Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics

Re:Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics by allovernow on Sunday March 08, 2020 @03:33AM (#22516811)

>For viruses, meat agriculture, forest destruction and urban sprawl are contributory factors leading to faster mutations and jumping species eventually into us.

At this point you have to acknowledge that cultural factors are responsible for the majority of modern outbreaks. We know about the meat markets in China. They are as endemic as the viruses to the various animals they eat. No other country on Earth has originated this many animal to human outbreaks.

This is not an environmental issue.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics by riffraff on Sunday March 08, 2020 @03:58AM (#22516892)

> No other country on Earth has originated this many animal to human outbreaks.

I am ignorant, what is the data here? Which animal-to-human outbreaks are we counting?

The top animal-derived epidemics I can think of would be: SARS and 2019-nCoV from china, H1N1 had mixed heritage, MERS seemed to come from the middle east, Ebola and HIV from africa. So, pretty spread out?

Also, China is substantially larger than everything else but India, so wouldn't this be an expected outcome anyway?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics by redis_mlc on Sunday March 08, 2020 @05:41AM (#22517208)

For decades it's been reported in the US press that the seasonal flu outbreak comes from small farms raising pigs in rural China.

So start by googling that for each year.

[ Parent | on HN ]