Deserted streets, checkpoints guarded by armed soldiers, emptied shops of all kinds of food, people barricaded at home to defend themselves from the infected, episodes of violence ...

No, it is not the beginning of a book about the zombie apocalypse, but a photograph of Italy in February 2020.

Perhaps thanks to a slightly "exaggerated" media campaign, the fear of Wuhan's new coronavirus has caused Italy to fall into a pre-apocalyptic collective hysteria, leading the population to do their worst.

This short book was not created to make fun of the victims of the virus and the people who have suffered from this situation, far from it!

In fact, the purpose of the following pages is to provide the basic notions, in terms of epidemiology and microbiology, to understand the news that you hear every day on TV, on social media and in newspapers, so as not to fall victim to fake news and face the future ahead with more serenity.

I will start by talking about epidemiology in general, going through the definitions of epidemic and pandemic, to then go on to explain what viruses and coronaviruses are and, to conclude, I will describe in detail the new coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2.

In this book I will not present personal opinions, because, in these cases, only science matters, while every opinion is absolutely marginal.

COVID-19