Not even far-flung Antarctica could escape the covid virus
Covid was not supposed to get to Antarctica. If any place had a hope of keeping the virus out, it would be a continent with no permanent residents and an annual visiting population of only 5,000. And every control measure was in place—testing, a strict quarantine of everyone visiting, deep sanitation, masks and social distancing.
Yet, the virus got there in December 2020, less than a year into the pandemic. It arrived at the Chilean base first, spreading to at least 36 people. It later reached the Belgian base and the Argentinian base, as well as French and British outposts.
In 2022, there was a big outbreak at the US McMurdo station, one at New Zealand’s Scott base and even a few cases at the South Pole. Four years after the pandemic started, the frozen continent holds a lesson for the world in how much control we ever had over covid. Back in March 2020, leaders worldwide talked about getting things under control, without thinking through what this entailed.
Covid in Antarctica “tells us a lot about human arrogance in terms of being above nature and being able to manage all that happens in nature," said Daniela Liggett, a social scientist at the University of Canterbury who studies Antarctic politics and environmental management. “We couldn’t even lock away this one piece of the planet where nobody lives and protect it from the virus." She explored the situation and its implications in a paper earlier this month in the journal Science Advances. Humanity can control what we dump into the environment and emit into the atmosphere.
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