The SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Riddle - Part 7

The contribution of the Common Cold Unit to the study of coronaviridae (Revised March 2025)

This is the sixth in a rerun of our Transmission Riddle series, initially posted in September 2022. Each post has been updated and reworked with the new evidence we could find. The serial numbers of the original posts may not correspond as we expand, merge, edit, and add, like a concertina. 

In the first five parts of the Riddle series, we discussed how poor quality, superficial science led to research waste that misled the globe regarding the number of active covid cases, the incidence of hospital-acquired covid and deaths directly attributable to SARS-CoV-2. We have also remarked on the apparent unwillingness of decision-makers to put the newly discovered agent in the context of what was already known about coronaviridae and other acute viral respiratory infections and especially of the uncertainties surrounding some of the interpretations of the facts. 

This chapter and the following chapters will briefly examine what is known about human coronoviridae and other main respiratory viru…