Christian Selbach, Maarten P. M. Vanhove, Kim Nørgaard Mouritsen

The One Health concept offers an integrative approach to disease and health at the human-animal-environment interface. It has often been suggested to view the COVID-19 outbreak within this framework to better understand and mitigate this global crisis. Here, we discuss how the evolutionary ecology of host-pathogen systems can add a valuable additional perspective to the debate around SARS-CoV-2 and its implications for public health awareness and policy-making. In this context, it is especially important to highlight that changes in nature, such as zoonotic spillover events, are often irreversible, and that humans, while deeply embedded in ecosystems, are intricate ecosystems themselves. A better recognition of the complex biology and evolution of human-parasite interactions will assist our understanding of such zoonoses.