the.com/outbreak
a quiet bug deciding, all at once, to become everyone's problem.
means A sudden, often rapid occurrence or spread of something unwanted — usually a disease, but also war, violence, or any trouble that erupts all at once.
from A straightforward English compound of "out" plus "break" — the sense of something breaking out, bursting forth from confinement. The verb phrase "break out" is old, and the noun "outbreak" follows the same logic as kin like "outburst" and "outflow." The word carries the image of pressure suddenly released — something that was contained, now loose. Its strong association with disease is a later specialization; originally it could describe any eruption, from a fire to a rebellion.
- origin word
- meant a sudden eruption before it meant disease
- patient zero
- the term often misnames the wrong first carrier
- R-naught
- one number decides if it spreads or fizzles
- speed
- a 1918 flu strain circled Earth in months
- endings
- most outbreaks die out, not get cured
covid-19 pandemic — sars-cov-2 virus spread globally starting december 2019, infecting over 700 million people
zika virus 2015 brazil — mosquito-borne outbreak in brazil caused 3,500 congenital cases of microcephaly