This powerful and important movie by Eyes on Animals sheds light on what happens to farmed animals when governments suspect they got infected with a virus. In order to contain the virus from jumping to other animal farms, governments usually demand that farmers exterminate their animals on site. Among the common methods used for such extermination is foam suffocation, beating the animals to death, and setting live animals on fire after they were pushed to a mass grave.

The reason animals get infected

These animals have done nothing to deserve this horrible fate, and the only reason they got infected with viruses in the first place, is because of us. Modern meat and egg farms crowd-up thousands of animals in contained spaces with very poor hygiene. These animals are forced to live on top of their own secretions and among the sick and the dead. They are the perfect hosts for viruses, and indeed, virus outbreaks such as the Swine Fever or the Bird Flu are so common, they are hardly considered newsworthy anymore.

The next pandemic is a matter of time

Common sense would state it's only a matter of time before one of these viruses mutates to be able to infect humans as well. When that will happen, we may very well be infected with a virus that is far deadlier than Covid-19. The African Swine Fever, for example, has a near 100% mortality rate in pigs. Perhaps Covid-19 is only a very friendly reminder that we can't continue to treat other living beings so horribly. If not for their sake, then for our own.