Villain. Killer. Menace. Since 2020, scientists and public officials have used these words to describe SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. News articles, research papers and tweets repeatedly personify the virus as a bad guy intent on killing us.
Simultaneously, we’re intent on killing it, with handwashing, antiseptic wipes, hand sanitizer, bleach, even robots zapping hospital rooms with ultraviolet light. Yet, according to most scientists, we’ve been working hard to kill something that isn’t alive.
Scientists have argued for hundreds of years over how to classify viruses, says Luis Villarreal, professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, where he founded the Center for Virus Research. In the 1700s,
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