And Then the Gorillas Started Coughing
Humans are spreading the coronavirus to other animals. What does that mean for all of us?
By David Quammen
Mr. Quammen is the author of “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic.”
Feb. 19, 2021
Credit…Sara Andreasson
The noises of nature sometimes carry broader meanings. The howl of a wolf signifies that wildness endures. The gronk of Canada geese moving south overhead reminds Americans to brace for winter. The sound of a coughing gorilla signals that Covid-19 is an even bigger problem than we thought.
Early last month, two gorillas started coughing at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, a compound of open-air enclosures for wild animals, an annex to the city zoo but separate, out in an arid valley just east of Escondido. These gorillas were among a group of eight residing amiably there, on a patch of artfully constructed habitat known as the Gorilla Forest. Testing of f**** samples showed that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was among them. It could only have come from a person.
The New York Times
Me: Simply put, we are all animals on this planet. We humans did not come from another planet, we have been here all of the time, just like all of the other animal species that live on our world, along with us.
We get Coronavirus from other humans or from animals which have been infected by humans and pass it to and fro between them and us.
Vaccines are the short term answer to a large problem, but vaccines also make the virus more formidable as it finds ways to get past vaccine protection, to infect us all over again with another variant.
Viruses are living aerosols which need to infect us, in order to survive and this is more about survival by viruses or us, with no limits being available to Coronavirus and Covid, by result, from the airborne pollution which we have put into our atmosphere, the very same thing which is increasing the temperature on this planet and we have only 1.5 degrees of global warming before we might see our extermination from the release of large pockets of Methane gas under the ice caps, which will destroy our atmosphere and us, if global warming continues as it does, not counting the rising of the seas and coastlines going under water…….not much of a future to look forward to, if things continue as they are.
