Coronavirus strikes training classes

The strategy behind today's protective measures of hygiene, social
distancing, and reducing human interaction is called "flattening
the curve".  This is why Extension programming is being
temporarily suspended.  Adapted from CDC/The Economist.

Who would have believed, even one week ago, that coronavirus would dominate our lives so quickly and severely?  This sort of thing is something that happens to other countries, not ours.  Yet here we are.

The reality of coronavirus hit home to me last week when we realized that we couldn't follow through with our plans to offer a long-planned mosquito control class as part of our IPM Experience House class curricula.  Texas A&M AgriLife and our local campus have moved to emergency mode, effectively shutting most training classes down for the foreseeable future.

In addition to IPM House classes, upcoming school IPM coordinator training courses are similarly affected.  We are cautiously considering whether we may be able to offer classes in May and June.

It took me a while to grasp the significance of the coronavirus shutdown strategy; but for what it's worth, here are a few facts and links that turned me around this week.

• Understanding that the COVID-19 is not just another seasonal flu.  It's a disease with 4 to 7X higher mortality rate than the flu and longer persistence in the environment than the flu (up to 3 days on stainless steel and plastic).  Maybe worst of all, people (especially children) who catch it can be contagious without even realizing they are sick. 
• We don't hear a lot about the plight of those who catch this virus and recover (not as gripping in headlines), but this is not a virus to take lightly. Early reports suggest the possibility of chronic lung impairment in some recovering COVID-19 patients. 
• Yeah, it sounded bad in China, but look at Italy.  In Italy, where health care systems are more similar to our own but where quarantine actions were slow to be adopted, a crisis situation developed with lightning speed in emergency rooms of afflicted areas.  And if you think Italy's health care is inferior to our own, consider one statistic.  In hospital beds per 1,000 people, Italy leads the US 3.2 to 2.8.  Anyone thinking that our doctors and hospitals could do better in the face of overwhelming numbers of cases as in Italy would be wrong. 
• Thankfully, there is a strategy behind the "stay at home" message we are hearing so much about. It's called flattening the curve, and it's based on the impact that self isolation and social distancing can have on the speed of spread of COVID-19.  While it may seem inevitable that some of us will get the virus, by reducing our exposure to others we can slow the rate of virus spread.  And if we do this, we might be able to spare our health care system the tsunami of cases seen in Italy. 
• Our country rightly invests billions of dollars each year in science and health care.  It's time to listen to those smart folks who have dedicated their lives and their intellects to understanding health and illness and the spread of disease.  They don't know everything, of course, but they know a lot more than us non-health professionals know.  

So for all these reasons, I am working this week in an empty building with plenty of social distance around me. We use hand sanitizer, wash our hands regularly and stay away from large gatherings including, unfortunately, classes where we might otherwise be training some of you.  

Let us pray for our communities and our nation, and look forward to celebrating a return to face to face interactions in a matter of weeks.  Be assured that our IPM training classes will resume as soon as possible. 

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty...from pests

The quote "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, but most likely was first penned by Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist and defender of Native Americans' rights from Massachusetts.  The same quote could be applied accurately to the effort to keep our country free from disruptions caused by exotic pests.  Without continual vigilance, our country would be overrun (more than it already is) with exotic pests and new pest problems.

A recent five-kilo rice interception at DFW airport contained
evidence of khapra beetle, a notorious quarantine pest. Photo
by Customs and Border Protection.

This point came home to me again recently as I read one of the regular reports I receive from Morris Bigham, Chief Agriculture Specialist for Customs and Border Protection at the Dallas /Fort Worth International (DFW) airport.  Every month various pests are intercepted from the luggage of travelers at airports like DFW.  Mostly these folks are not nefarious smugglers, but average people who are either ignorant of the laws prohibiting transportation of foods and pest, or who think the law doesn't really apply to them.

Take just one example from the latest report:

"On February 06, 2012 a passenger arrived at DFW International Airport from India... The passenger was referred to agriculture secondary for inspection. The passenger did not declare any items of agriculture interest...and a verbal declaration was unattainable due to a language barrier. During the inspection of the passenger’s luggage, 5 kilograms [about 10 lbs] of rice was discovered. The rice was seized and quarantined for further inspected. Upon further inspection of the rice, a coleoptera [beetle] cast skin was found. Tentative identification of Trogoderma granarium [khapra beetle] was given for the cast skin. As a result, the specimen was forwarded to the local USDA Area Identifier for further identification. The rice was destroyed by steam sterilization. On February 29, 2012, final identification of the pest was received, confirming the tentative identification of Trogoderma granarium...a quarantine significant pest."

If you're like most people, you've probably never heard of khapra beetle, but it is one of the most destructive pests of stored grain in the world. According to Wikipedia, "infestations are difficult to control because of the insect's ability to survive without food for long periods, its preference for dry conditions and low-moisture food, and its resistance to many insecticides."  The only real protection we in the U.S. have from this beetle are the dedicated men and women charged with the behind-the-scenes task of inspecting luggage and shipped grain from overseas.  Last month at DFW airport alone USDA/APHIS intercepted 348 passenger and 45 cargoes with pest evidence.  It's amazing to me that with all the international travel that we have managed to keep khapra beetle, and many other pests like it, out of the country so long.

Perhaps it's stories like this that make me not laugh at stories people tell when they brag about how they smuggled something in from a foreign junket.  A sad (for me, because I like her as an actor) example of this occurred on the Tonight Show a couple of month ago. Guest Sandra Bullock let slip on the show that she had smuggled holiday sausage into the country as part of a family tradition. Of course it was all great fun, and the audience enjoyed the anecdote, but it left me feeling a little like listening to a joke about the antics of a drunk driver.  Pretty funny until you know someone who's an alcoholic, or who has lost a loved one from a drunk driving incident.

So as you're eating your whole grain cereal tomorrow think about those good folks from the Homeland Security agencies and the work they are doing to keep your breakfast affordable and pest free.