When SARS-CoV-1, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, was first noted in Guangdong province of China in 2002, doctors saw an unusual pneumonia. It killed one in 10 infected people and was far more lethal than the current SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the pandemic we are experiencing. Back then, scientists were working on vaccines for the Coronavirus, but thought SARS-CoV-1 had been eradicated. Had they developed diagnostics at the time, we would have been better prepared to fight COVID-19 today, believes science journalist and author Debora MacKenzie.

In her latest book titled, COVID-19: The Pandemic that Never Should have Happened and How to Stop the Next One, MacKenzie lays out an eye-opening full story of how and why the pandemic happened. Drawing on three decades of reporting on emerging diseases, she explains how Coronavirus went from a potentially manageable outbreak to a global pandemic. "Pneumonia of an unknown cause is always worrying. Respiratory diseases are the hardest to control. So early on, in December 2019, when the news broke of an outbreak in Wuhan, I thought, oh boy! Here we go."