You're reading: The Economist: How viruses shape the world

Humans think of themselves as the world’s apex predators. Hence the silence of sabre-tooth tigers, the absence of moas from New Zealand and the long list of endangered megafauna. But sarscov-2 shows how people can also end up as prey. Viruses have caused a litany of modern pandemics, from covid-19, to hiv/aids to the influenza outbreak in 1918-20, which killed many more people than the first world war.

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