Abstract

Know your enemy.

As we all know too well, in late 2019 a novel coronavirus started circulating among the citizens of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China. By April 2021 around 141 million confirmed cases and more than 3 million registered deaths had been attributed to the coronavirus across the globe (1). The worldwide average case fatality rate appears to present at round 0.5-1% with vulnerable groups seeing a higher death rate (2). Cases of long-covid, affecting as much as 10% of the infected, can be debilitating and are characterised by fatigue and a myriad of symptoms extending beyond 12 weeks (3). All of us know someone badly affected by the disease and sadly many of us know someone who has been claimed by it.

By late-April 2021 around 928 million people had received at least one dose of a vaccination against Covid-19 (4). Lockdowns and measures to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 have negatively affected a majority of people globally for the past year. Here in the UK, we have recently come out of a 4-month lockdown which saw nonessential trade and travel restrictons – until a few weeks ago national school closures were still in place (5).

The lockdown measures and the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are now successfully supressing mortality, hospital admissions, and infection rates in those countries lucky enough to have substantial immunisation programs and associated mitigation measures (6-7). Covid-19 variants resistant to these vaccines are and will continue to arise and spread – notably the South African variant (8). However, given the growing arsenal of medical interventions (9), and an ever-increasing body of scientific information characterising the virus (10), it seems likely the worst is behind us for some privileged countries such as the UK and Israel. Sadly, the same cannot be said of some larger, poorer nations such as Brazil and India (11).

It is critical easing of Covid-19 restrictions does not breed complacency or forgetfulness. Further, as the vaccination programs gain pace over the months and years ahead, vaccination uptake must still be encouraged, misinformation countered (12). Beyond Covid-19, there will be further pandemics. Understanding how and why this pandemic occurred can save lives and reduce further suffering in the future.

Towards this end we have spent several months collection data and constructing a ditigal three-dimensional model of the SARS-CoV-2 virion. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the most up-to-date and accurate of the handful of virion models available (13-16). This intended as an educational tool and reminder of the pandemic. We have rendered our model as a 3D-printable sculpture and have physical sturctures of the Covid-19 virus for sale.

At the heart of the misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding this pandemic is uncertainty, subjective opinion, and the intangibility of an invisible enemy. Our model gives a face to the opponent, shows the cogs and ratches behind the biological machinery of the Covid-19 infection, and importantly helps imagine the analogous medicinal spanners and wrenches that can combat the disease. Education and systematic understanding can offer solid reasoning and a clearer insight, in the face of what at times seems a biblical global health crisis. Holding in your hands, a highly accurate model of the now infamous Covid-19 virus is perhaps the most effective way to spread awareness on how to fight the pandemic, and make this nanoscopic enemy tangable.

Site Contents:

The Microbiology of Infection

An introduction to the cellular biology of infection.

The SARS-CoV-2 Proteins. 

A review of macromolecular components of SARS-CoV-2

Assembling our Virion Model

The method we used to assemble the Virion model. 

Download the Model

The conclusion of our efforts and where to download the Virion model.