So how could I possibly miss the chance of blogging about the Coronavirus? Something I know nothing about, but that’s never stopped me before 😉
The whole of Spain (where I am) is in lockdown to avoid spreading the virus and as a consequence our lives have changed dramatically in the last week or so.
There are negatives…
I have family and friends that have lost jobs or businesses. We are hearing of people getting sick around us which is unnerving and some people are dealing with their anxiety better than others.
And there are positives…
To avoid large groups of people the Grand National was cancelled, bullfights were cancelled and so many more events that promoted cruelty to animals were cancelled. I’m very grateful for some very unique consequences of COVID-19.
Now for the vegan part…
Let me be clear, the intense animal farming industry is the main reason for the zoonotic viruses that plague our planet and kill thousands upon thousands of humans. High populations of animals in stressful conditions, with unnatural diets and unhygienic conditions create the perfect breeding ground for a virus to be transmitted from animal to human. If you eat animal products then you are enabling this process to happen again and again.
Let’s be more specific.
COVID-19
First off, we don’t honestly know where COVID-19 originated from, but we do believe it came from an animal (possibly bats). Now if we discount all the conspiracy theorists claiming it’s from a laboratory (and I normally love a good conspiracy theory) then we are led to believe that a bat (probably) passed it to a farmed animal and then the first animal to human transmission happened at a wet market in Wuhan, China.
At the time that I am writing this article there are 335,926 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 14,638 deaths worldwide. I am fortunate to have never had to experience anything like this before but pandemics will probably happen several times within my lifetime because we farm animals.
COVID-19 may not have happened had we not farmed animals.
SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)
In 2002, there was an outbreak of SARS in Southern China. Over 8000 cases were reported with just under 800 people dying as a result of the disease. Xu et. al (2004) found that there was a strong relationship between the people that were initially diagnosed and how close they lived to a local wet market (which sold animals for food).
When looking into the origin of SARS, Bell et. al (2004) states that “A major lesson from SARS is that the underlying roots of newly emergent zoonotic diseases may lie in the parallel biodiversity crisis of massive species loss as a result of overexploitation of wild animal populations and the destruction of their natural habitats by increasing human populations.”
That’s pretty clear, right? We should stop destroying the planet.
To get back to farming, a good example would be Tu et al. (2004). They found high levels of SARS Coronavirus in a civet farm in China and that the virus originated from the trading of animals.
SARS may not have happened had we not farmed animals.
Avian Influenza a.k.a Bird Flu
Bird Flu is a variety of flu that is adapted to birds. In 1997 the first human adapted strain of the virus was discovered in Hong Kong. In this first instance 18 people were reported to be infected and 6 people died.
Outbreaks of Bird Flu are becoming increasingly frequent in poultry farms and in a summary of Avian Influenza, Lazzari and Stöhr stated that “Outbreaks of avian influenza are increasingly frequent, probably as a result of intensive agricultural practices”.
Laver and Garman (2001), when talking about Bird Flu, also predicted that “A worldwide epidemic (pandemic) of type A influenza could occur at any time… Millions of people will become ill and die“.
Are you guys seeing the connection?
Avian Influenza may not have happened had we not farmed animals.
Swine Influenza
Swine Influenza is common amongst pigs in farms and there have been instances of transmission to humans. In 2009 there was a Swine Influenza pandemic where up to 575,000 people died. Since this outbreak there have been at least seven outbreaks around the world resulting in the deaths of thousands of people.
In an interview on Swine Influenza, Ruben Donis, the chief of the molecular virology and vaccines branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at that time, suggested that the virus may have originated in a pig that travelled to Asia from the US as part of the pig farming industry.
More farms.
Swine Influenza may not have happened had we not farmed animals.
MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)
MERS virus is another respiratory disease that has been transmitted from animals to humans. Over 2000 cases have been reported and over 700 of those cases have died.
Mohd et. al (2016) states that the virus originated from bats but somehow was transmitted to camels and was probably transferred to humans at a camel farm.
They’re even farming camels.
MERS may not have happened had we not farmed animals.
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) a.k.a Mad Cow Disease
Get ready for this one.
Mad Cow Disease was a big deal when I was growing up. In 1992 the disease reached its peak with over 100,000 cases. It is believed that humans eating contaminated meat could contract Variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, a brain disease which would dramatically lower your life expectancy.
There are several hypotheses of how Mad Cow Disease came into existence. One example is given in Narang (1996) which states that the disease may have come into existence because farmers were feeding cattle with recycled (and possibly contaminated) cattle meat and bones.
In addition to the above being disgusting, cows are herbivores and this would be an unnatural diet for them.
But here comes the one that hit me sideways…
Colchester & Colchester (2005) believe that there is not enough evidence for the claims above (that cattle were given recycled meat) and instead there is far more evidence for the claim that Mad Cow Disease came from feeding human remains to cattle.
Human remains.
HUMAN REMAINS.
If this doesn’t shock you then you’re a rock, void of all emotion.
No offence to rocks.
Added extra for you guys, the human remains were from India.
Watch out Wonderful Husband.
But let’s not get sidetracked by the idea that farmers were feeding HUMAN REMAINS to farm animals…
BSE may not have happened had we not farmed animals.
Times are scary now, but with the intensive farming of animals that is a consequence of eating animal products, pandemics will only get more frequent. Our lives will get worse if we carry on funding an industry that is killing animals, killing humans and destroying the planet.
This is a problem for the world to fix. You’re part of the world, so start fixing it by going vegan 💚
Marvellous food for thought (pun intended) x
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ahhh thank you sooooooooo much 💚
LikeLike
Yet another great post – very very informative with a bit of humour thrown in. Human remains? Urghhh!!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know so disgusting right? Almost as bad as the other theory which was feeding cows dead sheep.
Thanks for the mega comment 💚
LikeLike
This is so well-researched and so interesting!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you so much, Renee 💚
LikeLike
Wow this is so well written. Thanks for such info with humour.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for the lovely comment 💚
LikeLike
Valuable information. Thank you for sharing! It’s an unfortunate time, for sure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is valuable information if you take the time now to learn from it 🙂 💚
LikeLike
Interesting post. But I don’t think they have found the actual cause of the virus yet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Had you read the article properly, you would have realised that’s exactly what I said 💚
LikeLike
This was very well written. I can’t wait for all of this to be behind, no matter where it came from
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree! I would like for the virus to go but I would also like us to learn from the virus being here and the reasons it is here, which is why I wrote the article 💚
LikeLike
Well written, informative and different compared to the rest posts about the virus. Loved the article!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much 💚
LikeLike
You made me laugh out loud with the ‘it’s never stopped me before”. I was thinking right on! This is such a crazy situation with Covid. Thank you for the food for thought.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad I made you laugh! Thanks for reading 🙂 💚
LikeLike
An interesting way to look at things. And I have never heard of the idea that they were feeding human remains to cows! Gross
LikeLiked by 1 person
Seems like it’s not just an idea and it actually happened according to a number of scientific papers 😦 💚
LikeLike
I didn’t know about the history of some recent diseases, especially mad cow disease. Thanks for this interesting read.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Neither did I until recently, it’s very interesting though 💚
LikeLike
This is a sad and interesting reality. I did not know about the cow remains one. I really cant wait for all these to stop and getting back to normal but with all the animals sufferring.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Let’s hope we never go back to normal, as “normal” is what caused all of this mess. Let’s hope we become a vegan world where animals will suffer significantly less and we will have less viruses plaguing our planet 💚
LikeLike
Here in North America we are such big meat eaters but the millenials are leading the change. my husband is now a vegetarian and I eat meat twice a week. You are right. Coronavirus is a byproduct of animal farming. Good strong article!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amazing comment. Thank you for sharing your changes, I think they are fantastic and please congratulate your husband from me – he is mega 🙂 💚
LikeLike
It’s a timely post. Well researched and informative. Thanks for sharing!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Sarah 💚
LikeLike
I just hope that we control this disease soon and the lockdown comes to an end. The whole world is struck with this deadly disease and so many have died already with the numbers still growing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree. However the only way we stop this from happening in the future is if we change our diets and go vegan. So if you’d like to never experience this again, then go vegan 🙂 💚
LikeLike
Where are you in Spain? I am in Valencia. It’s been a crazy few weeks. ❤ Great post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh my gosh, I’m in Dénia. You’re so close! I hope you guys are handling everything ok 🙂 💚
LikeLike
I am praying for this world at this time. Wow a serious pandemic that is effecting many but I hope this is all healed soon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We can stop it from ever happening again if we change our diets and go vegan 💚
LikeLike
Hopefully we will be able to get past this disease soon and make changes within our communities to help with prevention. Diseases, viruses especially, are such tricky tricky beasts to deal with because they can mutate and change so much in such a short amount of time making it hard to deal with them once they have started. Like we’ve seen with the most recent pandemic and how quickly the coronaviruses have changed and mutated since the start of the outbreak. But hopefully we will all get through this and come out better on the other side
LikeLike
This was an interesting read! Informative but humorous
LikeLike
Loved this. I’ve been trying to explain to people that this is just going to keep happening as time goes on, but as predicted nobody cares. They just want their short term comforts, everyone “needs their meat” etc. Factory farming-caused diseases will continue to happen, and when they do, everyone will head to the supermarket and stock up on factory farmed meat.
The worst thing about this pandemic for me personally has been how misanthropic it’s made me! It’s like… I’m doing all I can do here, but at least half the planet doesn’t care and will contribute 20x the damage that I am. I’ll continue on my crusade of being vegan, not driving, not buying plastic products, etc, but at this point the only reason is so I can tell my kids one day that I took a stand for what I believed in.
It’ll make for a nice bedtime story when we’re living on the top floor of our house, since the main floor will be flooded by melted icebergs.
LikeLike