COVID-19 - why multidisciplinary environmental research matters

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak certainly is the most pressing issue our society is facing at the moment. We should redirect all our efforts on combating the spread of the disease, the treatment of already infected patients, and on the research scrambling to understand the disease better and to find a cure or vaccine against it.

European Environmental Research Infrastructures organized in the ENVRI cluster cannot assist directly in tackling these burning issues but we can help understanding the environmental conditions which favor the evolution of pandemic, particularly when related to a warming climate, changes in ecosystems or biodiversity losses.

This is the ENVRI community statement on the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak crisis. ENVRI community is convinced that the rich data assets provided by environmental Research Infrastructures will be pivotal for better understanding of the functioning of our environment. Because that is where the current and future societal challenges, such as Coronavirus crisis, originate and spread.