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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CyVi4UzKxE&list=LL&index=8
I realize this link doesn't directly answer your question, but it was the right technical level for me to better understand what's the big deal about the bird flu. And it has some comments about the state of healthcare here in the US & what we're doing (not doing) to prevent another pandemic. I liked it enough that I watched all 40 minutes, so I guess that's something? lol.
Oh that is a good video and a good channel overall, thank you.
Yeah I don’t think I need to be an infectious disease expert to see the writing on the wall. We learned from the COVID Experience that a lot of the pain of a pandemic is the social chaos and confusion that make solving the resource choke-points even harder, creating a runaway feedback loop of problems.
This time around we are less prepared, less informed and the woo-woo crowd has had their feelings validated lately so they are feeling extra empowered.
Stocking up on simple essentials in a calm and measured manner is surely not a bad idea. Just some extra toilet paper, hygiene supplies.
And of course, beans.
Americans take credit for many things where their contribution is null. If anything, we'll probably be safer 5y down the line because there will be less people trying to profit from pandemic potential diseases (tamiflu much...)
I still don’t understand the obsession with tamiflu. The data is such that the average reduction in illness time is 16 hours, if and only if you take it within the first 48hrs of showing symptoms.
And yet it’s both pushed and asked for well outside those parameters at great expense. It’s expensive, $75-150, depending, not always covered by insurance, and it’s not unusual for it to make people feel worse.
My running theory it’s the same impetus that has people screaming (sometimes literally) for antibiotics for colds, some of whom genuinely believe it helps. That and pharma selling a thing.
Can the other developed nations mount a credible pandemic response without the resources of the USA?
Yes. Just to show you an example from the other end of the developmental spectrum: even North Korea made it through COVID virtually without any resources.
You speak English. There is an at least partially English speaking country to your North. There are more English speaking ones scattered around the world. Most cutting edge research in anything will eventually end up in an English version if it was from somewhere-elsistan originally. The US is/was not the only country with something like the CDC. If you google their counterparts I would not be surprised if you found a warning about a measles outbreak in Texas. The research will be done elsewhere; the US may only lose its leadership position in the field.
BTW I would call the US response to COVID-19 just as shambolic as any other country's. The only difference was maybe they could throw more money at the problem. And that they could do again.
No country will be fully prepared. Ever. We don't know what the next pandemic will be, we don't know when it will happen. The lab coats will have an idea but it's too vague to build policy around that in a world, where there continues to be no glory in prevention. Stockpiles will perish, emergency plans will gather dust, and we will all be shocked and surprised again.
Humanity was sort of lucky that two Turkish scientists were quick to realize they could use a DNA something something method, that was not held in the highest regard in scientific circles before COVID hit, to make a vaccine in record time. They did that in Europe.
Call it conspiracy theory or good science, either way, as the ice melts I think it’s likely. Especially when we go poking around to see what’s what as it happens.
Well that’s one potential source of new pathogens, but we don’t need new pathogens to create a disaster.
We (meaning the US) are currently dismantling our pandemic management infrastructure and withdrawing critical funding for international prevention efforts, kids are dying of Measles already and bird flu is already everywhere for all we know. And don’t forget that the regular flu can still be a major killer. God knows what Ebola is up to these days.
This isn’t a future doomsday scenario like a John Carpenter movie. We will be facing this as the world turns into autumn 2025 in the northern hemisphere.
We’ve had pandemic, now we get second pandemic, and we are going to have it very soon. But this time we will fight it with denial, a weapon proven to be useless against infectious diseases.
Texas measles has entered chat, followed by dismissive remarks from RFK Jr.