With the new American administration taking charge, we are reminded of how the Coronavirus pandemic played an instrumental role in both the fall and the return of the Trump administration. What is widely being deemed an errant executive order to withdrawal the United States from the World Health Organization emanates from Trump’s scars from that tumultuous period in recent history. Human ambivalence on the threat of viruses continues to polarize our politics and so it may be instructive to consider what might be some areas of consensus that can be found on the science of viral research. Furthermore, the need for understanding viruses and their transmission is likely to have profound consequences on a broad range of other policies on transport, immigration and commerce. So let us consider some common-sense approaches to research on viruses for a more sustainable future.
Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg famously said that “the single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus.” The biological entities called viruses exist in the twilight zone between life and non-life and remain an elusive subject of evolutionary study. While the invisible biotic world of microbiology is often synonymous with dread, only around 1% of all microbes can actually cause disease in humans. Within the realm of microbes, bacteria, unlike viruses, have found redemption in our contemporary worldview through their positive role in digestive processes. Viruses have received less attention for their constructive role in ecological sustainability but their virtue should not be completely eclipsed by their vice.
If we are simply to consider viruses (excluding other pathogenic agents like bacteria), there are around 220 known types of viruses that are known to cause disease in humans. However, there are an estimated 320,000 virus types just in mammals (based on statistical extrapolations). An estimate published in 2013 suggested that it would cost ~$6.3 billion to discover these viruses (or ~$1.4 billion for 85% of the total diversity). Currently, there is a fairly well-funded organization called the Global Virome Project which is undertaking such an inventory since 2018. However, several more years are needed before this project can show clear preventative results against pandemics.
There are also detractors of such virus inventory work who have feel that funds would be better spent on surveillance of disease clusters and better coordination across global hospital reporting standards. Such an approach could also be a safeguard against wider population exposure to pathogens from lab accidents which may ensue from the inventory research. Clearly, given the staggering economic cost of the current pandemic, investment in both inventory and surveillance approaches would be justifiable and far less costly than the trillions of dollars in bail-out packages being implemented over just a few months of this crisis. Furthermore, even if surveillance is a more urgent mechanism against pandemic spread, viral inventories might also have a side benefit of perhaps discovering some virtuous viruses in the process which help us with nanotechnology research.
Our aim should be to ensure, as best possible, that no virus or pathogenic entity is “novel” in an age when we have so many analytical tools at our disposal. Developing such a knowledge base would be an essential step in then charting out our sustainable coexistence path with the biotic diversity on our planet. Greater coordination between major environmental research projects and public health research entities deserves immediate attention. The next step may be more specific project coordination and data collection with organizations such as the Global Environment Facility and its implementing agencies that particularly service the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. There is good evidence for the systemic linkages between biodiversity, land degradation and climate change which in turn can be threat multipliers for pandemic vulnerability.
Finally, while current environmental indicators may seem to be improving in some areas as result of low human activity patterns in the pandemic, there is no room to be sanguine. Recovery from such disruptions means finding an optimal path between caution and paranoia. We will need to find win-win opportunities for lifestyles with lower ecological impacts while still mitigating health risks that can spark survivalist selfishness. For example, a return to using low carbon public transport with greater hygiene care while not impacting risks of future contagions. Ultimately, in the post-COVID19 era, global health governance mechanisms like the WHO, will need to be more tightly coupled with individual responsibility if we are to have an ecologically and economically efficient path forward towards sustainable development.
Read the full article here
