This is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. The premise that coronavirus is highly contagious and can cause disease provides the justification for putting entire nations on lockdown, destroying the global economy and throwing hundreds of thousands out of work. But is it contagious? Does it even cause disease?

As early as 1799, researchers puzzled over the cause of influenza, which appeared suddenly, often in diverse places at the same time, and could not be explained by any theory of contagion. In 1836, Heinrich Schweich, author of a book on influenza, noted that all physiological processes produce electricity and offered the theory that an electrical disturbance of the atmosphere may prevent the body from discharging it. He repeated the then-common belief that the accumulation of electricity in the body causes the symptoms of influenza and that outbreaks were due to atmospheric “influences”—hence the name influenza.

This is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. The premise that coronavirus is highly contagious and can cause disease provides the justification for putting entire nations on lockdown, destroying the global economy and throwing hundreds of thousands out of work. But is it contagious? Does it even cause disease?

As early as 1799, researchers puzzled over the cause of influenza, which appeared suddenly, often in diverse places at the same time, and could not be explained by any theory of contagion. In 1836, Heinrich Schweich, author of a book on influenza, noted that all physiological processes produce electricity and offered the theory that an electrical disturbance of the atmosphere may prevent the body from discharging it. He repeated the then-common belief that the accumulation of electricity in the body causes the symptoms of influenza and that outbreaks were due to atmospheric “influences”—hence the name influenza.