Getting out of this pandemic and staying out of the next one

[Music]

a mysterious respiratory illness shows

up in our city

and starts spreading through our

hospitals killing one out of every 10

people it infects

we soon realize that we’re not alone the

same thing

is happening in other cities around the

world

now here in toronto a colleague of mine

another infectious disease physician

gets sick with the illness and since

we’re both in the same line of work

i start imagining scenarios where i’m

getting infected

we learn that the outbreak likely

started in an animal market in china

and is caused by a virus the world has

never seen before

and has no immunity to under a

microscope it looks a bit like the sun

so it’s called a coronavirus

now this isn’t the story of covid19

this happened 18 years ago

it’s the story of the first novel

coronavirus outbreak

sars which spread to dozens of countries

around the world

now thankfully my colleagues survived

but other health care workers

died on the front lines

the world had never seen anything like

this before but it was clear

this wouldn’t be the last time the clock

to the next outbreak was already ticking

and we weren’t prepared and after

watching this virus our city

i knew that preparing for the next

outbreak or the next pandemic

that this would be the most important

work i would do in my lifetime

and when you’re trying to confront

something as big as a pandemic

it’s pretty easy to feel small

now i’m sure you felt this way at some

point in your life

there’s a problem you see in the world

and it needs a solution

but it’s big but it’s hard to know where

to begin and hard to know if your

efforts will

make a difference but it’s also

important to remember that

every pandemic in history started

with just one person now there’s a

passage in the talmud that has always

resonated with me as a physician

it says whoever saves a single life

it is considered as if they have saved

the entire world

and the lesson is that when we touch one

person’s life

we have no idea what they might then

bring to the rest of the world

and what it reveals is that our actions

however small and insignificant they may

seem in the moment

can create a series of ripples that

ultimately

reach and impact all of humanity

and it’s a powerful idea that inspired

me to take that first step

so i spent the next 10 years studying

outbreaks and how they spread

in doing so i analyzed billions of data

points on the world’s air travel

which is comprised of this vast network

of arteries that

binds the global community together it

was fascinating

research because it was a bit like

studying the anatomy and physiology of a

global organism

now within this network we’ve learned

that outbreak spread

incredibly fast and that if we want to

stay a step ahead

we’re going to have to move even faster

so as a physician and a scientist

i took a complete leap of faith and

founded a company

called bluedot to translate the

discoveries from my research

into digital technologies that could

literally spread knowledge around the

world faster

than any outbreak and for the past seven

years

bluedot’s eclectic team of doctors and

scientists and engineers

we’ve been building a global early

warning system

for outbreaks now this system

uses artificial intelligence to detect

murmurs

of emerging outbreaks across the planet

by reading and sorting through vast

amounts of online data

in 65 different languages and it does

this every 15 minutes 24 hours a day

it then connects each outbreak we detect

with data on the world’s travel pattern

so we can anticipate

how these outbreaks will spread this

system

generates the intelligence we need to

mobilize timely

effective and better coordinated

responses to outbreaks

so let’s fast forward to the morning of

december 31st

2019. now as most of us were preparing

to ring in the new decade

our system pushed out an alert of an

unusual cluster

of pneumonia cases in a city called

wuhan in china

a few seconds later it identified the

cities that we should be looking to next

bangkok and tokyo were at the top of

that list

and because our team was particularly

concerned about this event

we then published the first

peer-reviewed scientific study on this

outbreak in early january

so we could share our findings with the

world

now a few days later the first case

outside of china is reported in bangkok

and three days later the second case is

reported in tokyo

now at this moment my heart sinks

because

in order for cases to show up in these

cities

this means that the outbreak in wuhan

has to be

much larger than the official report

suggests

and then we learn that the outbreak

is caused by a coronavirus that the

world has never seen before

and has no immunity to

now as the outbreak continues to spread

i’m increasingly concerned that it’s

just a matter of time before this virus

shows up in our city and it’s a bit of a

surreal time because

i’m seeing people go about their daily

lives

blissfully unaware of the disruption

that is coming

now a few days later after our kids are

in bed

my wife and i go over my life insurance

policies and my will

because i would soon be working at the

hospital

treating patients with infectious

diseases

and this angst that i felt 18 years

earlier

deep in the pit of my stomach during the

sars outbreak

that feeling was now back

so here we are in the midst of the worst

pandemic

in a hundred years and today we all

understand

just how interconnected our world is

but i’m not sure we fully appreciate

just how interdependent

our world is now there’s an aphorism

you’ve likely heard

those who cannot remember the past are

condemned

to repeat it do you remember

the zika outbreak a few years ago

or the ebola outbreak a few years before

that or

the h1n1 flew pandemic a few years

before that

in just the past 10 years the world

health organization has declared six

outbreaks

to be global public health emergencies

now that’s an average of one global

emergency every 20 months

which means if we continue on our

current path

there’s a good chance we will find

ourselves in another dangerous outbreak

during this pandemic or shortly

thereafter so what do so many

of these outbreaks have in common

they started when viruses

normally found in animals made the leap

over to humans

we’re stuck in a cycle and

mother nature’s trying to tell us

something she’s trying to tell us that

our health

our security our prosperity

these things that we value are deeply

intertwined with the health of other

living systems across our planet

when we industrialize agriculture and

consume

billions of livestock every year

we’re creating sparks that could ignite

the next dangerous outbreak

or the next pandemic

when we consume wild animals or when our

actions

or our inactions lead to the disruption

of wildlife ecosystems

we’re opening up a pandora’s box of

viruses that could be far worse

than cobit 19.

now our memory of these past outbreaks

faded quickly but this time

mother nature has hit the pause button

for all of us

she’s forcing us to reflect and

encouraging us

to interact more gracefully with our

planet

now getting ahead of outbreaks has been

my life’s work

but i know that it’s not enough the

amazing people i work with at blue dot

can tell the world

that a storm is coming and can help to

safely

navigate through it but we can’t prevent

that storm from happening

that task belongs to you

now i know it’s easy

to feel small and to be overwhelmed by

the sheer scale of this problem

but remember that every pandemic

starts with just one person and know

that there are things you can do

every day to help keep us out of the

next pandemic

in our household we put this into

practice every time we sit down and have

a meal together

before we eat we say itadakimasu

it’s a phrase i first heard in japan and

it literally translates to

i humbly accept and

we’ve used it as an opportunity to be

more mindful

of how something as simple as the foods

we choose to eat

can have far reaching impacts across the

globe

18 years ago i watched a tiny virus

humble an entire city

and that moment was my calling

today a tiny virus has humbled the

entire planet

and this moment might be your calling

covid19 has captured the attention of

every government

every business and every person on the

planet

which is pretty remarkable that we’re

all focused on this one thing

so we’ve got a rare opportunity to help

the world break free of this destructive

cycle

that we’re currently in and to create a

world

that is better than the one we had

before the pandemic

remember whoever saves a single life

it is considered as if they have saved

the entire

world those words inspired me to take my

first step

i hope that they will inspire you to

take yours