An example of a simile used to explain a natural phenomenon:
"But even after someone is infected, the host actually mounts, for all these [respiratory] viruses, a really dramatic immune and inflammatory response. So it sort of lights a fire. And even when the virus stops replicating, you know that fire continues to burn, and in a lot of cases that's what lands people in the hospital. And so you want to prevent the virus from igniting that fire, that is what really ends up causing a huge amount of damage to the patient.
…the greatest benefit [of the antiviral drug being tested] is in the outpatient setting before that fire gets ignited."
Dr Daria Hazuda
Dr Daria Hazuda (Vice President of Infectious Disease and Vaccines at Merck Research Labs and Chief Scientific Officer of MRL Cambridge) was interviewed on an episode ('New evidence for Sars-CoV-2's origin in bats') of the BBC Radio programme/podcast 'Science in Action'.
Read 'We didn't start the fire (it was the virus)'
