HERE’S a cheery statistic to start your day. According to Doctor Peter Daszak, president of environmental health non-profit organisation EcoHealth Alliance, there are about 2,000 viruses in the world that we know about. His organisation estimates that there are also 1.7 million lurking in mammals and waterbirds that we don’t. Just in case you were thinking of tucking into some juicy pangolin or bat broth for breakfast this morning.
In The Jump on Radio 4 last Wednesday, the first of a three-part series, Dr Chris Van Tulleken asked experts about the origins of coronavirus (probably not pangolins actually) and why it might not be the only thing to fear.
Because, Dr Daszak, pointed out, the pace of pandemics is accelerating. The reason? Us, of course. As human activity spreads, the likelihood of us coming into contact with viruses increases. We are destroying animal habitats, we are farming more intensively – including mink, civets, porcupines – we are transporting food (and any attendant viruses) more widely and, quite simply, there are more and more of us.
Read More: Grief in a time of pandemic
Read More: Alastair Campbell is not saying sorry
The programme was both fascinating and horrifying at the same time. You came away from it with a greater appreciation of bats – for a virus to survive in a bat’s super-immune system, they have to be particularly ornery pathogens. And with the fear that coronavirus is just the start of things. All the scientists Van Tulleken spoke to seemed to agree that more viruses will make the jump from animal to human at a greater and greater pace.
And when asked how prepared we are for the next one, Dr Kate Jones suggested the answer was not very. Why? “Because we have the attention span of a gnat,” she suggested. Oh, great.
There was some good news in the programme though. All the scientists agreed that the chances of a virus like Covid-19 being manufactured in a lab were pretty unlikely. The viruses were much better at working how to be contagious and dangerous than scientists, it seems.
Oh, and our changing tastes might help. The more young people move away from eating unusual food and settle for pizza the better. Basically, we need to cross our fingers and say thank God for Domino’s.
Listen Out For: Frank Skinner, Absolute Radio, Saturday, 8am. I’ve rather lost touch with Frank Skinner’s Saturday morning show. Wonder if he still plays The Fall every week?
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel