The coronavirus outbreak must serve as a wake-up call to governments around the world, but especially to the one in Washington, D.C.
We must invest in public health if we want to breathe easy. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Last month, a new strain of coronavirus emerged at a seafood and wildlife market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The infectious agent spread from livestock to humans — and then, more alarmingly, from those humans to other humans. As of Thursday afternoon, the disease had sickened more than 650 people and killed 18.
Humanity’s luck in averting a global pandemic may hold up for a bit longer. But eventually, our good fortune will run out. 10 million people annually by 2050 and “prompt an economic slowdown to rival the global financial crisis of 2008,” an event that cost the U.S. economy many trillions of dollars in lost output.
The world has about four times the number of inhabitants it did in 1918 [the year of the Spanish-flu pandemic], including hundreds of millions of people, poultry and pigs living close together. This provides a potent biologic mixing bowl and natural influenza virus mutation factory. What’s more, nearly any point on the planet is accessible to any other point within hours, and there are more than a billion international border crossings each year. The virus will spread rapidly.
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