What is a pandemic? A pandemic is an “epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance, multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals.” Is it possible to prevent another pandemic from happening? Although pandemics tend to be unforeseen and usually come out of nowhere, I believe that it is possible to prevent another pandemic from happening, if not, at least limiting the destruction it has on our society.
The first reason I believe it’s possible is if we further our knowledge on things like handling an animal. This last pandemic was supposedly caused by a bat and past pandemics have also been animal-to-human transmission like the swine flu. Most pandemics have happened due to a lack of knowledge on handling animals so if we increase our knowledge on them, we can potentially eliminate that aspect and focus on other ways to prevent a future pandemic from happening. This would really help our society especially those that rely on wildlife for food, like Indigenous people.
My second reason that it is possible is if we do things to protect our forests. “There is growing evidence that human actions to change the use of land – such as cutting down forests to make space for crop and livestock production – can be a major driver in outbreaks of zoonotic diseases.” It has been shown that destroying natural habitats that are rich in biodiversity has provided pathways to new diseases to form from animals to our livestock. Again, eliminating this factor will not only help prevent another pandemic but also be an effort to save our planet.
My last reason why it’s possible is if we simply look at the mistakes we made during past pandemics and improve on those aspects. We can also look at what we did great during them and keep those. Overall, we will learn new things from every pandemic we experience, but it will be very hard to actually put the rules and things in place. It will take all of us, as a society, to work together and prevent a future pandemic.
Preparedness will play a huge part in trying to prevent a future pandemic. Being the fact that they usually come out of nowhere and very quickly, staying prepared will help us the most. Although very challenging, I believe it is very possible to prevent, especially if we all work together.
