This article is inspired by a recent TedTalk by global health expert Alanna Shaikh. She talks about the current status of the 2019 coronavirus outbreak and what this can teach us about the epidemics yet to fully deploy. Alanna Shaikh is a global health consultant and executive coach who specializes in individual, organizational and systemic resilience.
COVID-19 is a coronavirus, a specific subset of viruses which have some unique characteristics as viruses. They use RNA instead of DNA as their genetic material, and they are covered in spikes on the surface of the virus to invade and attack cells. Those spikes are the ‘corona’ in coronavirus. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus as until December 2019 we’ve only known about six coronaviruses, therefore placing COVID-19 in the seventh position. Coronaviruses cause respiratory syndromes, they target lungs and other respiratory pathways. They are also zoonotic, meaning they transmit from animals to people. Zoonotic diseases are arduous to get rid of as they have an animal reservoir.
Alanna Shaikh explicitly warns the audience: This is not the last major outbreak we are going to experience. There are going to be more epidemics. This is not a maybe, this is a given. She argues that this is a result of how we humans are interacting with our planet. Human choices are leading us into a status where other outbreaks are assured. Part of this is due to climate change and the way in which a warming climate and an increasing earthly temperature makes this planet more hospitable to new and existing bacteria and viruses. When humans burn and plow the Amazon rainforest so as to obtain cheap territory for ranching or pasture, when the last of the African bush gets converted into farms, when animal species are hunted to extinction, human beings inevitably come into contact with wildlife populations that they have never come into contact with before. These populations carry new kinds of diseases, bacteria and viruses which humans are unprepared to combat. Until we keep reducing the remoteness of our planet, new viruses are going to develop persistently.
Alanna Shaikh believes that quarantines and travel restrictions may limit an outbreak, but can in no way end it. What is crucial in these situations is to establish a global health system to support core healthcare functions in every country worldwide. This will allow even third-world countries to identify, assess and treat new infectious diseases as they emerge. Countries like Chad or the Democratic Republic of Congo have 3.5 doctors for every 100,000 patients; they don’t have the resources to respond to an infectious disease. The real root of epidemics like ebola or COVID-19 is the inequities that lie within these communities.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has also fueled a massive amount of fake news circling the internet, creating the problem of asymmetric information. Fake news about COVID-19, bogus remedies and conspiracy theories were spreading rapidly on social media during these last few months, infecting the internet with a dangerous strain of disinformation.
Alanna Shaikh concludes with some personal advice: wash your hands, sanitize your phone as it is one of the objects which hosts the most microbes, do not touch your face, do not rub your eyes, do not bite your fingernails, do not wear a face mask if you don’t have any symptoms and if you do believe to have symptoms stay home and call your doctor. However, the real solutions for these outbreaks are investing in health infrastructures and disease surveillance, building health systems all over the world, strengthening our supply chains so they’re ready for emergencies. We must be guided by equity in this situation because in unity there lies strength.