Economics, not politics, helps explain why coronavirus and other diseases started in China
PIK Professor Ezekiel Emanuel and Scott Moore of the School of Arts & Sciences wrote about why many highly infectious diseases appear to originate in China. “First, rapid development in highly biodiverse regions brings more people into contact with exotic animals and the viruses that lurk within them,” they wrote. “Second, ever-more-extensive transport, trade and communications links continue to shorten the distances between a potential pandemic hot spot and virtually any other point on the globe.”