They have great value for the ecosystem, they belong to the natural world and all we have to do is leave them alone. When we enter forests and caves and catch and kill bats, we expose ourselves to viruses. If we had left them alone the virus would have stayed inside them. The bats do not disturb us, we disturb them. So no, humanity shouldn’t be afraid of bats. The virus remains invisible for a long period of time in host animals. animals in which the virus lives for a long period of time without the animals getting sick. IO: Having seen that a substantial number of spillovers originate in bats must man fear these animals? Ebola, Sars and COVID-19 originated in bats.ĭQ: Bats are the carriers of a large number of dangerous viruses. That is what I heard and wrote in my book. There was one last question: where could something like this happen? In China, for example. In short, a place where wild animals are close to domesticated ones and where wild animals are close to other foods. Here, too, an example was worth mentioning: a wet-market, a place where wild animals are on sale and alive. But there was still another question to ask: where could the first spillover take place? There are parts of the world where people come into contact with wild animals.

The same type that manages to adapt to new hosts to provoke a coronavirus syndrome. And again: what kind of virus will it be? A type capable of developing at great speed. But what kind? From a wild animal and, in all likelihood, from a bat. It will come from an animal, I said to myself. The scientists answered that I could write what I wrote in my book: namely yes, there would be a pandemic and that the pandemic would be caused by a virus.ĭQ: Then I wondered where this virus would come from. I asked the scientists if there would be a “Next Big One,” and they said yes. The aim was to understand if and how man would be infected. Scientists went to the fields to study animal viruses. How did you do it?ĭQ: I cannot predict the future but ten years ago whilst I was doing research about the spillover, I listened to a group of scientists who were studying the subject in a meticulous manner. IO: In the Spillover you predicted the “Next Big One”. What can we expect from the future? We discussed this and other matters with the American science journalist who took part in an interview with InsideOver.

Quammen called this event “the Next Big One.”Īfter the appearance of COVID-19 many dashed to the bookshops, for no other reason than the fact that Quammen had described the way in which the pandemic would arise, identifying a wet-market as the place from where the contagion would spread. In his book the Spillover, published in Italy by Adelphi, the American writer analyzed the possibility that a new virus could turn the world upside down.

David quammen adelphi