A Very Modern Plague
Questions around the management of the Covid19 pandemic will dominate discussion as death rates increase and economies collapse. The UK government have had to make choices between slowing the rate of spread thus saving lives but causing long term social and economic damage or allowing it to move unhindered, sacrificing the vulnerable, peaking quickly and enabling a rapid return to normality. Neither option is acceptable and an unprepared government has fumbled and fudged: their strategy is unclear and their incompetence laid bare.
It is important that we can remember some underpinning issues concerning the rise of pandemics themselves. These are significant whether we had a clear pandemic management plan or not.
The emergence and spread of novel viruses has become far more likely as a consequence of societal, economic and geo-political changes which characterise the Anthropocene Period.
Climate Change. Global warming and concomitant extreme weather causes loss of habitats forcing species to move into new and unfamiliar landscapes. Opportunities for viruses to mutate and jump species increase as habitat competition grows.
Population Density. Densely packed cities present opportunities for uncontrolled spreading of infection. Isolation and quarantine become difficult to achieve and the result of this failing in large cities means very rapid mass infection.
Poverty and Food Insecurity. People are forced to gain food from sources with poor hygiene standards and cross-species mutation becomes more likely. A cultural reliance on eating animals and animal products exacerbates this. Poverty inhibits the communities’ chance of both avoiding poor food hygiene and of isolating and supporting unwell people during a viral outbreak.
Global travel. The scale of international flights means disease outbreaks are transmitted across Earth and at speeds impossible to control. The culture of mass migration of people into cities for work to return to homes during holiday periods also presents infection opportunities of industrial proportion.
These four factors are a feature of neoliberal economies but not solely so. They appear to be present in all modern industrialised systems. Given their prevalence one might conclude that the global pandemic is about to become a feature of the modern age.
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