We Need to Change Our Food System to Stop the Next Pandemic | Time

Once a dangerous new pathogen is out, as we are seeing, it can be difficult if not impossible to prevent it going global. One as contagious as SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to infect the whole of humanity. Eighty per cent of cases may be benign, but with such a large pool of susceptible hosts, the numbers who experience severe illness and die can still be shockingly high. So the only sensible answer to the question, how do we stop this from happening again, is: by doing all we can to prevent such pathogens infecting humans in the first place. And that means taking a long, hard look at our relationship with the natural world, and particularly with the animals that sustain us.


Agricultural laborers spray against insects and weeds inside the orchards of a fruit farm in Mesa, California. Brent Stirton—Getty Images

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Scientific Research and Pandemic Prevention - EcoHealth Alliance

Building on over 45+ years of groundbreaking science, EcoHealth Alliance is a global environmental health nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and public health from the emergence of disease.



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Dramatic Satellite Images Show Air Pollution Remains Low as Europeans Stay at Home

Further analyses are showing the continued low levels of nitrogen dioxide concentrations across Europe – coinciding with lockdown measures implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus. New data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, from the European Union Copernicus program, show some cities seeing levels fall by 45—50% compared to the same period last year.


These images, using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, show the average nitrogen dioxide concentrations from  March 13 to April 13, 2020, compared to the March-April averaged concentrations from 2019. The percentage decrease is derived over selected cities in Europe and has an uncertainty of around 15% owing to weather differences between 2019 and 2020. Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019-20), processed by KNMI/ESA

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To all who compare Covid-19 to the seasonal flu and think the shutdown is not necessary

To all who compare Covid-19 to the seasonal flu and think the shutdown is not necessary.

• Seasonal flues affect about 1,000,000,000 (that is 1 billion) people per year, causing 290,000 to 650,000 deaths - a death rate of 0.07%. Source: WHO March 1, 2020
• As of 4/15/2020, COVID-19 affected 1914916 people worldwide (confirmed cases) with 123010 confirmed deaths - that is a death rate of 6.42% - or about 100 times the death rate of a regular seasonal flu. Source: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/
• The only seasonal flu that was as devastating was the Spanish flue of 1918 that infected about 500 million people or one-third of the world's population and killed an estimated 50 million people (10%). Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/reconstruction-1918-virus.html
• All other significant epidemic and pandemic outbreaks in recent history infected far less people and/or had a much lower fatality (see Figure below)

Why we must close high-risk wildlife markets | Stories | WWF

The disease COVID-19 has caused a health crisis worldwide. We don't know the full and devastating reach of this pandemic yet, but we do understand how it underscores the destructive impacts of wildlife trade and consumption on human health and societies.

COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus, is a zoonotic disease, meaning it originated from an animal. The source of the outbreak is believed to have been a "wet market" in Wuhan, China, that sold live and dead wildlife and domestic animals, along with other foods for human consumption. Such markets can be a living petri dish, with viruses shed by stressed animals warehoused together mixing with other bodily fluids in unhygienic conditions. When these often new or unknown viruses jump to people, the results can be catastrophic.

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We just spent two weeks surveying the Great Barrier Reef. What we saw was an utter tragedy

Unfortunately, while the world is paralyzed by COVID-19, the climate catastrophe gets worse...


The 2020 coral bleaching event was the second-worst in more than two decades. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

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New research suggests industrial livestock, not wet markets, might be origin of Covid-19

New research suggests industrial livestock, not wet markets, might be origin of Covid-19