WILL PANDEMIC BECOME ENDEMIC? WILL COVID GO AWAY?

WILL CORONA VIRUS GO AWAY?  

NO UNWITTINGLY WE HAVE DESIGNED OUR MODERN WORLD FOR NEAR IDEAL DISEASE TRANSMISSION 

The truth of the matter is over the last seventy years or so we have unwittingly created  a world that is an ideal setting  for generation and transmission of deadly pathogens and recurrent pandemics. 

The world population is now over 7 billion.  Our planet is for the first time in into long history massively overpopulated with a single species —-Homo sapiens.  Our species is now the most common large animal on earth,  with more Individua

A than than any other large animal wild or domestic. Though the Norway rat and an insect— ants—beats us out in sheer numbers. 

This too numerous human species of ours  are found most concentrated in densely packed urban enclaves.  These cities melding together into megalopolises  where tens of millions of people live cheek by jowl. Here their life ways are characterized by necessary and economically efficient dense packing. The denizens of these places are forced to work and live in close proximity to others.  They are crammed into subway cars, elevators, and huddle together in closed spaces to shop, eat, drink and (sometimes) be merry.  Their entertainment venues are even more densely packed crowded theaters and concert halls.  

Escape from the crowded cities for “vacation” is accomplished by packing themselves off into other tight spaces.  Most commonly travelers are arranged  sardine like, into airplanes where for hours on end they are forced to  breath and rebreathe the air of some hundreds of other passengers from all walks of life and all stages of disease transmission. Others jam crowded tour ships built like floating cities where they live eat and freely spread germs to each other, then disembark en masse each day in so called “tourist destinations” which are other densely populated port cities where they disperse  and disseminate disease vectors or become infected themselves. 

Sexual activity is credited as the most effective means of germ transmission. Early societies were quick to control this act, not for social or sexual dominance as some would have it, but for survival of the tribe or clan from deadly pathogens.   Tribes which adopted these practices tended to survive  others passed into extinction and obscurity. Today promiscuity is rampant in our overpopulated world. Traditional restraints on the most intimate of interpersonal practices have been abandoned for sexual perversions, rampant promiscuity and desperate experimentation.  Modern sexual practices of the western world would make the debased Roman emperor Nero blush with embarrassment,  then wonder why he hadn’t thought of that perversion himself. 

We have abandoned traditional  small family farms and animal husbandry enterprises for factory farms where we grow mono crops subject more subject to plant disease outbreak and we house thousands of upon thousands of domestic food animals in horrible conditions of close confinement.  These places are breeding grounds for pathogens which once introduced can spread like a wild fire through the entire confined population and often can jump to human hosts to cause pandemics. 

In less advanced, but recently more affluent nations, ancient food gathering and wildlife exploitation practices have not died out with new  modern sources of food,  but continue to be practiced.  In these places exploitation of dwindling wildlife—wild  birds,  small mammals, reptiles, and  marine organisms formerly used as food and ancient medical remedies continue unabated.  These wild animals are kept alive  in inhumane and unclean confinement until purchased and slaughtered .  It is here again where again humans play into the hands of disease organisms which are programmed to exploit opportunities of confinement to disperse and reproduce or evolve into other more deadly forms. .  It is in these on going and unrestrained  circumstances—that new human pathogens arise from those which had only formerly been transmitted among a wild population. 

So it is clear we have unwittingly created a world for the betterment and wide transmission of deadly pathogens.  Our modern  society has created conditions to generate the “perfect storm” fir recurrent deadly pandemics which even our great science and technology can not completely quell or keep up with new or novel pathogens which arise so rapidly.  

The ancients, thousands of years ago in the Fertile Crescent  of the Middle East were faced with similar  threats of disease. Those tribes and races of man which survived were those which adopted certain social, dietary, and sexual practices in response to the disease threat which lserved to limit exposure. avoid contamination and limit disease mortality .These sexual, social and dietary practices operated for thousands of years successfully in some cases until modern times. 

Modern society seems to believe that we have overcome these threats from the natural world. We pridefull believe that science and progressive thought will protect us moderns and we now to thumb our noses at Mother Nature laws of evolution and disease transmission.  

The  Covid 19 pandemic is just the most recent and deadly in a spate of  recent pathogen outbreaks. The organisms we face are pre programmed to exploit host animals (humans) in congested, crowded and enclosed spaces. Circumstances and places in which modern humans are now forced to inhabit. We now live in a world well adapted for germ transmission so we can expect continued plagues from these ubiquitous evolving and unnumbered disease organisms.  If we fail to recognize our wayward course in this world we live in which is governed by the forces of nature and in which we are only one of a myriad of other species subject to disease  we will continue to suffer the consequences of our behavior.     

Humans have survived as a species because they were able to change and adapt to new conditions.  They evolved socio-dietary-sexual practices in response to the existential threat of disease perhaps thousands of years ago.  

Perhaps it is time in this of COVID-19 that we finally accept the challenge from the natural world of which we are an integral and dependent part and adapt to its rules and conditions rather than hubristically  ignoring Mother Nature.