30 Quotes by Nathan Wolfe

The world can now maintain an acute infection in a way that is unprecedented in the history of life on our planet.

We live in a world fraught with risk from new pandemics. Fortunately, we also now live in an era with the tools to build a global immune system.

Many people on our planet right now despair; they think we’ve reached a point where we’ve discovered most of the things. I’m going tell you right now: Please don’t despair.

Don't assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story. Go after the dark matter, in whatever field you choose to explore.

If we can contain and monitor animal viruses at an earlier stage - when they're first entering human populations, preferably before they've had a chance to become human-adapted, certainly before they've had a chance to spread - we can head off pandemics altogether.

There are commonalities among all the pandemics that occur, and we can learn from them. One commonality is that they all come from animals. And the other commonality is that we wait too long.

If an alien visited Earth, they would take some note of humans, but probably spend most of their time trying to understand the dominant form of life on our planet – microorganisms like bacteria and viruses.

Don’t assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story. Go after the dark matter, in whatever field you choose to explore.

If you find diseases before they’ve really emerged, you can control them early on, before you get a major epidemic.