Here we go again. Hope that my country will become communist before the pandemic begins because it seems like communist countries are the only ones able to stop the spread of epidemics
this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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US has to deal with another flu
trump is governing again
i pity the americans
America's first recorded covid death was in Feb 2020. The trajectory of this looming new pandemic threat doesn't feel great.
We're still waiting on the first human-to-human transmission, though, which for now might be a few months off. By February 2020 Covid was already infecting millions globally, whereas we're still in the hundreds (?) for now.
You're right though, this can and will be a new pandemic if it ends up being anywhere near as virulent as Covid. It's only the meticulous tracking of the virus for decades that has delayed that reality so far.
I'm getting exact same vibes as when covid started. At first, it was some isolated cases here and there, but then when it hit critical mass everything started happening all at once. It's how it goes with exponential phenomena, there's a very slow build up that's almost imperceptible, but then it hits a point when you see explosive growth.
Surely lessons were learned, though?
how many people do you know that are still masking to avoid covid which never went away? in the US at least we have learned negative lessons and societally are worse prepared for another round of pandemic
That's the really scary thing: we will undoubtedly handle any future pandemic far worse than covid, unless it's far more lethal than covid (which itself killed over a million Americans and harmed exponentially more). And the bullshit negative lessons we took from covid make it more likely that a deadlier viral outbreak will grow into a pandemic in the first place.
Not a "learned lesson" but since H5N1 has been circulating for decades, there are already candidate vaccines being stockpiled compared to COVID where it took a year for vaccination programs to begin. Downside is that we've successfully countered that via a global anti vaccination campaign to fuck up all vaccine programs forever.
"You can commit crimes and be rewarded with huge political and financial windfalls by actively encouraging disinformation that literally kills the people whose survivors will immediately turn around and vote for you to pick their pockets again" seems to be the lesson learned.
Most unrealistic part of Contagion (2011) was Jude Law getting arrested
There is some truth to that.