Page 9 - Issue 14

According to Dennis Carroll, a leading world
expert in infectious diseases, who for 15 years led
the pandemic department at the U.S. Agency for
International Development, this epidemic is not
the first of its kind, but it is something we can
expect with greater frequency in the future. The
reason is what epidemiologist refer to as “zoonotic
spillover” – the increasing transfer of animal
pathogens to humans – itself caused by the
increasing penetration of humans into ecozones
formerly inaccessible. These incursions are driven
by overpopulation and by intensive exploitation of
the land (in Africa, for example, there is more oil or
mineral extraction in areas that typically had few
human populations).

… But in the industrialized West, no one paid
attention. In fact, in 2018, President Donald Trump
closed down the National Security Council
department responsible for dealing with
pandemics.

Trump also famously derided the danger of the
coronavirus, suggesting it was a Democratic hoax,
and describing it as a “foreign virus” to bolster his
trade war with China. The United States now has
the highest number of people sick with the virus
worldwide, paying the price for Trump’s criminal
lack of attention to the importance of rapid action
in combating the epidemic. But Trump was not
alone: To some degree or another, both American
and European societies lacked imagination, in that
they were too busy, pursuing profit and exploiting
land and labor whenever and wherever they could.