It is a very personal process, this transmission of covid-19. Each person who gets infected with this horrid virus, gets it from exactly one specific person. It happens at a specific point in time.
If I get infected, there is exactly one specific person that I got it from, who infected me.
That is pretty personal!
When I get the virus, when I get infected, it goes crazy reproducing itself by hijacking certain of my cells. It is a reproduction machine- that is one thing it does well.
Hopefully my immune system also kicks into gear over the first few days. Now a battle within my body ensues. Either my immune cells fight back the invading hordes. With success, antibodies catch covid in the blood and kill them. With success, all the viruses die. My body is virus free, although teh effects of the battle may leave fires burning and tissues damaged, even though no longer infected with virus per se.
BUT, one person gave me the virus (or a few million copies for starters).
And, when I get infected, I will give it to very specific other people. In each of these cases, I will be the one who infected each one of them and no one else. I will own those cases. I will own the infection in these specific people.
Then each person I gave it to, can give it to other specific people and thus I have created a branch for EACH person I infected. It can be a big tree and has been huge trees of cases each one stemming from individual people.
These are facts about the way this virus spreads.
Now, it is more complicated so jumping to blame the sources doesn't make sense. Although the transmission of covid-19 is very personal, so far, we don't usually know who we got it from and we often do not know who all we gave it to. Of course we didn't do it on purpose. It is a very bad thing. If the havoc in China and Italy is too remote for you to feel in your gut, there are plenty of stories from NewYork to dispel any question of the seriousness of this pandemic story.
But think about it. It is the personal spread of virus from one person to the next that is absolutely the only way this virus survives at all.
Just let that soak in, the feeling of it being person to person, very specific persons with whom you were at least physically close and likely close in work and personal relationships.
It matters and it is personal. There is more to the story going forward, but let that soak in first. Covid-19 transmission is personal, from one specific person for every infection.