Hi. I’m COVID. I used to be an ordinary virus that caused 10 percent of common colds. Then the Chinese might have genetically engineered me in their Hunan laboratories. Although they disavowed the idea of genetically engineering me, they knew exactly what they were doing. 

However, they never expected me to leave the lab. 

The bats got hold of me and I became famous. I live in the bats and they don’t get sick, they just spread me to people—and people travel. That’s how I became internationally famous.

During my travels, I learned how to survive. Every time they made a vaccine to try to stop me, I made myself another coat to fool the vaccine. I’m really good at it.

Now that things have cooled down a bit, I have decided to change coats. My new coat is called HKUS. Now I am appearing as HKUS COVID-2, and I just might start another epidemic. 

Hey, don’t blame me; they created the monster that I am. If you were immunized against the old me, you might not get as sick as you would from me. They will have to create a new booster vaccine to try to neutralize me, but I will wait a while and change my coat again. 

I really am a nightmare.

We’ve seen what COVID-19 could do, and its morbidity and mortality rate. It was the worst pandemic we have seen since polio. The polio epidemics went on for years, until Salk invented the vaccine. It took 30 years of trying before Salk was successful. Polio was known more for paralysis than death, but many people did die, both adults and children. 

Polio is what we call a “wild virus,” which means it is found in nature. Until recently,  the three polioviruses have never changed (mutated). Then they started to mutate in Third World countries, but it is under control. Because of Rotary’s successful campaign to vaccinate populations against polio in Third World countries, we might see the end of polio. We are fortunate to have herd immunity to polio in the U.S. and in most countries because of immunization. 

But beware—if people do not get vaccinated against polio, that herd immunity will drop, allowing the polio viruses to cause an epidemic again. If it mutates, we will need an entirely new vaccine. 

Unlike polio, the COVID virus is no longer a seasonal cold problem, but far more dangerous because it was genetically engineered. It could mutate at will. Because of modern science, it only took nine months to develop the first COVID vaccine, and we have continually developed boosters to deal with the new COVID variants. 

This new HKUS-CoV-2 has a higher potential to infect humans than the other COVID viruses because of its binding ability in our respiratory system. 

No matter what the anti-vaxxers say, you remember the pictures on TV of the bodies of those who died of COVID. Almost everyone knows someone who was hospitalized or died from COVID. We never went anywhere without masks, and there were special requirements in businesses, and in the doctor’s offices. You don’t see that now. How easy it is to forget.

The CDC is carefully watching the progression of this new COVID virus, and I’m sure they are beginning to manufacture a vaccine in case it is needed.

In my last article, I wrote about bird flu as a potential next epidemic, and now we have HKUS-CoV2. They’re nothing to get upset about. If either or both become prominent, you can get vaccinated. 

No one need to suffer, or die, from a disease that is preventable by vaccine. 

Michael Kossove is professor emeritus and adjunct professor of microbiology at Touro University’s School of Health Sciences.

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