Back in the carefree days of early January 2020, when a spat among the royal family dominated the headlines, I noticed a short article on a newswire about a man in Wuhan, China, who had died of pneumonia, caused by a “yet to be identified virus”. He was one of 41 people to have caught the mystery virus. It piqued my interest and I knew just the person to write about it: a virologist at Queen’s University Belfast called Connor Bamford.

We published that first article on the “novel coronavirus” on January 13 2020. A year on and nearly 2 million deaths later, Connor reflects on what we have learned – and what we still desperately need to learn – about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that changed the world.

If the past year has taught us anything, it’s the value of science and scientists – experts are now back in vogue. Who would have thought that in less than a year, we’d have not one but a range of highly effective vaccines against the coronavirus? (The previous record time to develop a vaccine was four years, for mumps.) Now we face the daunting task of getting everyone vaccinated – while new variants continue to emerge, including the latest from Brazil. In a new weekly series, Rob Reddick, one of our specialist COVID-19 editors, brings you the latest reports on the COVID vaccines.

Elsewhere, new research reveals companies are buying carbon credits from long completed solar and wind farms that do little to offset today’s emissions. And we discover how to learn a foreign language by watching films and TV shows.

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