Making sense of Covid-19
David Hayman Manawatu¯ Standard person of the year
Infectious disease expert David Hayman will no longer have to justify why he spends hours studying animal viruses.
This year has been dominated by the Covid-19 virus, which has shut borders, led to thousands of deaths and affected every corner of the world, making everyone aware of the pandemic.
It has meant a busy year for the Massey University professor of infectious disease ecology, who is also the director of the Infectious Disease Research Centre at Massey, as he has worked with international organisations studying the disease.
Hayman has been named the Manawatu¯ Standard person of the year for his work studying the virus and for being a local face providing people with clear information about Covid-19.
Scientists such as Hayman, Siouxsie Wiles and Michael Baker have been prominent as media have sought experts to talk about Covid-19.
‘‘Now, people don’t ask me why I do what I do,’’ Hayman said, jokingly.
‘‘It’s the first year I’ve never had to justify why I study the emergence of infection from animals.
‘‘I used to have to justify why I would work on studying bat viruses, for example.’’
Much of Hayman’s year has been dedicated to working with international organisations about the emergence of infectious diseases.
He was one of 22 international experts who worked on a report commissioned by the Intergovernmental SciencePolicy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The report was about what humans were doing to the world and it went to more than 130 governments.
The report outlined how situations such as rainforest loss led to the emergence of infections, including Covid-19, and what could be done to stop it happening.
‘‘We showed the same things causing the biodiversity loss and
‘‘Most of the world is trying to work out how to stop Covid. A lot of my work is trying to stop it happening.’’
David Hayman
extinction of species are also leading to coronavirus novel infections, things like consuming lots of wildlife or putting roads in tropical forests.’’
Another avenue of research was when he worked with the World Health Organisation and developing countries such as Nepal to analyse data and figure out ways of stopping other infections.
‘‘These things are much easier to prevent rather than when we’ve got an outbreak.
‘‘Most of the world is trying to work out how to stop Covid.
‘‘A lot of my work is trying to stop it happening.’’
He said scientists were terrible at predicting when outbreaks would occur and there were five emerging infections every year.
‘‘What we’re saying is the more we go into wildlife habitats, the more we trade in wildlife, it increases the chance of these things happening.’’
Hayman worked with the World Organisation for Animal Health, the WHO and international experts on studies in China about what led to the emergence of Covid-19.
He also worked with the animal health organisation and the Liberian government to help Liberia strengthen early detection systems for wildlife in west and central Africa to prevent outbreaks of Ebola and four other viral haemorrhagic fevers.
Locally, he helped Medlab Central set up in a Massey lab for Palmerston North’s Covid-19 testing.
He said people who studied the virus were surprised at how transmissible it was and how fast it spread, as well as how badly governments reacted.