Welcome to LSE IQ.
I'm Sue Windybank and this is the podcast where we ask social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question.
This month, with all of the IQ team working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic,
we're bringing you a bite-sized episode.
When a disease is this contagious, even cautious medical professionals are at serious risk.
The virus spreads through contact with bodily fluids and is fatal in up to 90% of cases.
This is the deadliest outbreak of Ebola on record.
More than 1,200 people have been infected in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and around 670 of them have died.
Three-month-old Anna Beatrice coos like any normal baby.
But Anna was born with microcephaly, an extremely small head due to abnormal brain development.
A devastating neurological condition that doctors suspect is linked to a Zika virus infection during pregnancy.
A city of 11 million, but it doesn't look like it.
Closed off from the outside world, Wuhan is in lockdown.
If the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe is in Lombardy province in northern Italy,
then the absolute centre of this epidemic is here in the town of Bergamo.
More people have died here than anywhere else and they still are every day.
The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades and this country is not alone.
From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction.
You must stay at home.
Collarra, Ebola, Influenza, MERS, SARS, Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Zika and of course novel coronavirus.