Coronavirus Showed How Globalization Broke the World – The New York Times

The coronavirus that caused SARS was hosted by bats and palm civets. It jumped to humans because we had been pushing and pushing high-density urban population centers more deeply into wilderness areas, destroying that natural buffer and replacing it with monoculture crops and concrete.

When you simultaneously accelerate development in ways that destroy more and more natural habitats and then hunt for more wildlife there, the natural balance of species collapses due to loss of top predators and other iconic species, leading to an abundance of more generalized species adapted to live in human-dominated habitats, Johan Rockstrom, the chief scientist at Conservation International, explained to me.

These include rats, bats, palm civets and some primates, which together host a majority of all known viruses that can be passed on to humans. And when these animals are then hunted, trapped and taken to markets in particular in China, Central Africa and Vietnam, where they are sold for food, traditional medicine, potions and pets they endanger humans, who did not evolve with these viruses.

SARS jumped from mainland China to Hong Kong in February 2003, when a visiting professor, Dr. Liu Jianlun, who unknowingly had SARS, checked into Room 911 at Hong Kongs Metropole Hotel.

Yup, Room 9-1-1. I am not making that up.

By the time he checked out, The Washington Post reported, Liu had spread a deadly virus directly to at least eight guests. They would unknowingly take it with them to Singapore, Toronto, Hong Kong and Hanoi, where the virus would continue to spread. Of more than 7,700 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome tallied so far worldwide, the World Health Organization estimates that more than 4,000 can be traced to Lius stay on the ninth floor of the Metropole Hotel.

It is important to note, though, that SARS was contained by July 2003 before becoming a full-fledged pandemic thanks in large part to rapid quarantines and tight global cooperation among public health authorities in many countries. Collaborative multinational governance proved to be a good buffer.

Alas, that was then. The latest coronavirus is aptly named SARS-CoV-2 with emphasis on the number 2. We dont yet know for sure where this coronavirus that causes the disease Covid-19 came from, but it is widely suspected to have jumped to a human from a wild animal, maybe a bat, in Wuhan, China. Similar jumps are bound to happen more and more as we keep stripping away natures natural biodiversity and buffers.

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Coronavirus Showed How Globalization Broke the World - The New York Times