Aphids and Viruses in a Greenhouse Offer us Clues to our own Story Arc

Managing a commercial greenhouse has oddly prepared me for understanding the current Covid situation. Greenhouses are incubators for pathogens and problems and pests. We grow different species of plants in different tables in large numbers and when we are attacked with different plant pests they can spread rapidly in the artificial world we have created. Aphids our the biggest enemy. They appear without fail this time of year. They usually pop up in predictable places like fuchsias, peppers, tomatoes. The first step is careful monitoring (testing). We track daily each day where the aphids are and how badly they are spreading. We mark them with flags so its easier to find. We check plants down fan wind from them as they aren't good flyers and we see if they've spread. This is really important because if you don't know it they can spread rapidly overnight.They reproduce rapidly and spread to adjacent plants and areas. They give birth to clone daughters who are already pregnant with the next generation. That's right they give birth to their daughters and grandaughters simultaneously. You miss a plant on a friday and come back on a monday and bam you got a problem. Kind of like how if you sleep on an area with Covid and don't act right away it doesn't take long and you got a problem. The first thing we can do is to isolate and quarantine the plants. We do our best to get them out of the greenhouse and outside. The outside temps will knock them back a bit and maybe down the line they'll recover but not for sale. We also can manually "wash" them with dish soap and water. We don't use pesticides or chemicals but those do exist. The problem with those is that they are already all up in your shit at that point so you're just knocking numbers back not solving the problem. At somepoint we get overran. There is nothing much we can do but sell the plants, turn up the heat in the greenhouse and cook em out. Then it becomes a triage. What is so bad that we can't use it or sell it and we have to put it outside and let it die. I think if you squint your eyes and mind on these last words you can fretfully find the metaphors here. Take aways here: 1.) Testing and monitoring 2.) Isolation and quarantine 3.) Soap and Water and natural remedies 4.) Triage 5.) Chemicals We also do a lot of stuff before the plants arrive to prepare for the invasion including sanitation and what not, putting black plastic down to eliminate eggs from previous years. We also have learned from the past about what will happen, where it will happen, when it will happen and how we can immediately deal with it through massive monitoring and testing and quarantine. Those are our best friends. Apply this to what is happening in our country/world and you can see how a greenhouse aphid invasion and a global viral pandemic are not all that much different.