Viruses like the one that causes COVID-19 have long been Dr. Anthony Fauci’s ‘worst nightmare’

For years, viruses like the one that causes COVID-19 has been the stuff of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s nightmares.

Speaking to a digital version of an annual conference of biotechnology executives, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Tuesday he long expected – and hoped against – the arrival of a new respiratory virus that jumped from animals, was highly contagious, and potentially lethal.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, he said, has more of those factors than any other disease he’s seen in his lifetime.