Virus Appreciation Day

What the day is

Virus Appreciation Day is observed on October 3. The name invites a double take, and the day is read two ways: most listings treat it as being about biological viruses, while some take it as a prompt to check computer security. The biological reading is the more interesting one.

Appreciation here means understanding rather than fondness. Viruses cause enormous human suffering, and nothing about the day asks anyone to overlook that. It asks instead that they be understood as a fundamental part of biology rather than only as disease.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented, and no founder or sponsoring organization is reliably known.

The biology is genuinely strange. Viruses are not clearly alive: they carry genetic material but cannot reproduce without hijacking a host cell's machinery. They are also the most numerous biological entities on the planet by an enormous margin, and the majority infect bacteria rather than people. Those bacteria-killing viruses, called bacteriophages, regulate microbial populations in the oceans on a scale that affects global carbon cycling.

They have also shaped us directly. A substantial fraction of the human genome consists of sequences of viral origin, embedded over evolutionary time, and some of that material has been repurposed for essential functions, including in the formation of the placenta. Medicine has turned the mechanism around as well: modified viruses are used as delivery vehicles in gene therapy, and phage therapy is being revisited as antibiotic resistance grows.

How to take part

• Read about bacteriophages. They look like landing modules and behave like precision weapons, and most people have never heard of them.
• Get your vaccinations up to date. The most practical form of appreciating viruses is not catching them.
• Look up how mRNA vaccines actually work. The mechanism is easier to understand than the discourse around it suggests.
• If you prefer the computing reading, spend the day on backups, updates and a password manager.