As many of us are aware that biodiversity loss leads to emergence of new diseases like the current COVID-19, the world is grapling with. I would like to ask the opinions of experts, what is the way forward and how the world is going to deal with it.
It's not biodiversity loss, it's habitat destruction and impingement on wildlife by humans that allows the virus to enter human populations
Hi @amrit
the coronavirus attacks only humans, the best solution for now is containment to limit the spread of virus, then you have to find a vaccine against this virus. generally humans must give importance to their biotope and limit anthropogenic factors that degrade the ecosystem
New virus diseases main target is Human. May be a shift in habitat of the newgen organisms.
The novel Covid-19 pandemic has caused so much global inconveniences and shortages of daily goods and services as well as incidences of deaths of precious human lives. The immediate effect of this novel virus is on humans but not necessarily on various ecosystems and biodiversity within them. Therefore, this Covid-19 does not and will not lead to ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss since floral and faunal species are not negatively affected at the same time unlike humans, although animals (not pets e.g. dogs) are known to be source carriers of the Corona virus.
Another aspect of this novel virus is the economic and political consequences it has for both developed and developing countries leading to potential global economic recession or meltdown. The way forward therefore is to deploy all human and financial capital to contain and stop the virus, first of all, from spreading and killing so many people and then revive ailing businesses and protect jobs of those who have suffered seriously from this Covid-19 pandemic. As a novel virus, the cure for treatment of this virus is unknown, and thus an immediate goal for scientists to achieve. The full impact of the Covid-19 can only be assessed in the near future.
Approximately 15% of cats that live in Wuhan, China, were infected with a coronavirus infection.
Veterinarians visited animal shelters in various districts of Wuhan and collected blood samples from one hundred stray cats. After that, they took samples from Pets and found that more than ten of all the animals were infected.
In the case of domestic cats, the source of the virus is believed to be their owners, who transferred COVID-19 in January-March of this year. How the stray animals became infected is not yet clear. They could become infected either by contact with people who tried to feed them, or by interacting with street surfaces where virus particles had accumulated.
According to scientists, a similar situation may occur in other regions of the world affected by the epidemic.
Experts note that there is no exact data yet on whether the virus can be transmitted from cats to people, but recently it was proved that animals can get infected from each other by airborne droplets. Therefore, researchers are advised to take security measures and distancing people and Pets.
We add that the study has not yet been reviewed by independent experts and editors of scientific journals. Therefore, the conclusions expressed in it should be treated with caution.
According to who, the source of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus is believed to be bats. The pathogen COVID-19 is able to enter not only the human body, but also other mammals. In particular, it affects rhesus macaques, ferrets and cats, which are affected by the infection almost as much as humans.
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