A COVID-19 worthy discussion: Cary Institute offers advice on how to prevent the next pandemic

MILLBROOK — The Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, no stranger to the internet before COVID-19, seems to have perfected online programming, and has been offering a number of educational and entertaining forums and workshops throughout the spring and summer.

On Friday, Sept. 25, disease ecologists Rick Ostfeld and Felicia Keesing joined Cary President Joshua Ginsberg for a virtual Cary Science Conversation with several hundred participants via Zoom. The topic was the role of biodiversity in pandemics and infectious disease spillovers.

Ostfeld is a distinguished senior Cary scientist, and Keesing is the David and Rosalie Rose Distinguished Professor of the Sciences, Mathematics and Computing at Bard College, and an adjunct scientist at Cary. They are also married, and have spent the past five years working on The Tick Project, a research study project at Cary to determine if neighborhood prevention of ticks can help to control Lyme disease.

During the conversation, which featured interesting slides and facts, the scientists explained that the microbes that cause diseases such as COVID-19, like SARS and Ebola, began in wildlife and then infected humans. They posed questions like: Why is there this zoonotic spillover? Are these natural areas, with good or bad biodiversity for human health? Can humans manage animals in a way that makes it less possible for their diseases to cross to humans?

It is interesting to note that small animals, who experience immature breeding and produce many offspring, travel over large geographical areas and have short life spans, such as rodents, insects and birds, and are more apt to transmit disease than larger animals with longer life spans who produce fewer offspring.

These larger animals are more vulnerable to extinction, however. And when diversity is lost, the zoonotic hosts thrive. A full 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic.

There are many reasons why the world is now suffering from what Ostfeld describes as an ecological phenomena on a grand scale, including climate change, habitat conversion, carbon consumption and a loss of biodiversity, mining and harvesting, which includes hunting.

But there are things that can be done to reduce the effects of zoonotic disease, including supporting science. Other measures include: cutting back on the consumption of animals and animal products; less carbon consumption; smarter use of land and crops. A farm in Sussex, England, stopped farming and after a time, the land replenished itself, providing some plant species that were not found anywhere else in the U.K.

Keesing was adamant about using one’s voice, speaking with politicians; she said the upcoming election is extremely important for restoring good ecological practices, for supporting scientific facts and research.

The scientists also mentioned the bipartisan  One Health Act of 2019, a bill with the aim to establish the inter-agency, One Health Program. This bill is intended to help increase national preparedness for pandemic prevention and response. It involves achieving optimal health outcomes regarding the interconnection among people, animals, plants and their shared environments. The One Health Act of 2019 advocates for a coordinated approach to better prevent, prepare for and respond to zoonotic disease outbreaks.

Keesing and Ostfeld encouraged their audience to vote, to demand legislation that will support climate change and biodiversity research and work to help stem future pandemics.