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The Man Who Saw the Pandemic Coming

Are spillover events more common now than 50 years ago?

Yes. EcoHealth Alliance, an NGO, and others, looked at all reported outbreaks since 1940. They came to a fairly solid conclusion that we’re looking at an elevation of spillover events two to three times more than what we saw 40 years earlier. That continues to increase, driven by the huge increase in the human population and our expansion into wildlife areas. The single biggest predictor of spillover events is land-use change—more land going to agriculture and more specifically to livestock production.

Are there any signs that this coronavirus will kill itself?

This one has a lower pathogenicity. The lower its virulence, the more likely it’ll become part of an endemic, part of a seasonal event. That’s one of the big things that’s going to be a worry. If it does go quiet over the summer months, then the question’s going to be, “Is it still infecting people?” We could be walking around in the middle of summer with influenza viruses, but they’re not active. They’ve just gone quiet. When the right ecology comes into play, it starts getting cold, and damp, then it starts replicating like crazy. If it’s able to park itself, and not kill its host over the summer months, then we’ve got a virus that has all the telltale signatures of establishing itself as part of our normative landscape, much to our detriment.

So what will it take to make people aware of the global threat of zoonotic diseases?

There’s nothing like a serial assault to heighten your awareness, and that’s what we’re looking at. We’re on a cycle of about every three years of getting something like this. And each time that happens, there’s more awareness that these investments need to be made and sustained. The problem is getting these monies as part of the annual regular non-emergency funding.

Ugh