World's Best Virologist Blames Coronavirus On Climate Change, Wants Ban On Wild Animal Markets
Professor W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University¡¯s Mailman School of Public Health was in China, studying the effects of the novel coronavirus. He was in China also during the SARS epidemic in 2002. In a recent interview, he spoke about COVID-19 and how its human¡¯s who aren¡¯t properly differentiating between wild and domesticated animals.
With Coronavirus taking a stronger grip in India, people have entered panic mode, trying to stay safe from the novel Coronavirus.
What started from a small seafood market in Wuhan, Hubei Province in China, today, the disease has spread to over 80 countries and has affected over 100,000 people.
Reuters
When the disease first broke out in China, people blamed the Chinese for the consumption of odd creatures like frogs or bats or even snakes. And this is actually the source of the COVID-19, as was the case during SARS which occurred due to civet cats.
Professor W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University¡¯s Mailman School of Public Health was in China, studying the effects of the novel coronavirus. He was in China also during the SARS epidemic in 2002.
Eliminating wild animal markets
In a recent interview on CNN, he spoke about COVID-19 and how its human¡¯s who aren¡¯t properly differentiating between wild and domesticated animals.
He said,¡° This virus came from wildlife. It was not a biological weapon, It isn¡¯t something that was inadvertently released by somebody developing biological weapons. This thing came from nature. We have to address these things. The easiest things to do is eliminating these wild animal markets. No more penguins, no more civets, no more bats, and it¡¯s not just China, This is all over Asia, all over Africa.¡±
Columbia University
Climate change is equally to be blamed
He also said that climate change is another factor that cannot be ignored as a reason for the spreading of harmful diseases, how change in temperatures is letting disease come to places where it once couldn¡¯t survive.
He said, ¡°With climate change, we¡¯re seeing more and more people having food insecurity, who are eating wildlife. You¡¯re finding more mosquito-borne diseases. With the changes in temperature, certain types of mosquitoes which were restricted to the tropics are now moving to temperate zones. So you¡¯re seeing malaria move further north, you¡¯re seeing Zika. So it¡¯s been one thing after another.¡±
