How to stop the next pandemic before it begins
Transcriber: Eunice Tan
Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Who is to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic?
It’s a critical question in the face
of a trillion-dollar catastrophe.
This pandemic was not some act of God;
it wasn’t even unpredictable.
Like many of our most notorious pandemics,
COVID-19 happened primarily because of us,
because of humans,
because of our actions and decisions.
But probably not in the way you think.
It wasn’t engineered
or manufactured in a lab.
It wasn’t caused by the Chinese
government’s attempts to hide the virus
or a failure of leadership in the US.
Those are critical factors on why
we’re experiencing millions of cases,
hundreds and thousands of deaths,
and severe economic and social disruption.
But they didn’t cause
the virus’s emergence.
The virus came from wild animals,
spreading to people because
of our behaviors that put us at risk.
That’s why only we can make sure
this doesn’t happen again.
I’m a conservation biologist
focused on wildlife protection.
Much of my work is concentrated in Africa,
with an emphasis on elephants.
In addition to trying to gain
deeper understanding
of these magnificent creatures,
I work to stop the illegal trade in ivory
that’s decimating the species.
We are putting enormous time,
money, and even human lives
into trying to stop poaching.
But to save elephants,
we need to stop the cause of poaching,
and that’s the demand for ivory.
This recipe is as true for elephants
as it is for diseases.
We need to move beyond treating symptoms
and examine the underlying causes
if we’re to stop outbreaks
from happening in the first place.
So you might be asking yourself,
why am I up here
speaking to you about COVID-19?
Well, it turns out COVID-19
is a zoonotic disease,
meaning it comes from animals to people.
And this is the genesis of the majority
of emerging infectious diseases globally:
HIV, Ebola, even the plague
and Lyme disease,
all of which have
and continue to kill millions.
These diseases jump from animals
to people through interactions,
particularly the exposure
to bodily fluids.
And I’m not talking about
the random stranger that kisses
the mouth of my poop-eating dog,
though that is highly questionable
for so many reasons.
It’s exposure to the blood,
saliva, and feces of animals,
getting bitten or scratched by animals,
and even eating them.
And that might sound shocking,
but it turns out these types of contacts
are happening every day
all over the world,
when we bring thousands
of animals together
as we raise and slaughter livestock,
when we capture, buy, and sell wildlife,
and when we destroy wildlife habitat,
pushing animals towards our cities
in their search for food and shelter.
COVID-19’s notorious epicenter
in Wuhan was a wet market -
this is a grocery store
that sells and slaughters live animals.
And I’m not talking about lobster tanks,
but civet cats and rodents
and all sorts of species
that would normally never come in contact
with each other in the wild.
Yet there they were,
locked in cages
stacked on top of each other,
allowing easy exposure to bodily fluids
and whatever pathogens
they may have been harboring,
all while people were meandering
about nearby, shopping.
These are prime spillover conditions.
And before we point our fingers at China,
I want to be clear that
this is happening all over the world.
We’re all complicit.
In fact, do you want to guess
what is considered to be the number two
destination for illegal wildlife?
It’s the United States of America.
By moving animals around the world
in stressful conditions,
the wildlife trade is a key contributor
to zoonotic disease emergence.
Every step of the commodity chain,
more and more exposure happens
as we bring different species that never
would come in contact in the wild
together,
and humans come in contact
with that strange mix of animals.
This gives pathogens a perfect opportunity
to jump between individuals,
across species, and to us
that naturally would never occur.
A recent study on coronaviruses -
yes, the same family as COVID-19 -
in the live rat trade,
a common food in Vietnam,
found that about 20 percent of rats
were infected at the time of capture.
By the time they were sold to consumers,
55 percent of rats were infected.
The wildlife trade,
by moving animals around,
increases exposure.
The animals that we capture
for the wildlife trade are often weak,
or they become weakened
through the process,
and that makes them
more susceptible to diseases.
Multiple Ebola outbreaks
appear to have begun
when a person found
a disoriented great ape
and captured it.
The poor souls that butchered
and ate that animal
start the outbreak by falling ill,
spreading the disease to their families
and friends and coworkers
as they’re dying.
And this propensity
to capture sick animals is universal.
Here in Colorado,
chronic wasting disease in mule deer,
which is like a mad cow disease for deer,
is found in about one to three percent
of randomly sampled deer in a population,
but 16 percent of harvested bucks.
Luckily, chronic wasting disease
hasn’t jumped to people.
In addition to directly capturing,
trading, and eating animals,
we’re also drawing them to us
by destroying their homes.
By reducing wildlife habitat,
we force animals to move around
in search of new places to live,
and those can often become
our homes or yards or schools.
Nipah virus, on which
the movie “Contagion” was based,
spilled over from bats
after the clearing of native forests,
the bats' homes,
for palm oil plantations -
yes, palm oil -
found in every American grocery store
and products like candy,
Nutella, chips, soaps, and lipsticks.
After losing their forest homes,
the bats moved into
human-dominated landscapes,
and then … spillover.
And Nipah virus has a fatality rate
of up to 75 percent -
far worse than COVID-19.
Again, our actions -
destroying wildlife habitat,
causing animals to move -
is happening all over the world,
from the clearing
of the Brazilian rainforest
to suburban development
right here in Colorado.
One of the best ways
we can prevent the next COVID-19
is to stop the behaviors
that facilitate the transmission
of diseases between species and to us.
Whether we like it or not,
infectious disease emergence
is a game of chance,
not unlike your favorite card game,
say poker or bridge,
but probably more aptly
like Russian roulette.
The animals that we live with, eat,
and fight to keep out
of our homes and our crops -
you know, think about moles
on your golf course -
they’re constantly
exchanging and sharing
viruses and bacteria
and protozoa and fungi with us.
Our actions can amplify or reduce
the odds of spillover.
Given the cost of losing this game,
why aren’t we doing
everything in our power
to tilt the odds in our favor?
Conservationists like myself
have been working to protect wildlife
and their landscapes for decades.
And it turns out
these very conservation goals
are also the actions
that can tilt the odds in our favor.
Ending the global trade
in mammals and birds is a key first step.
The wildlife trade affects all of us,
whether we’re directly buying
and consuming these animals or not.
We need to elect politicians
that take this issue and science seriously
and recognize the fundamentally
critical role the US plays
in global health and disease prevention.
Key individual actions you can take,
beyond not buying ivory or exotic pets,
include buying locally,
eating more plants than animals,
and avoiding products
that lead to deforestation, like palm oil.
Tellingly, my colleagues and I were not
surprised or caught off guard by COVID-19.
Rather, we thought our actions
were making such a pandemic inevitable.
That might be hard to hear,
but given the general apathy
about infectious disease
and the environmental problems
underpinning their emergence,
I think it needs to be said.
The big worry among many
is not the eventual total case
and death count from COVID-19 -
it’s the likelihood that another,
more lethal pathogen spills over.
And not in 10 or 20 years -
right now,
when our attention is subsumed
by the current pandemic.
We are playing the spillover
probability game every day,
and having our full medical diagnostic
development and monitoring capabilities
focus solely on the current pandemic
does not put the odds in our favor.
This pandemic is a wake-up call.
While awful,
it could have been much worse -
the lethality of the first
SARS coronavirus was 10 times higher.
We are pouring
so much energy and heartache
into dealing with
the daily threats of COVID-19.
But we also must focus on the factors
that led to its emergence
in the first place.
Conservation is about more
than just protecting cute animals
and beautiful vistas -
it’s also about protecting us.
COVID-19 has shown us, viscerally,
what can go wrong.
Now is the time for us
to truly invest in our conservation goals,
reduce the odds of spillover,
and make sure we stop
the next pandemic before it even begins.
Thank you.