From social distancing to ecological distancing

The bacteria, viruses, fungi and many of the other micro-organisms that live on Earth predate plants, humans and other animals by hundreds of millions of years. They occupy most of the ecological niches including the most inconceivably inhospitable ones such as hot water springs in the deepest oceans where bacteria converts chemicals into energy and sustain a complex life system. They can lie dormant for decades but then reproduce rapidly. They can mutate and adapt at incredible speeds. They can come together to form super-organisms such as the honey fungus which can grow to cover up to 10 square kilometres. Given their numbers, their diversity and their ability to survive, these micro-organisms are the true masters of the planet.

Humans are a very recent arrival on Earth — appearing in its modern form about 200,000 years ago. They are physically delicate creatures that can live only in a limited range of physical conditions. Being late arrivals, our survival required us to co-exist with the microbial organisms that dominate life on Earth. And co-exist we do. They live on our skin, in our elementary canal from the mouth to the rectum, and in various other glands and organs in our body. Some of them — for example the bacteria that live in our gut — are essential for us to digest and absorb many of the nutrients we need. Others can be harmful, for example those living in our mouths help in digestion but can, under certain conditions, attack our teeth and gums. But in most cases we simply don’t know what purpose, if any, they serve. We simply live together, more or less in harmony.

And humans are by no means unique in this. Most other animals, as well as plants, carry large viral and bacterial loads. As in the case of us humans, some of these micro-organisms are essential, for example, the rhizobium, a type of bacterial colony, that live in the roots of leguminous plants and other grasses, convert atmospheric nitrogen in nutrients essential to the survival of these plants. Some others such as the leaf curl or mosaic viruses can cause pathologies in the plants they attack. And there are many, many more organisms that we know nothing about, and most likely an even greater number that we have yet to “discover”.

Current knowledge suggests that diseases causing pathogens from plants rarely cross to humans, but those from other animals regularly do so. Some of these made the jump early in our history when humans first made the transition from a hunter gatherer to a settled agriculturist some 10,000 years ago. As they planted crops and domesticated animals such as cows, horses and chickens, close proximity allowed several diseases to cross over — diseases that we are now familiar with such as the common cold, influenza, chicken pox and small pox. In fact, more than half of all known infectious diseases and three quarters of new or emerging infectious diseases in humans come from animals. As could be expected, whilst humans continue to move into new environmental niches or come into contact with other animals the number of the so called “zoonotic diseases” will continue to increase.

In the last decades, despite the improved healthcare worldwide we have seen SARs, Ebola and now Covid-19 cross over into humans. Big crowded cities and international travel — essential for the high technological and globalised life we are living — helped spread these across the world in a matter of weeks.

And so here we are today, an invisible pathogen a fraction of the size of a grain of sand, has killed over a million humans, brought on one of the greatest economic disasters in recent history, and caused social and political panic. But why are we so surprised? Did we really believe that humans are the master species and that science and technology make us invincible? That our scarce respect for our planet and for the other species that live here would have no consequences?

And our response? Social distancing, face masks and lockdowns. Scientists and politicians told us to avoid contact with each other. Of course these measures were needed and necessary. But there was an underlying assumption that these measures were temporary — only in place for as long as it takes to slow the speed of contagion, allow health facilities to cope and catch up, and buy time for scientists to look for a vaccine. And then we can get back to living life as usual.

But maybe it will not be possible to get back to normal. Maybe science will not be able to provide an effective vaccine or a cure. And even if it did, will we be able to get these vaccines or treatments to everyone? Most likely the answer is a big NO. Let’s recall that some 1.5 million people continue to die every year from diarrhoeal diseases, around one million each from tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, and about 600,000 from malaria — despite the fact that we know how to prevent or cure these diseases.

And does normality mean that we will go back to being our usual arrogant, callous and aggressive selves? Will we continue to act as we are the lords of all we see and that we can bend nature to our will?

Maybe we need to acknowledge that human life and well-being require us to live more lightly on the planet. Our knowledge is limited and our continuous invasion of ecological niches will sooner or later bring us into contact with other organisms more deadly than Ebola or coronaviruses. Are we really willing to take this risk?