The incredibly stupid partisan reaction to efforts to deal with covid have gutted our public health system and doomed any future effort to control the inevitable “next one.” Seeing public health as The Enemy is just unspeakably idiotic and infuriates me, but I also see no way to reverse that barring the passage of way more time than I suspect we have. Or such an overwhelming Democratic wave that we can toss the stupid, but there will be islands of stupid no matter what, which is effectively kindling to get it going. I have a bad feeling that I will have to deal with this again before my retirement, but I certainly hope I am wrong.
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Now I’m equally as concerned about global health response plans disrupted by billionaire grifters who use pandemics to line their pockets:
We need to end the excessive influence of billionaires over governments and in healthcare:
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The biggest problem with this is not even the overall vaccination rate (although dropping to only 91% overall is terrifying) but the “clumpiness” of vaccination resistance. There will be neighborhoods where the vaccination rate is far lower than the statewide average, and these can serve as kindling to get an outbreak going. As it gains in numbers, more folks who are vaccinated get exposed. Most will be fine, since those who have both doses enjoy 97% protection, dropping to 91% after a couple decades. Still, this is a loser’s bet. 3-9% of folks who are thought to be immune will still be vulnerable, just because perfect is not a thing. We are dealing with this exact phenomenon here with pertussis, where I have had the first fully vaccinated kid test (+) in my 30+ year career. This is craziness, I never thought I needed to regain familiarity with so many “thought to be eliminated” vaccine preventable diseases. Keep in mind that covid devastated the medical infrastructure, and it has not by any means recovered. Public health and primary care took the brunt of that devastation. I hear so many of us who just counting down the days until retirement is an option. And we know that there are not enough to replace us. But we are tired. We did the best we could. I have no idea what happens next.
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ETA
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We’ll have to see where this goes, obviously. But influenza is rather well known for jumping species and adapting incredibly rapidly. Get your flu shots. Even if it’s not directed against this specific strain, there is usually cross-immunity to some degree. Just fucking perfect. I need a drink.
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Blood and body fluid spread, not airborne, not terribly easy to catch, mostly spreading among medical personnel. Not anything to panic about but certainly something to be aware of and keep an eye on, especially since we seem to have gone back to ignoring the tropics and the exceptionally nasty viruses that are generated there. Sigh…
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These hemorrhagic fevers are incredibly nasty, but thankfully they aren’t very good at spreading.
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I am blanking on the name at the moment, but there was a mutant hemorrhagic fever virus at a German lab that got loose, but in acquiring the ability to transmit by air, it lost it’s virulence. It’ll come to me when i stop thinking about it. But yeah, we are always one mutation away from disaster. (See: Covid-19)
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