Pandemic

Pandemic gives you an understanding of what pathogens and diseases are, how they evolve, what our lifestyle does to make them worse on us, how they can spread like wildfire, and most importantly, what we can do to stop them.

In the last tens of thousands of years, humans have spread all around the globe. People are found on every continent and in all different types of environments. But there have been some serious consequences to this spreading out.

An example of this is a Mangrove forest in Bangladesh that was left uninhabited by native people because it was considered a cursed land. When settlers from the East India Company came to cultivate the land for rice, they unknowingly exposed themselves to the abundant cholera bacteria that thrived in the land.

As they consistently bathed in and drank the contaminated water, the bacteria were able to adapt to human bodies. They did this by forming tails to bond together and colonize in a film in the gut.

Another example is the SARS epidemic that came out of a Chinese “wet market.” These markets sell many live animals for consumption, such as bats, turtles, and snakes. The SARS virus originally only infected horseshoe bats.

However, because they had so many animals caged close together, it adapted little by little. This continuous exposure gave it the opportunity to make the jump to other animals and then humans.

As our lives have been improved with transportation advances like airplanes and trains, this has also been beneficial for germs as well. In fact, without the help of our transportation systems, they wouldn’t be able to spread across the globe as they do now. Nowadays, planes are a huge way pathogens get around the world. We saw this with SARS. When the first patient came to the hospital with a mystery illness, he spread it to an unknowing physician. The doctor then traveled to Hong Kong, and there he infected 12 more people, one of whom was a flight attendant. The flight attendant spread it to Singapore, giving it to someone who flew to Frankfurt, and so on. Within one day, because of our modern transportation, the new SARS had been introduced to five continents! Another way germs take advantage of our way of life is through our waste management. Since the ’60s, US farms like those for hogs and chickens have grown staggering amounts. Because of the vastness of these farms, the waste produced has also increased tremendously. Manure pools left behind are breeding grounds for pathogens, which then evolve to contaminate air, soil, and water around the farm. Even if you’re not nearby you can experience the effects of this. How often do…