Too many people and too many animals in areas that are too small will sooner or later again cause viral pandemics.
On a knife edge
In nature, there have always been viruses, but wild animals kept their distance, and the viruses disappeared, the expert Anders Fomsgaard claimed in Politiken last week.
He argued that many years ago we learned how to control HIV but did not cure it, pointing out that Ebola could break out again – only this time not only in remote areas without health systems. If it is mutated, he warned, it will likely be resistant to all known vaccines.
This is the gloomy wisdom of a long year that is finally ending.
In great need of a vac
Meanwhile, science has been vying to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, and it appears to be on the doorstep. The next trick is to make sure that as many people as possible get the protection – even if a new race may occur against a mutating form. Inevitably, some will remain ‘outside the herd’, as is the case with all such jabs.
But if all goes according to plan, 2021 should bring us some sort of return to normal. “It was not the end of the world,” we will gasp collectively. And in hindsight, we will realize that mortality in 2020 did not exceed the previous year.
Nevertheless, while the seasonal death from influenza is unlikely to raise an eyebrow, COVID-19 has scared us into a new reality where society has been forced to abide by restrictions that were unknown in peacetime.
PM tested hard
Of course, COVID-19 had to join a lone queue of problems for the Prime Minister as Minkgate did his best to take over the political agenda last month.
Now all the mink is dead, the case is far from buried, literally, and the fallout from who was responsible and how much it will cost continues.
It has been a welcome opportunity for many politicians – most of whom do not really understand the situation – to annoy a prime minister who had previously reduced their role to well-behaved kindergarten children who sat quietly and obeyed their mistress.
It will take a while before it settles down, but a little more will come of it.
Like Hiroshima
2020 should have been the year in which the fight against climate change united the world, but instead we have an urgent need for a reset.
Can Joe Biden heal the damage caused by Donald Trump leaving the Paris Agreement? He and others will hopefully have more of the people on their side than before. Many city dwellers have witnessed the improvement in air quality during shutdown, which may have saved more people from respiratory death than those caused by COVID-19.
It can be the trigger for measures that were previously considered unacceptable by the public: from tackling overcrowding and congestion to rethinking food processing.
In the future, the year 2020 and the pandemic will be remembered by students in line with 1945 and the atomic bombs that changed the world.
Their explosions changed the way we think and act, so we must use wisdom wisely: Happy New Year!
Source: The Nordic Page