The recent global pause during COVID-19 pandemic was caused due to :

Question

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Correct — C, SARS-CoV-2. The 'global pause' the question refers to is the worldwide shutdown of travel, workplaces and schooling in 2020, and the organism behind it was Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2. Two names, issued on the same day, are the heart of this item: on 11 February 2020 the Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses named the virus SARS-CoV-2, because its genome placed it as a sister to the 2003 SARS virus, while the World Health Organization named the disease COVID-19 — coronavirus disease 2019. The virus is an enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus of the genus Betacoronavirus; it enters human cells by binding its crown-like spike (S) protein to the ACE2 receptor on the cell surface, a fact UPSC itself tested in 2021. It was first recognised as a cluster of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019. WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 and characterised the outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March 2020; India's nationwide lockdown began on 25 March 2020 — that is the pause. Anchor the wording to the exam: the paper was written for 22 December 2024, by which date the emergency phase was already over — WHO ended the Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 5 May 2023 — and 'recent' means the 2020–22 period, not an ongoing shutdown. As of 2026 the virus still circulates as descendants of the Omicron lineage and is managed as an endemic respiratory infection.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This is the original SARS coronavirus, which caused the outbreak that began in Guangdong province, China, in November 2002 and was contained by July 2003. WHO's final tally was about 8,096 probable cases and 774 deaths across some two dozen countries, and no natural human case has been recorded since 2004. It was the deadlier virus case for case, but far less transmissible, because patients became infectious only after they were visibly ill and could therefore be isolated. SARS-CoV-2 spreads before and without symptoms, which is precisely why one became a contained outbreak and the other a pandemic. Note also the naming order: the 2002 virus was simply 'SARS-CoV' until the 2019 virus arrived and made a numeral necessary.  (b) Wrong family altogether. H5N1 is a subtype of influenza A — an orthomyxovirus, named for its haemagglutinin and neuraminidase surface proteins — and is the highly pathogenic avian influenza that circulates in wild birds and poultry, causing 'bird flu'. Human infections have been sporadic, almost always after close contact with infected birds, and although the case fatality among those infected has been high, the virus has never achieved sustained human-to-human transmission. It has caused mass culling of poultry in India and elsewhere, but it did not cause COVID-19.  (d) There is no such virus. The real organism is MERS-CoV, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and linked to dromedary camels as the animal reservoir; it produced clusters of severe illness with a high case fatality, including a large hospital-linked outbreak in South Korea in 2015, but it too never spread efficiently between people. No 'MERS-CoV-2' has ever been designated, so this option is wrong twice over — wrong virus for COVID-19, and a name that does not exist. The suffix '-2' belongs only to SARS-CoV-2, and the option is planted to catch a candidate matching numerals rather than names.

Concept: Seven coronaviruses are known to infect humans. Four of them — 229E, NL63, OC43 and HKU1 — circulate endemically and cause ordinary colds. The other three crossed from animals into people within living memory and caused severe outbreaks: SARS-CoV in 2002, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 in 2019. All are enveloped RNA viruses whose surface spike proteins give the particle the crown, or corona, seen under an electron microscope. Only SARS-CoV-2 combined severity with efficient pre-symptomatic transmission, and that combination is what turned an outbreak into a pandemic.

State PCS 2024 Q70 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q70 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer