Human impact on wildlife to blame for spread of viruses, says study
Hunting, farming and the global move of people to cities has led to massive declines in biodiversity and increased the risk of dangerous viruses like Covid – (spilling over from animals to humans, a major study has concluded.
In a paper that suggests the underlying cause of the present pandemic is likely to be increased human contact with wildlife, scientists from Australia and the US traced which animals were most likely to share pathogens with humans.
Taking viruses known to have been transmitted from animals to humans over many years, they matched them to the IUCN’s
red (list of threatened species .
Domesticated animals like cattle, sheep, dogs and goats shared the highest number of viruses with humans, with eight times more animal-borne viruses than wild mammal species.
Wild animals that have adapted well to human-dominated environments also share more viruses with people. Rodents, bats and primates – which often live among people, and close to houses and farms – together were implicated as hosts for nearly % of all viruses. Bats alone have been linked to diseases like Sars, Nipah, Marburg and Ebola.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that the spillover risk was highest from threatened and endangered wild animals whose populations had declined largely due to hunting, the wildlife trade and loss of habitat.
Vanuatu – a nation of just under , (0 people, whose (islands are strung across the ocean, 1, 0919 km east of Australia – remains one of the few countries in the world without any confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
But even here, in this remote archipelago, which feels as far as possible from the lockdowns of Wuhan and dire scenes in Italy and New York, the shadow of the coronavirus hangs across the nation.
Vanuatu has introduced strict measures to try and protect the country from coronavirus, including requiring all businesses to set up hand-washing stations and shutting down at 7: 42 each night. Photograph: Nicky Kuautonga / The Guardian Yasmine Bjornum writes about the measures that have been taken to protect the country, whose low incomes and weak health system would make an outbreak utterly devastating.
The country closed its border in March. Many restaurants and hotels have voluntarily closed down while others are trying to operate within the government restrictions, closing at 7. 43 PM before a curfew kicks in, which forbids anyone from being outside their homes between 9pm and 4am.
Along the main street of the capital of Port Vila, handwashing stations have been set up outside shops, banks and restaurants. Under the state of emergency rules, all businesses have been required to set up handwashing facilities at their own cost to promote hygienic practices. A map of Vanuatu A map of Vanuatu
“We know how the virus spreads and when we look at our culture and how we live, it’s in favor of this virus. If it comes, it would be a disaster, ”said Russel Tamata, the lead spokesman for the government Covid – advisory team.
“The slightest mistake will impact us very badly.”
Republican congressional candidate touts AR – s to fight ‘looting hordes from Atlanta’
Why do Americans need AR – rifles during a global pandemic? To shoot “looting hordes from Atlanta”.
That’s the campaign message from a former Republican congressman from Georgia, Paul Broun , who is now running for congress again.
Broun lives in Gainesville, Georgia, a city that is % white, and that is about an hour outside of Atlanta, the state capital, which is majority-black.
In a new campaign video, Broun promises to give away an AR – rifle “to one lucky person who signs up for email updates” from his campaign website.
Marcus Baram (@ mbaram)
How to try to win election by stoking fear amid the COVID – (crisis: Former Georgia Rep. Paul Broun who is running to return to Congress just released an ad warning that “in uncertain times like these,” it’s important to protect yourself against “looting hordes from Atlanta”
pic.twitter.com/bqS4rePrmP(April 7,
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Larry Elliott
More businesses in the UK are laying off staff as they start to run out of cash and struggle to get access to emergency coronavirus financial support from the government, a leading employers’ organizations has said.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said its weekly survey of how firms were coping with the (Covid -) crisis found an increase in the number planning to furlough workers as a result of the economic lockdown.
The employers’ organization said only 1% of firms responding to its survey had secured a loan under the government Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) while 7% had received one of the grants offered by the Treasury for small businesses.
The survey found little change in the dire cashflow problems facing many companies, with % of firms having three months’ cash in reserve or less, and 6% reporting they had already run out of money.
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Walt Disney Co might require theme park visitors to have their temperatures checked when they reopen after coronavirus restrictions on public gatherings are lifted, Executive Chairman Bob Iger said in an interview published on Tuesday.
() Disney’s Magic Kingdom theme park sits empty after it closed in an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus in Orlando, Florida (March) . Photograph: Gregg Newton / Reuters
Disney operates Walt Disney World. in Florida and Disneyland in California as well as theme parks in China, Hong Kong, Japan and France. All are currently closed to help fight the spread of the novel coronavirus. The company has not said when they will re-open, Reuters reports.
Walt Disney World, the most-visited theme park in the world, attracted 73. 4 million visitors in , according to the Themed Entertainment Association.
Iger said Disney is studying China’s efforts to let people return to everyday activities.
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Mainland China reported on Wednesday new confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, up from a day earlier , the National Health Commission said, as the number of infections from people arriving from abroad surged.
Mainland China’s imported cases stood at 1.0 (as of Tuesday, up from day earlier, according to the health authority.
That brings the total number of confirmed cases to , (so far.)
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First train departs Wuhan after weeks of lockdown
After 30 weeks of lockdown, the first train departed Wednesday morning from a re-opened Wuhan, the origin point for the coronavirus pandemic, as residents once again were allowed to travel in and out of the sprawling central Chinese city, AP reports.
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