News — virus

"destructive human pressures such as climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, population growth, and wildlife trade, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions"

"approximately 173 species went extinct between 2001 and 2014, which "is 25 times more extinct species than you would expect"

“The vaccine for Covid-19 was natural habitat,” Dr. Ceballos said. “The pandemic is a great example of how badly we’ve treated nature.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/02/extinction-political-choice-scientist-says-after-study-warns-threat-civilization

Some of the books that I like about public health and epidemiology are The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett and Spillover by David Quammen. These have a sense of adventure and cooperation in crisis times, where investigators/detectives try to find the cause of the disease (bacteria, parasite, virus, pollutant, …); the vector that spreads it (bat, mosquito, snail, pig, bird, rat, mouse,...); and the disruption in the ecosystem that pushed the disease onto humans (the rainforest homes of the mice cut down and turned into agricultural fields and then DDT killing off the cats that kept the mice away); and the cure (more cats to keep mice with the disease out of the village huts for Machupo Bolivian hemorrhagic fever) The bold parts are about the example of Machupo fever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivian_hemorrhagic_fever

I also like Laurie Garrett's The Betrayal of the Public Trust about the way tax cuts have cut the programs that notice and respond to public health threats like antibiotic resistant bacteria, TB, bird flu, swine flu, Zika, H1N1, TB, horseshoe bat corona viruses, etc

"This is our time to be kind, to be calm, and to be safe".  "It is really about the recognition that we are all in the same storm".  "If you tell people what they need to  do and why, and give them the means to do it, most people will do what you need"

"They took decisive action, did it early without hesitation and communicated effectively."  "classically female leadership traits-humility, collaboration, empathy and emotion"

Dr. Bonnie Henry, the top doctor in BC, Canada,   NYT 6-6-20  "When the Doctor Issued Her Lockdown Orders, British Columbia Listened",  by Catherine Porter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/world/canada/bonnie-henry-british-columbia-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=1