As information about potentially more virulent strains of COVID-19 continues to emerge, David S. Roos, the E. Otis Kendall Professor of Biology who studies and teaches infectious disease biology, viruses, and parasites, discusses how concerned Americans should be about variants. Even for an infectious disease expert, COVID-19 has produced some surprises.
“Perhaps the biggest surprise, which we still don’t understand, is why some people get very sick or die, while others don’t,” says Roos. “There are some theories about inappropriate immune responses, including so-called cytokine storms, and there’s some evidence for viral engagement with other aspects of human pathology, but there’s still a lot to learn about the disease processes caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus that causes COVID-19.”
