night despite this knowledge.
I love viruses and diseases. I love Kellis-Amberlee. And today, I love World Virus Appreciation Day. Remember, if I sneeze, it's only because a droplet-based transmission is another way of saying "I love you."
I love the existence of this holiday, and-after considerable consideration-have decided that this year, once again, I'm going to celebrate my favorite virus of them all. No, not the Black Death, although it holds a truly special place in my heart. I mean Kellis-Amberlee, the hybrid virus created when the Kellis Flu met up with Marburg Amberlee, fell in love, and started having little zombie-making babies.
Yes, it's a fake virus. No, I don't care, because not only have I spent the last several years working on the virology behind Kellis-Amberlee, but it's been responsible for my learning more about real-world viruses than anyone outside the fields of epidemiology or virology ever needed to know. Seriously! Kellis-Amberlee was created sloppily and in about five minutes; it was refined over the course of almost two years, and involved auditing epidemiology and virology courses, talking to doctors from the CDC, and reading most of a library on infectious diseases.
Because of Kellis-Amberlee, I've learned about cholera (nasty), pandemic flu (actually nastier), Ebola (scary), and yellow fever (scariest bitch on the block). Before I started work on Feed, all I knew about smallpox was that we were missing a bunch of it, and that was probably bad; now I know exactly why that's bad. Miraculously, I sleep pretty well at night despite this knowledge.
I love viruses and diseases. I love Kellis-Amberlee. And today, I love World Virus Appreciation Day. Remember, if I sneeze, it's only because a droplet-based transmission is another way of saying "I love you."