Besides science, I also love a good story. I am a huge movie buff and an avid reader.

While the world continues to grapple with the ever-threatening bird flu without clear solutions, one thing is for sure: our demand for livestock and fur is in urgent need of reevaluation.

IN THE summer of 2013, I was six months pregnant and completing a five-week research attachment at the Chinese Institute of Pathogen Biology outside of Beijing.

In Melbourne, schools have re-opened fully with requirements for regular state-sponsored Covid-19 rapid antigen testing and masks indoors, along with use of air purifiers andoutdoor learning spaces.

MY FIVE-year-old is in a phase where he is very curious about the relative sizes of things.

In November 2019, the first known group of humans fell ill due to a mysterious viral pneumonia and by December 2019, the World Health Organization was alerted to a rapidly spreading disease from a coronavirus later named SARS-CoV-2.

MY 5-year-old was recently fixated on the idea of good and bad bacteria.

To move forward we must adopt a worldview based on current knowledge that is constantly updated.

WHEN the movie "Contagion" came out 10 years ago, I had just completed my Master of Science in Public Health and an internship with the World Health Organisation’s Immunisation, Vaccine and Biologicals Department at their headquarters in Geneva.

“REMEMBER mom, the best thing is not always the obvious thing, ” my seven-year-old solemnly said to me suddenly one evening.

Like in religion and in public health, both requiring individual commitment as well as community solidarity, asking “why?” is of the utmost importance.

It is now day eight of quarantine in Sydney with my two boys.