Are you ready for another lockdown? We may be headed that way. According to a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, increasing animal agriculture elevates the risk of zoonotic diseases, which are animal-borne and transmissible to humans, like COVID-19. So let’s do our part to thwart future pandemics — and save animals — by going vegan.
The demand for efficiency in food production is rising with our booming population. Factory farming is our misguided attempt to increase output. This type of agriculture keeps animals confined to small, filthy enclosures — perfect breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases. Many health-conscious people get flu shots and wear masks without realizing that their lunch meat is a piece of the pandemic puzzle: Dependence on animal agriculture contributes to the creation of 3 out of every 4 developing infectious illnesses in humans.
It’s estimated that every year, zoonotic diseases cause about 2.6 billion cases of human illness and millions of deaths worldwide. Some notable zoonotic illnesses include AIDS, avian flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Ebola and Zika as well as, of course, COVID-19. A team of researchers just published two papers in Science offering solid evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a caged animal — and was transmitted to humans — at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China.
