[Music]
it has been just over two years since
the world health organization made this
announcement
who
has been assessing this outbreak
around the clock
and we're deeply concerned both by the
alarming levels of spread and severity
and by the alarming
levels
of inaction
we have therefore made the assessment
that covid19 can be
characterized as a pandemic
now some experts argue this pandemic was
actually a symptom of a much bigger
problem our world's deteriorating
ecosystems
we spoke to scientists about what we
learned these last two years and how we
can prevent the next pandemic
where did covid come from
scientists have been investigating that
throughout the pandemic two studies
released in late february point strongly
toward infected bats at a market in
wuhan china it's an animal to human
infection what researchers call zoonotic
spillover there's two major components
one is the conditions that allow the
bats to be infected and to be excreting
the viruses and those are conditions
usually of environmental stress another
event that has to happen is there has to
be contact between humans and the
pathogen the national institutes of
health estimate that spillover accounts
for 75
of new infectious diseases that has more
scientists embracing the concept of one
health one health is a concept that
our health humanities health is
intertwined with the health of
ecosystems and the health of animals
including wildlife and livestock when we
have a breakdown in the health of one
species it can then trickle on to affect
the health of others humans and animals
are in closer proximity these days for
lots of reasons land management
deforestation intensive farming
practices and climate change that
creates new opportunities for diseases
to spread if a bat is shedding a
pathogen in a forest away from humans
then no one really no one cares it
doesn't matter to anyone but if a bat is
shedding a pathogen and there's a person
nearby or shedding a pathogen in a
village because it's seeking extra food
sources then we can see a spill over
there if you can imagine every time
we're encroaching into natural habitats
dressing wildlife populations
bringing people and wildlife together
particularly within the context of
wildlife trade where we're aggregating
multiple species we're stacking them on
top of each other in cages in extremely
stressful conditions animals defecating
urinating on each other with
across species and then
transported along supply chains where
you're aggregating more and more animals
i mean this is
these kinds of conditions are the
perfect storm jack dangermond is the
founder and ceo of esri a geographic
mapping company by putting geographic
stuff in the computer and overlaying
these layers you can see things you can
analyze things and see things that are
are only imaginable esri software helped
visualize the spread of covet making the
pandemic easier to understand it as a
technology and as a piece of media
woke up the world to the fact that we're
all interrelated the kova 19 pandemic
brought into sharper relief for us just
how important it is to get these
predictions upstream as far as we can
to head off these types of catastrophes
everything is connected and if we don't
have sort of this
ecosystem approach to
solving problems then we're going to
solve them in little tiny bits and
pieces maybe not understanding the
consequences to those vast systems that
are interrelated in 2009 the cdc
established a one health office its
efforts focus on education as well as
collaboration with other health agencies
i think for people working in the
area of one health the fact that an
emerging coronavirus could cause a
global pandemic is
not a surprise it's something that
we've seen evidence of with the severe
acute respiratory syndrome
back in 2003 but knowing the links
between ecosystems and outbreaks is one
thing
making the changes we need to survive is
another this pandemic is
a symptom of our faltering relationship
with nature we need to look very
carefully at how
we are connected and our health is
connected with the health of ecosystems
and until we start to do that until we
start to value ecosystem health as
a service for human health then we're
going to see more and more events just
like the one that we're experiencing
right now
i know that we are in a very dark place
with covenant 19 and it feels like we're
never going to get out of it it feels
like this is just a harbinger of more
disease issues to come
and maybe that's true but i don't think
that this is something to despair over
it is a wake-up call that we have been
fortunate to learn from now and i think
that it really is a sort of a motivator
and it's
initiating a sea change in action that i
think will we will see the benefits of
for decades to come
let's continue now with dr barbara hahn
a disease ecologist at the cary
institute of ecosystem studies dr han
welcome
hi thanks for having me
so talk about what you've been looking
for these days i understand that you use
artificial intelligence and mapping to
study zoonotic disease outbreaks what
are you seeing these days
yeah we're looking for i mean the the
goal for the sarsko v2 work is really to
try to get ahead of what we thought was
happening you know down the line which
is that uh most humans are the ones
carrying it now they're most of us are
have been infected or are going to be
infected at some point and so the idea
was well if it came from an animal and
it got into humans and now humans have
it the chances of it getting back into
an animal are quite high and we just
wanted to get ahead of it and think
about what are the animals we should be
surveilling what are the species that we
could um be looking at now to prevent
new variants from arising
so that's what we've been working on
we've been using machine learning and
whatever data we can get our hands on to
to make these predictions
last week the un environment program
joined an alliance with the world health
organization to implement a one health
approach what's your sense of how
other nations non-governmental
organizations intergovernmental bodies
of how seriously they're taking this
idea now
i think it is uh
i think there's no question that the
that the world leaders have considered
zoonotic diseases to be a problem but i
think that there's no ignoring the fact
that we have to act on it now and so i
think that these types of initiatives
these sorts of global coalitions are
coming together are really important for
um taking action on things that
scientists have been warning about for
years
so what we have is a lot of knowledge
built up and there's still more
knowledge to be gained for sure but what
we need is action what we need is
organized
sustained a full court press right to
get ahead of things and to keep moving
in a direction where we know we can make
a difference in prevention and i think
this is one really great step in that
direction
i have to admit that as educated and
thoughtful a person as i am when i heard
about this the first thing my mind
flashed to
was every zombie movie i have ever seen
human to animal diseases is world war z
it's i am legend it's resident evil it's
like all of these stories that don't end
well are we talking about something that
is just kind of bound to be
a mortal threat to all of humanity not
necessarily zombies walking around but
you know what i'm getting at like this
idea of animals passing diseases to
humans it never ends well and we never
get ahead of it like how concerned about
this should we be
i mean you know i wouldn't take it
lightly i mean sure those movies exist
for a reason because we have this fear
that it could happen and i think we
should pay attention to that but i also
think that we should think look around
us and think about what we've achieved
as
a human society right we have
i'm on skype with you right now i mean
we're in lockdown and still making the
world go around and so i'm very
optimistic that um science and the world
leaders action takers folks who really
care about taking care of sick people
taking care of
conserving our planet and making sure
that we are
growing in a sustainable way i think
science can achieve a lot and science
has achieved a lot and i think the
coronavirus pandemic is that wake-up
call i sense a sea change in the way
that we are tackling these kinds of
complex and global problems i see a
change in the way we are investing in
our future um so yeah zombie movies are
i'm a scientist so i'm not gonna say
it's a zero percent chance but i will
say that i remain quite optimistic that
we as scientists have some some more
tricks up our sleeve but i think that we
uh we have some solutions to offer here
i i won't be upset if you say it's a
zero percent chance but that's a whole
other conversation the other thing that
this made me think and i hear you in
terms of the optimism i really do
because we did accomplish a lot based on
years of basic research
once covet 19 showed up we were able to
accomplish quite a bit in a rather short
period of time the other thing i would
ask you about before i have to let you
go is this also made me think about the
effort to get people to recycle right
there's been a lot made of the
individual steps we can take to save the
planet and lately we've been talking
about the gap between what people can do
on their own and what governments have
to do together because it's the only way
to make major changes how much of the
response in this kind of one health way
of thinking
it has to do with things that i can do
individually as opposed to things that
the world has to do collectively
i think it it goes hand in hand right i
mean when we look at our backyards when
we look at um our our lawns like we we
want to be clean we want to take good
care of ourselves we want to take good
care of our bodies those little
incremental changes in like let's not
use as much water let's be a little bit
cleaner about the kinds of products that
we buy
let's make sure to recycle i think these
small changes are easy to implement as
individuals and i think if we
collectively understand that our small
actions can add up to make a huge
difference um not just in preventing
zoonotic spillovers but in giving us
cleaner water cleaner air and that one
health framework that all of health is
interconnected including our own i think
that it feels more empowering it feels
like we have a role to play in solutions
and very briefly in our last few seconds
is there one small step that you would
ask more people to take
um be better consumers think about what
you're buying and the and the footprint
that it leaves on the planet and i think
that as as consumers we have a lot of
power with our dollars so thinking
carefully about what you're investing in
and what you're not investing it is a
really important step
dr barbara hahn of the carey institute i
appreciate you indulging my zombie
reference these movies i think they are
way overdone and they keep me up at
night so i don't like them but i
appreciate you helping me understand
this idea and and what we can do thank
you very much
well i hope you could rest easy tonight
thanks
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