Christa Avampato

My sweet and dear friend, Colleen, sent me this beautiful card of encouragement about women of fire. I taped it up at my desk. Ironically, I had just read this story by one of our favorite artists, Flying Edna/Brian Andreas Studio, a few nights before as I was scrolling through inspirational quotes, a meditative pastime in these times of quarantine.

Over a decade ago, my apartment building caught fire and I almost got trapped inside. That fire literally and figuratively forged me the way a blacksmith forges iron. I developed intense PTSD as a result, and went into weekly therapy with Brian, a wizard of a therapist.

I sat with Brian every week for 3+ years and looked at every dark corner of my mind and past. It was a brutal, painful initiation. I had to do that heavy work on myself. I had no choice. I ran out of places to hide. I ran out of coping mechanisms. The fire burned them all away. All that was left was me. Not what I do or who my friends are or where I went to school or any of my accomplishments. Just the iron core of who I am.

It was messy, dirty work, and I’m so grateful for it. I didn’t do it because I wanted to. I did it because I had to. I’d never wish it on anyone; I also wouldn’t change it for myself. I’ve been into the darkness of my own mind, heart, and past. I lived there with a powerful flashlight in-hand, shining it into every hidden place. There, I found my own light. There isn’t anything I don’t know about myself. I know exactly what I’m made of, and how I’m put together. It’s powerful knowledge. It made me courageous.

That courage informs my biomimicry research around plastic. People’s reaction when they hear about my work: “How depressing!” and then they continue on with their single-use plastic loving lives. It is depressing. And if I can make a positive change in that field, it has an oversized impact. Solutions in dire situations are like that—it’s possible to make huge leaps forward because there is no other choice. So I get to work trying to make a difference with what I have—my science, business, and writing.

That courage also informs my reaction to coronavirus now. Another friend of mine asks, “How are you today?” They don’t wait for an answer before saying, “NYC is so awful right now. You must be so depressed and terrified that you can’t even get out of bed.”

No one needs to tell me how awful the situation is in NYC or send me the stats about it—I live here. I know all the stats. I’m surrounded by them. I read every official news report and listen to every press conference by every expert. And not once has it crossed my mind to leave NYC or stay in bed. Not once. Our essential workers need our support. I’m here for them. Thanking them, donating money and time, checking on my neighbors, and signing up to volunteer with the city when and how I can in a safe way.

What’s happening in NYC now will happen in many cities across the country. I’m here to learn, and to help my neighbors, essential workers, businesses, and government improve this city for all people. And then to help other cities that go through this when this disease shows up on their doorstep. And it will, and soon, and I’m sorry about that, and I will help you when the time comes. Personal therapy prepared me for this work, too.

NYC is in a dire state, and the circumstances of our essential workers is horrific. Just as I came through my fire a far better person than I was before, we have the chance to come out of this dark time a better community that helps many more people, especially our healthcare workers on the frontlines. To do that, we have to do the hard work of transformation. Together, we have to be committed to finally fix and heal and reinvent the many broken systems that have been broken for decades. We have to be committed to make all this difficulty mean something. I’m committed.

New York City got dire news and numbers today, and we’re nowhere near the apex. Our heroic healthcare workers are managing a staggering amount of stress in the face of coronavirus. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to donate anything at all, we would all greatly appreciate it. I just donated and will continue to donate to help support the people on the frontlines who are doing so much for all of us.❤🙏

To donate, please visit: https://nychhc.networkforgood.com/

I wrote a piece for the Biomimicry Institute titled “A Quiet War: Biomimicry in the Time of Coronavirus about how a biomimicry call-to-action can help us now during coronavirus and fortify our healthcare system and economy when we face future pandemics. Here’s the link: https://biomimicry.org/a-quiet-war-using-biomimicry-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/

Here’s the full story:

Never underestimate the power of the small. In a matter of weeks, the microscopic virus COVID-19 has reshaped our macroworld in ways we never imagined possible. It is understandable that many feel fear, anxiety, and distress right now.

Active participation in an effort to help others is one way to temporarily alleviate some of those emotions. Biomimics have a valuable role to play in this moment. As biomimics, we are trained to find solutions to the world’s complex and often-painful challenges by turning to nature’s designs for guidance and wisdom.

First, we must scope the challenge we face. What do we know about the context of COVID-19?

• There is currently no cure, vaccine, nor medical treatment.
• It is a novel virus, meaning that it’s new to the human species; this explains why we do not yet have a medical solution to it.
• The research on this virus is being conducted urgently and collaboratively all over the world by our colleagues with expertise in infectious disease and public health.
• From past experience with treating other novel viruses, a cure, vaccine, and treatment could be as much as 12-18 months away. Why is the time horizon so long? The medical solutions must be created, administered, tested, analyzed, approved, scaled, and then distributed. Scientists are working at a feverish pace to do this work, and we must understand that this process, to some extent, takes time. Therefore, in the short-term, we must fill the gap between now and the time when we have a medical solution.
• We do know it spreads by person-to-person contact. This is why social distancing is so important right now to limit and contain the spread as much as we can for as long as we can.
• Though we are not certain how long the virus survives on different surfaces, we know it survives for some amount of time and that the amount of time it survives can vary by different surface types (metal, plastic, cardboard, etc.).
• Soap and hot water, as well as hand sanitizer with 60-percent alcohol content, breaks down the virus.
• Healthcare workers are the absolute heroes of our time. They are our frontline of defense in this pandemic. We must urgently do everything we can to protect their health, because they are coming into contact with the virus continuously throughout their work as they care for sick patients.

For it being a novel virus, all of this context is a tremendous help to us from a biomimicry perspective. When we synthesize all of this information, we can build out the frame in which our solution must work and identify which types of solutions we need to help find. It’s in this spirit that we present a call to action to the entire biomimicry community to develop innovation in materials science and product development in the following fields:

Medical innovations

Nature has many possible solutions to future pandemics and existing viruses. Species such as a wide variety of bats seem to be able to carry these diseases and not succumb to them. Studying these species and distilling the deep design principles of their abilities to be carriers could hold powerful keys to human health. Wiping them out through climate change, habitat loss, and hunting could literally translate into wiping out their potential to help us find preventions, cures, and treatments. Species conservation is vital to human health. Let’s honor what other species have to teach us. Let’s protect them and learn from them.

Medical technology

One of the greatest shortages right now in the healthcare field involves PPE—personal protective equipment. Medical masks, gowns, face shields, and shoes are vital to protect our healthcare workers while they are saving the lives of and caring for people who are so sick from COVID-19 that they need to be hospitalized or placed in the ICU.

It might seem simple to just ask PPE manufacturers to increase their output. The challenge is that these manufacturers are facing shortages of the raw material to create PPE, which are mostly made from specialized types of plastic woven in specific ways by specialized machines. We need better materials (and more of them) to create these lifesaving products, and we need faster, easier, cheaper, and more efficient ways to manufacture them.

There has never been a more urgent time to develop biodegradable materials that can replace the various types of plastic with a more sustainable material.

Food packaging

The discussion about plastic also leads directly into our food packaging issue. Much of our food is packaged in plastic for sanitary reasons, and sanitation has become a hot button issue in the past months due to COVID-19. Plastic packaging, like medical waste, is a main contributor to the plastic waste issue we have. By developing a biodegradable alternative to plastic, we may be able to feed two birds with one seed—create an alternative and sanitary packaging material for food and an alternative material for PPE.

Surface coverings

In addition to washing our hands, we’re also cautioned to avoid touching surfaces whenever possible, because the COVID-19 virus lives on surfaces for some amount of time. If someone with COVID-19 touches a surface and then at some later time someone else touches that same surface, they risk getting the disease. One solution that would be immensely valuable would be some type of covering (a film, paint, casing, etc.) that would resist the attachment of viruses to it, or better yet degrade them on contact the way that soap and alcohol do. This type of material would also be used in PPE to resist the attachment of the virus to keep it clean and sterile.

Cleaning and personal care products

Sustainable cleaning and personal care products could also be a solution to the PPE shortage and the need for the sterilization of physical and personal surfaces. Healthcare workers could safely re-use PPE if it could be properly cleaned and sterilized. Likewise, if there was some type of personal care product (a lotion, gel, etc.) that we could put on our hands that would degrade the virus on contact, that would also be a tremendous help.

Short-term solutions with long-term benefits

While so much of our collective attention is now focused on COVID-19, our efforts have far-reaching benefits that will last long after this current pandemic ends. And it’s not a matter of if we’ll see another pandemic in our lifetimes, but when. COVID-19 will not be the last time we face a viral pandemic. With climate change, we are likely to see more pandemics in the future than we’ve seen in the past. Innovations in all of the areas detailed above are not only helpful for managing COVID-19. They would help us better manage any crisis like this in the future.

Our healthcare systems are at the breaking point now, because we have not been properly preparing for an event like this despite the warnings from epidemiologists and public health professionals. They warned us. We ignored them. Let’s not do that again.

Let’s innovate now to help our current situation, and help our future selves better identify and manage a pandemic when it finds us again. There has never been a better time to turn to nature for help, counsel, and wisdom. Biomimics, our time is now. The world needs us; it is crying out for help and innovation. Let’s answer that call.