Natural History Wanderings

The Brink, a Boston University publication wrote about research that Combating a Pandemic Is 500 Times More Expensive Than Preventing One

For decades, scientists and environmental activists have been trying to draw the world’s attention to the many harms caused by the rapid destruction of tropical forests. One of these harms is the emergence of new diseases that are transmitted between wild animals and humans, either through direct contact or through contact with livestock that is then eaten by humans. The SARS-CoV-2 virus—which has so far infected more than 15 million people worldwide—appears to have been transmitted from bats to humans in China.

They discovered that significantly reducing transmission of new diseases from tropical forests would cost, globally, between $22.2 and $30.7 billion each year. In stark contrast, they found  that the COVID-19 pandemic will likely end up costing between $8.1 and $15.8 trillion globally—roughly 500 times as costly as what it would take to invest in proposed preventive measures. To estimate the total financial cost of COVID-19, researchers included both the lost gross domestic product and the economic and workforce cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide.

Read full article at  Why Combating a Pandemic Is 500 Times More Expensive Than Preventing One | The Brink | Boston University