As I sit here practicing my social distancing soon after the 51st AASV Annual Meeting, I am contemplating the events of the last couple of weeks leading up to and soon after the annual meeting. Considering the cancellation of the remaining NBA season and the NCAA basketball tournament, it would be no surprise if our meeting had occurred 1 week later, the entire meeting would have been canceled. This may seem trivial to most outside our organization. However, I think back to the discussions held at the meeting and the wisdom imparted by many of the speakers that would have been missed if the meeting had been canceled. Two things I hope you took home from the Monday general session: help your state veterinarian get to know your practice and the swine industry and meet with the dean of your alma mater veterinary school to encourage more swine curriculum. If we do these things, then the risk of attending the meeting was worth it.
It is interesting to observe the current infectious disease situation in the human population and how the experts are handling decision making with very few facts. Things like zero tolerance and worst-case scenario are being thrown around without knowing the real extent of the infection to date and the immune status of recovered individuals. I can remember similar issues when the swine population was breaking with porcine epidemic diarrhea virus and porcine deltacoronavirus.
The good news is that the rest of the human population is learning biosecurity, isolation, and down time between contact with multiple other susceptible people. Personal hygiene and good biosecurity practices will be much easier to teach to prospective employees after engaging control measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
In the last issue of this journal, I wrote about the adaptability strength. This is never more necessary than in the current environment with the spring AASV Board Meeting having been converted to an online meeting. Our organization is adaptable and ready to change course on short notice to such a meeting. I believe we can have a very effective and productive board meeting using this platform.
Overall, I am hopeful that this experience through the COVID-19 infection in the human population will help the swine industry be better prepared for a foreign animal disease if one should come to our shores, ensuring that we make decisions based on facts and good science as well as decisions to help our specific farms and our entire industry. The hoarding strategies of certain necessary items by some are detrimental to the overall population, and there are some in our population attempting to make a profit based on this disease while putting other individuals at greater risk. I fear that this may also occur with foreign animal disease introduction. Decisions may be made that do not benefit the entire industry. I am hopeful that the veterinarians in our organization can help guide producers if a foreign animal disease comes to the United States and help to navigate these farms through the disease without imposing harmful impacts on others to benefit themselves.
I hope that you all enjoyed the annual meeting and I look forward to seeing you next year in San Francisco.
Jeff Harker, DVM
AASV President