Quotes & Sayings About Pandemics

Because pandemics almost always begin with the transmission of an animal microbe to a human, it's work that takes me all around the globe - from rain forest hunting camps of central Africa to wild animal markets of east Asia. — Nathan Wolfe

When there is an influenza threat, drop everything and focus on risks from influenza pandemics. When SARS spreads, focus on unknown respiratory diseases. This approach helps to quell public concern, but it's a hugely inefficient way to deal with future risks. — Nathan Wolfe

As a species, I think we have no choice but to try and forecast pandemics. — Nathan Wolfe

There are commonalities among all the pandemics that occur, and we can learn from them. One commonality is that they all come from animals. And the other commonality is that we wait too long. — Nathan Wolfe

Chucky become a pandemic part of pop culture, definitely. — David Kirschner

I don't think pandemics make us afraid of death, I think they make us afraid of oblivion. They force us to grapple with the futility of effort. Also they make us barf which isn't fun either ... Wash your hands, cover your coughs, and find a way to hold in balance the futility of effort with the necessity to struggle. — John Green

The features of globalization have huge consequences on pandemics. It just connects us so much more closely ... And as a consequence, every one of these viruses that passes from animals to humans has the capacity to infect all of us. — Nathan Wolfe

Using predictive models from engineering and public health, designers will plan safer, healthier cities that could allow us to survive natural disasters, pandemics, and even a radiation calamity that drives us underground. — Annalee Newitz

We live in a world fraught with risk from new pandemics. Fortunately, we also now live in an era with the tools to build a global immune system. — Nathan Wolfe

Pandemics do not occur randomly. From malaria and influenza to AIDS and SARS, the lethal microbes have come, in the first instance, from animals, especially wild animals. And we increasingly know which parts of the world pose the greatest risk for future incursions. — Nathan Wolfe

There is no "grand designer" who orchestrates infections, plagues, or pandemics or engineered our defenses to them. All these mechanisms that we attribute to a battle between good and evil are in actuality biological traits that we have inherited from preexisting populations. Therefore the interactions we are witnessing (infection, inflammation, phagocytosis) are based on previously established conditions of coexistence, and we should not expect to find any sort of unique perfection in our immune system. After all, these systems are not at some end point of evolution; they are still evolving. Rather we should expect to find ancient cellular systems from distant ancestors that have come together to work synergistically. — Greg Graffin

If we do the kind of common-sense public health measures we know work, we ought to be able to stop it from being a global pandemic,. — Julie Gerberding

Some doomsayers think the collapse will be triggered by runaway government spending, excessive taxation, oppressive regulation, food shortages, fuel shortages or natural disasters such as deadly pandemics or lethal changes in the world's climate. — Robert Higgs

Tom Cotton voted against preparing America for pandemics like Ebola ... — Mark Pryor

A united humanity will be able to confront the many troubling problems of the present time: from the menace of terrorism to the humiliating poverty in which millions of human beings live, from the proliferation of weapons to the pandemics and the environmental destruction which threatens the future of our planet. — Pope Benedict XVI

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world. — Margaret Chan

That makes climate change a bigger public health problem than AIDS, than malaria, than pandemic flu. — Lois Capps

One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation, yet it remains one of the invisible and under-recognized pandemics of our time. — Nicole Kidman

I work to create systems that can accurately detect pandemics early, determine their likely importance, and, with any luck, crush those that have the potential to devastate us. — Nathan Wolfe

In a world where millions of human beings live in extreme poverty, die of malnutrition and lack medical care, where pandemics continue to kill, it is imperative to pursue good faith disarmament negotiations and to shift budgets away from weapons production, war-mongering, surveillance of private persons and devote available resources to address global challenges including humanitarian relief, environmental protection, climate change mitigation and adaptation, prevention of pandemics, and the development of a green economy. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

The conditions necessary for devastating epidemics or pandemics just didn't exist until the agricultural revolution. The claim that modern medicine and sanitation save us from infectious diseases that ravaged pre-agricultural people (something we hear often) is like arguing that seat belts and air bags protect us from car crashes that were fatal to our prehistoric ancestors. — Cacilda Jetha

If we can contain and monitor animal viruses at an earlier stage - when they're first entering human populations, preferably before they've had a chance to become human-adapted, certainly before they've had a chance to spread - we can head off pandemics altogether. — Nathan Wolfe

Without effective human intervention, epidemics and pandemics typically end only when the virus or bacteria has infected every available host and all have either died or become immune to the disease. — Alan Huffman