Saving lives and the next pandemic
Right now, as of 23rd February 2021, most of the world is still under one form of a lockdown or another. We’re still being told that we can save lives by staying at home, wear masks when we go out and socially distance from anyone with whom we don’t share a home.
However, experts agree that these measures will NOT stop the virus. Indeed, it those measures worked, we wouldn’t all be locked away in social isolation for virtually an entire year of our lives.
At best, the measures we’ve been advised to follow ONLY ‘flatten the curve’ meaning that they were supposed to stop a rapid rise in cases that could have overwhelmed the health services with huge numbers of patients at the same time.
Now, with the emergence of vaccines, and the vulnerable protected, we can legitimately hope for social isolation to end. But, most experts agree that COVID-19 is here to stay and, more worryingly, this is not the first and will not be the last pandemic of our generation.
We know ALL coronaviruses are zoonotic – they come from animals. Or, to be more precise, they come from our abuse of animals.
Spanish flu, AIDS, SARS, MERS, EBOLA and now COVID-19 all from the same cause – the same industry – animal agriculture. You can verify these on the World Health Organisation’s web site.
Social isolation may slow the spread of this pandemic, and a vaccine may free us from being prisoners in our own homes but no amount of social isolation, wearing masks, social distancing, or even washing hands can stop the next pandemic.
These viruses will keep coming if we don’t address the cause. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges that more than 75% of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals. Yet, of the 51,669 media reports in the last 30 days only 2.1% mention the word ‘animal’ and 0.3% mention ‘farm’. The best chance we have of preventing another one is by stopping to fund the one industry that caused this one, the ones that came before, and the ones that will surely follow.
The real question is are we prepared to what is necessary to give us the best chances to prevent this kind of virus emerging again? Will we save lives now and in the future? And are we prepared to do what is needed to safeguard the future for our children and grandchildren?
The choice is simple: we can either do nothing and continue to contribute to more pandemics or we can make simple changes in our lives and remove the leading cause of these viruses.
Today, there is no excuse to continue to support animal agriculture. It’s as simple as choosing plant-based milk and plant-based meat substitutes.
Aside from causing pandemics, animal agriculture is destroying the planet. It is the number one cause of species extinction, the number one cause for global emissions (larger than all modes of transport combined), the number one cause of ocean dead-zones, the number one cause of acidification of the ocean and the number one cause of the plastic pollution. It is the number one cause of the destruction of the rainforest, it takes up nearly half of ALL the available landmass on the planet and it is the number one reason why antibiotics are becoming ineffective.
Every year over 70 billion non-human animals are killed for food. Over 95% of them are confined to creates and cages, unable to move freely and most will never see daylight except through the cracks of a truck when transported to a slaughterhouse.
Today, you can save animal lives by choosing not to eat them. And by doing so, you’ll be helping reduce the risk of more pandemics and thereby safeguard the future. Make no mistake, if we don’t change, it is inevitable that more pandemics will follow.
Change won’t come through governments. It will come through education. And our preparedness to do what is right.
The whole world has had to endure extreme lengths to help fight COVID-19, but the next time the virus may be much worse. Even more deadly. How will we face our children when they ask – if you knew that all you needed to do to significantly prevent the next pandemic was to stop eating animal products , why didn’t you?
The choice is simple: we can either do our best to prevent these viruses, or we can contribute to the likelihood that they will keep coming. And, they will keep coming if we don’t take action.
Change won’t come through governments. It will only come through education. And our preparedness to do what is right.
Peace.