to restructure our society so we ’ re not putting pressure on these places , and there ’ s just no way around that . We need to have a better understanding of the viruses that are out there that may spread and do a better job of monitoring them . There are lots of bat coronaviruses that are getting into people all the time , but most of the time they hit a dead end because they ’ re not adapted to humans . But we don ’ t know about them until you have a pandemic like SARS or COVID . We need to learn about them sooner - when the first person gets sick with a virus from an animal , they should be able to go to a hospital and there should be a way to identify the virus itself . The science and technology exist to do that , we just haven ’ t invested in setting that up .
As well as bettering our relationship with wildlife and the identification of viruses , do you think that we need to improve the way that we farm ?
Industrial farming , if not carefully inspected , can lead to many food-borne outbreaks . There ’ s no question about that . For example , we have to be aware that pigs are a great source of influenza viruses .
They can catch the flu which can result in diseases that can be passed onto us . We need to keep our pigs healthy if we ’ re going to eat them .
Has living through a pandemic changed your perception of epidemiology in any way ?
I mean , we ’ re only a few months into this , and this is the first time in my life I have been through anything like this . It ’ s hard to say too much about it so far . Epidemiology is turning out to be a very powerful tool , but also a tool that can be misused . People think that epidemiologists come up with models that can forecast the future , but there are different versions of the future . Models came out that showed the potential for millions and millions of people dying in the first months of the pandemic and then that didn ’ t happen , and everyone stopped trusting the models . The models weren ’ t incorrect , they just showed what would happen if people went on with their everyday lives in response to this particular virus . But people didn ’ t go on with their regular lives ; lockdowns , masks , and social distancing were implemented , and as a result , millions of lives were saved .