CS-4
COVID-19 & Climate Change
Background
Why COVID-19 spreads
There is no direct evidence that climate change affects the spread of COVID-19,
but it could be said that climate change increases the risk of infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
1) Climate change seriously affects the ecosystem, changing relationships with other species on Earth, such as bats, and these changes affect the relationship between viruses and hosts, resulting in new infectious diseases, which eventually have an important impact on human health.
2) As climate change destroys ecosystems on Earth and causes loss of habitat, the survival base of various organisms is being dismantled. This dismantling causes habitat loss, and the disease can spread because animals with less food to eat find food and shelter with people. Along with these changes, people's raising and using more wild animals for food than in the past is also a reason for the occurrence of diseases. The recent new infectious diseases SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 are infectious diseases caused by human contact between bats, which are thought to be the hosts of the coronavirus, and animals, which are intermediate hosts.
- Ecosystem
1) Every time the earth heats up 1 °C, the atmosphere absorbs 7% more precipitation. This leads to water circulation disturbance, which eventually causes not only ecosystem collapse but also changes in waterborne infectious diseases.
2) Animals move to get out of the heat and find an appropriate survival environment, which brings them into contact with other animals that have never been in contact with them, creating an opportunity for pathogens to penetrate new hosts.
- Global
Warming
