31/07/2020
What factors make the livestock industry "the perfect storm" for a deadlier pandemic? READ ON. Make the healthier choice; it just might spare us another pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic is devastating, but food is still being restocked in our grocery stores. The internet may be slow, but itβs still up. The lights are still on and safe drinking water is still flowing from the tap. Meidcal workers are still showing up to work. Even if βonlyβ 200,000 Americans die, thatβs less than 1 in 1,500. In the pandemic of 1918, in which 2% of the cases succumbed, 1 in 150 Americans died. Imagine if it were ten times as bad as 2% with 1 in 15 dying. Or twenty-five times as bad, killing 1 in 6 of us.
The good news is that there is something we can do about it. Just as eliminating the exotic animal trade and live animal markets may go a long way toward preventing the next coronavirus pandemic, reforming the way we raise domestic animals for food may help forestall the next killer flu. When we overcrowd thousands of animals in these cramped filthy football-field sized sheds to lie beak-to-beak atop their own waste itβs just a breeding ground for disease. The sheer numbers of animals, the overcrowding, the stress crippling their immune systems, the ammonia from the decomposing waste burning their lungs, the lack of fresh air, and the lack of sunlight. Put all these factors together and what you have is really a Perfect Storm environment for the emergence and spread of new βsuperstrainsβ of influenza. Watch the video βThe COVID-19 Pandemic May Just Be a Dress Rehearsalβ to learn more: https://bit.ly/3e4A8xr