This topic requires no introduction.
Everyone, in one way or another, has been affected by this pandemic, some had been afflicted with the illness, others were quarantined, and several people; especially those in the medical field, who worked laboriously in order to treat patients, provide medical supplies, and to hopefully find a cure.
However, while we're waiting for the pandemic to slow down, there is no harm with entertaining ourselves about hypothetical scenarios.
With that in mind, what would you do, as the President of Indonesia, to combat COVID-19?
To answer that question, we must understand how pandemics work.
(Disclaimer: Since I'm writing this in an article, I will answer these questions from my perspective, feel free to voice your thoughts in the comments.)
A pandemic is a disease that has spread globally and internationally. The disease must be able to spread quickly, through different mediums, such through water, air, bodily fluids, etc. Most pandemics are dangerous, but if the disease is too lethal, it might not have enough time to spread. Since infection on a global scale is not easy, a majority of pandemics throughout history were largely caused by viruses. Viruses can mutate, spread, and multiply at a rate faster than most microorganisms, making them adaptable to almost anything that humans throw at them.
How do viruses mutate so fast then? This can be explained by something known as "antigenic shift", an exchange of genes between two or more different strains of a virus, combining to form a new subtype, this phenomenon accelerates the mutation rate of a virus, and may result in a virus that infects humans.
For example, the bird flu, another Coronavirus pandemic that was first identified in 1996, was thought to emerge from poultry, and through an antigenic shift, jumped hosts to humans.
Before we continue, let us return back to the question. If I was president, I would obviously allocate as much resources and manpower to provide medical care, limit exposure between other people, and work on a vaccine, since there is not much that can be done. But that is only for the short term.
To avoid future pandemics caused by the Coronavirus down the line, we must revolutionize our farming industry, particularly in the raising of animals to be slaughtered as food. This might sound far fetched, but I have my reasoning. As we have discussed before, Coronaviruses mostly mutated and evolved from animals, and unfortunately, ranching provides the perfect environment for these viruses to fester and cross-pollinate the genes, exacerbated by poor treatment of the animals, terrible hygiene, and very crowded spaces that allows for the quick spread of any contagious disease.
