Close-up photo of petri dish with person wearing gloves taking sample

Medicine’s Mark Cameron talks about historical pandemics

How viruses evolve

Knowable MagazineMark Cameron, an associate professor in the School of Medicine, said that pandemics that terrorized, then receded—such as SARS in 2003 and flu in 1918-20 and again in 1957, 1968 and 2009—faded not because the viruses evolved to cause milder disease, but for other reasons.