Our speaker on Wednesday 19 August 2020 was Professor Doctor Keith Paver, from the Rotary Club of Macclesfield, near Manchester. He was speaking on the subject of viruses and the SARS Cov-2 virus (perhaps better known as the coronavirus) in particular.
Before he spoke, we had the usual reports on the welfare of Club Members, the visits to other Clubs and events including a meeting which several Club Members had attended where the President of the Rotary Club of Beirut Cosmopolitan had spoken about the help that their community needed. That Club to Club contact in Rotary provides one of its most special features.
Keith’s talk covered the history of virus born diseases, the discovery of viruses, the ways in which viruses spread, the details of the current pandemic, its likely source, how it compares to other pandemics over the past 200 years, and the prognosis for the future based on the experiences of different countries across Europe.
Lastly, he finished with an explanation of what viruses have done for us, including the role that viruses play in the human placenta, without which there would have been no audience present to hear the talk!
Thank you Keith for an excellent and detailed talk that covered an enormous field of study.
