- [Klaus] Wuhan, China, the place where the COVID-19 virus
is believed to have first transmitted to humans
at a wet market where people and animals
in squalid conditions are in constant close contact.
So we've all become familiar of the uncomfortable details
of this market and it's fueled a narrative
that takes aim at Chinese culture.
- Wuhan, or the Chinese coronavirus.
- [TV Host] The Chinese coronavirus.
- How deadly is coronavirus?
- A foreign virus.
- Foreign virus.
- As a quote foreign virus.
- The COVID-19 is not the first virus of its kind
and it's not likely to be the last.
So why are we not asking uncomfortable questions?
Was Wuhan around an outlier or was it a symptom
of a much bigger global issue
that the media are not reporting?
Hey, everybody, this is Klaus
and in the last couple of weeks I've been looking
into the history of infectious disease
and viral outbreaks.
And I've come across some interesting theories
about COVID-19.
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I did a little bit more digging
and I found that these conspiracy theories
have yet to stand up to scientific scrutiny,
but what I did find was even scarier
because it turns out that virtually
all of the infectious diseases from the past
have all come from an animal host.
If we take the early 20th century for example,
the Spanish flu is believed to have come
from the Avian family.
And HIV which is identified as emanating
from humans eating chimpanzees.
Then something happened from the 1990s
that meant that these viral outbreaks,
these infectious diseases coming from an animal host
became more common.
SARS, swine flu, Ebola, MERS and now the coronavirus.
These are just some examples of outbreaks
that originated from animal hosts
from all over the world.
And to understand how this is happening,
how these viral outbreaks from animal hosts
have become more common, we need to look
at how our food system has changed in recent years.
Since 1961, the human population has more than doubled.
In that same time global meat production
has increased by more than four times.
That means that each of us now consume
20 kilograms more meat per year on average
than we did 60 years ago.
And to keep up with this ever increasing demand
we've obviously had to change the way
we farm animals for meat.
In the early 20th century, livestock was typically reared
on small-scale, family run farms.
Animals tended to have space to roam outdoors.
Production was relatively limited
and meat and dairy were luxuries.
Today our insatiable appetite for chicken breasts
or burger steaks has meant intensive animal farming
has become the norm.
But what is it about this intense vocation
that makes viral outbreaks more common?
It comes down to the fact that when any animal
is confined in close proximity
with no space to roam and under immense emotional stress,
conditions are ripe for disease.
A perfect example is the Spanish flu of 1918.
Here humans are packed together in trenches,
malnourished with the constant stress of combat.
Their impaired immunity is likely
to have increased the rate of transmission
and made the virus highly pathogenic.
In the same way, livestock are routinely subjected
to cramped, confined and unhygienic conditions.
Not only does this increase the probability
of transmitting a virus, it also raises
the prospect of mutations.
Take the influenza virus which has been responsible
for all the major pandemics in the past century.
When it is present in its natural reservoir
of aquatic birds or bats, the virus is relatively harmless
but if it passes to another species,
or from one species to another in quick succession
the virus can mutate rapidly.
Each mutation makes the virus more pathogenic.
New strains of the virus can develop
and the likelihood increases that one such strain
can be transmitted to mammals including humans.
This process is known as antigenic shift.
Humans don't have immunity to these new strains
of the virus and certainly not a vaccine
which makes the job of planning for the next pandemic
all the more difficult.
Big money is currently being poured
into the race for COVID-19 vaccine.
Central banks are announcing record stimulus packages
to boost the economy.
Healthcare systems are under strain.
And yet, why is there such reluctance
to address the root cause particularly from our media?
When we performed headline analysis,
it showed that of the 51,669 media articles published
in the last 30 days about COVID-19,
only 2.1% mention the word animal
and only 0.3% mention the word farm.
To talk about a pandemic without consistently
discussing its origins is like holding a murder trial
and not mentioning the number one suspect
caught red handed.
It's irresponsible and misleading.
In a recent Telegraph article titled
"Coronavirus could have been prevented, scientists say"
the author explains how increased contact
with wildlife is responsible for viral pandemics.
The focus again being on wildlife
with no mention of limiting meat consumption
as a potential solution.
Not only are media platforms not discussing the issue,
some seem to be silencing those that do.
Let's look at one situation for example
where a social media post by earthlinged
discussing the link between eating animals and disease
was flagged as partially false by Instagram
and then removed.
What the media need to do is catch up
with what public health experts
have been saying for decades.
12 years ago for example Dr. Michael Greger,
author of "Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching"
called industrialized animal farming
a perfect storm environment for infectious diseases.
If we actually want to create global pandemics,
he explained, then build factory farms.
This is being supported by scientists
over and over for years including
by World Health Organization representative
Dr. Gauden Galea.
He said, "As long as people eat meat,
"there is going to be some risk of infection."
So why are the media under-reporting the common origins
of all of these viral outbreaks?
I think it comes down to this.
The economics of industrialized farming
and our commitment to tradition
when it comes to eating meat and dairy
outweigh concerns for human health.
As evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace said,
"It pays to produce a pathogen
"that could kill a billion people."
And that was on the back cover of his book,
"Big Farms Make Big Flu."
What he's basically saying as I understand it
is that as human demand for animal products
continues to grow, intensification of animal farming
is a market-driven response.
After each pandemic, the focus from our society
is mainly to improve farming methods
and practice stricter by security
but what about addressing the cause
rather than the cure.
There's no saying we've seen the worst of it.
Sure, COVID-19, the coronavirus has been terrible,
very, very contagious, but the fatality rate
seems to be less than 10 to 15%.
This could be much higher in the future.
Take the Nipah virus, a highly infectious disease
with a death rate of 40% or more
when transmitted to humans.
It was identified in Malaysia in 1998
in pigs and pig farmers but was quickly contained.
Repeated outbreaks have been reported
but as the Nipah virus is not very contagious
it has not spread further.
In the future it is possible that a virus strain
could emerge from a factory farm
which is both highly contagious and deadly.
So to prevent pandemics like this in the future
we need to start looking at the root cause
and not just the country it came from.
People are already doing it
because it's glaring, it's obvious.
If we fail to take this seriously,
COVID-19 could be the precursor to yet another pandemic
that could have been prevented.
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