Page - 4 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

VULNERABLE4 initial speculation that Africa might escape unscathed, infections and deaths began to be recorded there. At the time of writing, there are more than 130,000 confirmed cases on that continent.11 SARS-CoV-2: The Epidemiology SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus. It is part of a family of coronaviruses that may be transmitted from animals to people. It is thought to have originated in a bat but was transmitted to humans via another vec- tor or animal species. For decades, it has been recognized that with ever-increasing interactions between people and undomesticated animals and increasing globalization, novel coronaviruses will from time to time spread among human populations.12 Previous exam- ples include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which has caused 774 deaths worldwide to date,13 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has caused 858 fatalities around the world to date.14 With a reported 503,000 deaths in a few short months, the harm of the COVID-19 pandemic dwarfs that of the other outbreaks. Unfortunately, infectious disease experts agree that even more harm- ful viruses could emerge in the future. As of June 27, 2020, there have been over 10 million cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide,15 but the number is likely much higher, as many cases are asymptomatic and testing availability and infrastructure, use, and criteria vary significantly across jurisdictions, and there is no standardized approach to reporting.16 11. Jason Burke & Nyasha Chingoyo, “African Nations Fail to Find Coronavirus Quarantine Escapees”, The  Guardian (31 May 2020), online: <www.theguardian. com/world/2020/may/31/african-nations-fail-to-find-coronavirus-quarantine- escapees>. 12. Hongying Li et al, “Human-Animal Interactions and Bat Coronavirus Spillover Potential Among Rural Residents in Southern China” (2019) 1:2 J Biosafety & Health 84. 13. “SARS Basics Fact Sheet” (6 December 2017), online: Centre for Disease Control and Prevention <https://www.cdc.gov/sars/about/fs-sars.html>. 14. “Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV)” (November 2019), online: World  Health  Organization <https://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/ en/>. 15. Worldometer, supra note 1. 16. Sometimes the claim is that labs were overwhelmed so that testing was not possible. See Kelly Crowe, “Why Isn’t Canada Testing Everyone for Coronavirus?”, CBC News (13 April 2020), online: <https://www.cbc.ca/news/ health/ coronavirus-covid19-testing-canada-1.5527219>. But, on the other hand, we see resistance on the part of some medical officers of health to increasing