I did get the warning email. I imagine that the email warning about the virus is the method of transmission for it.
I could be wrong though, because the person who sent it to my grandparents (who know nothing about the dangers of forwarding emails for the 7th time) didn't forward it, but created a fresh email to his address book with nothing but some plain text.
Anyway, my laptop is nearly 4 years old and if it was a car, it'd have about 450,000 miles on it. I'm certainly not complaining about the longevity of the drive.