the.com/infection
the moment something smaller than you decides your body is real estate
means The invasion and multiplication of harmful microorganisms—bacteria, viruses, fungi—inside the body, often producing illness.
from From Latin 'inficere,' literally 'to put in' or 'to dip into,' built from 'in-' (into) plus 'facere' (to do, to make)—the same 'facere' lurking inside 'factory' and 'fact.' Its early sense was about staining or tainting, as if dipping something clean into something foul. The disease meaning grew from that idea of contamination, the notion that corruption could be poured into a body. The germ part came much later; for centuries people knew the word long before they knew what was actually doing the dipping.
- bacterial ratio
- your body hosts more microbial cells than human ones
- fever logic
- heat is your body trying to cook the invaders
- silent spread
- contagious often before symptoms ever appear
- ancient enemy
- tuberculosis has infected humans for thousands of years
- helpful hijackers
- some viruses became permanent parts of human DNA
black death — bubonic plague killed 75-200 million people in 1347-1353
covid-19 pandemic — sars-cov-2 virus infected 700+ million people starting december 2019
hospital acquired mrsa — methicillin-resistant staph causes 10,000+ deaths annually in us hospitals