By Gary Gunderson
When the viruses come, as they do from time to time, we rediscover the relevance of old ideas, such as public health and communities of compassion.
Public health has experienced a sudden rise in appreciation due to a few trillions of trillions of tiny little organisms much smaller than bacteria. They are not strangers, as we are chock full of viral forms. Perhaps as much as 60 percent of what we think of as our body is actually viral and bacterial colonies that don’t just live in us; they are part of us. We could not digest our food without them. My son-in-law is Dr. Nathan Wolfe, a well-known virologist, so we call these “Nathan’s little friends.”