The tell-tale symptoms of the Sudden Oak Death disease. (AP Photo/The World, Benjamin Brayfield)

Millions of oak trees in California have been killed off by a deadly disease and, according to new study, nothing can be done to stop the virus from spreading.

Cutting down the affected trees has been the only way officials have managed to keep the disease from spreading,PNASreports.

But it's too little too late. If officials had started attempting to control the epidemic more than 10 years ago, they may have had a chance.

“Even if huge amounts of money were to be invested to stop the epidemic starting today, the results of our model show this cannot lead to successful control for any plausible management budget," Dr. Nik Cunniffe of Cambridge's Department of Plant Sciences, and lead author of the study that was published in PNAS, said in a press release from the University of Cambridge. "We therefore wanted to know whether it could have been contained if a carefully-optimised strategy had been introduced sooner. Our model showed that, with a very high level of investment starting in 2002, the disease could not have been eradicated, but its spread could have been slowed and the area affected greatly reduced.”

The mass die-off has dire environmental implications.

(Nik Cunniffe)

“Millions of acres of land have been affected in coastal California,” Richard Cobb, who studies the disease at the University of California, Davis, told the Washington Post. “It spreads via wind and rain, and it’s made some really big jumps to different parts of the state and into Oregon. It probably spread into California via the nursery trade. And it has been moved around the country a lot, also within the nursery trade.”

What's worse, the epidemic will spread almost 10 times the area it affects today. By 2030, it could infect more than 5,000 square miles.

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This year in particular, scientists will keep a close eye on the disease. According to the California Oak Mortality Task Force, the high levels of rain so far this year mean that the disease is likely to spread even more than usual. The group is calling on volunteers to help track and gather samples of trees that could be affected by the disease.

Affecting oak and tanoak trees alike, the effects of the disease will harm wildlife who depend on the trees for food and shelter.

“We won’t be able to avoid much of the ecological impacts of losing all these trees,” Cobb said in an interview with the LA Times. “But there is still time to avoid the worst possible outcomes of this epidemic by prioritizing trees that are most at risk, and taking steps to protect them.”

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The silver lining? This experience provides valuable information for outbreaks in the future.

“It is a tool by which we can make a better job next time, because it is inevitable that there will be a next time,” Professor Chris Gilligan, a senior author in the study, said in the press release. “With this sort of epidemic there will always be more sites to treat than can be afforded. Our model shows when and where control is most effective at different stages throughout a developing epidemic so that resources can be better targeted.”

The research may also help areas of the United Kingdom that are seeing spread of the disease. If there's one thing to be taken from the new study, in the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere, it's to act fast.

“When it comes to the arrival of new diseases, our computer modeling conveys a powerful message,” David Rizzo, an ecologist at UC Davis who also worked on the study, told the Los Angelse Times. “Jump in with both feet, or face the consequences later on.”

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