Dr. Jonathan Quick, chair of the Global Health Council, told Raconteur that people-to-people contact makes an outbreak more dangerous. And right now, there’s nothing more terrifying than a new virus, likely one that jumps from animals to humans unexpectedly that could wipe out millions across the globe.
Disease X doesn’t exist yet, but scientists are pondering its implications. “Our greatest fear is being blindsided by a new virus, most likely due to animal-human spillover, which then readily spreads from human to human, has at least a 5 to 10 percent fatality rate, does not respond to existing medicines, and for which an effective vaccine and accurate diagnostic test cannot rapidly be developed,” said Dr. Quick, according to The Daily Star.
A new pandemic is right on the horizon. It’s a matter of when, not if, according to Raconteur, and how the world will respond to a deadly virus. The death of 9,000 chickens on a single farm in northeast China didn’t make global headlines; perhaps it should have. The poultry died from the lethal H7N9 virus. No humans suffered this time, yet this flu kills more than one in three people who catch it and 623 have already died of this virus in Asia. The next coughing bird could be incubating a lethal virus that humans could pass on too.
This is just theory and conjecture at this point, but humanity is woefully unprepared for a pandemic. Most people are as ill-advised about infectious diseases as they are about the state of the global economy. “We just don’t know where the next [pandemic] will strike. We cannot predict it. There is also the natural evolution of diseases already out there,” explains Professor David Heymann of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“A virulent respiratory virus spreading as fast as flu can reach all major global capitals within 60 days now. By June this year [2018] alone we saw concurrent outbreaks of six of the ten diseases in the WHO blueprint list of priority diseases,” says Dr. Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which aims to derail epidemics by speeding up the development of vaccines. But not one single vaccine is 100% effective nor are they 100% safe as every single human being is different.
The study “Pandemic Versus Epidemic Influenza Mortality: A Pattern Of Changing Age Distribution” noted the most pandemic deaths occurred in those under the age of 65. Tragically, it is believed the Spanish flu virus (one the most infamous pandemics) made the body’s own immune system work against it when it triggered killer “cytokine storms” in its victims. That means, the stronger the immune system, it is thought, the more devastating the result.
I often wondered if we do all these preps and the powers to release a virus what good is all of this ?
Are we just dead supermarket / sporting goods employees FOR THE CHOSEN ?
I saw a virus on tv a while ago. His name is Michael Benedict Arnold Cohen being paid to undermine the president and all of us that hold this country dear. I hope Cohen gets a bullet soon. We are at war and I sure hope people are paying attention at how serious our situation is becoming.
Sounds like Stephen Kings, “The Stand” Captain Tripps virus.
Wait…did you just post an entire article about a class of doom that DOESN’T ACTUALLY EXIST?
Humanity is also “woefully unprepared” for an attack by unicorns; should we be concerned about THAT too?
DEPORT ALL UNICORNS!!!!
Oh Good…. more about Bill Gates’ “Disease X”…
and still no talk of stopping all International travel when it happens?
Naturally occurring bacteria and viruses, unknown to even exist a tad over a century ago have plagued (no pun intended) mankind. Once you add in human intervention increasing their effect, both unintended and far worse maliciously intentionally weaponized, make us wonder how human is the human race.
Prior to the H1N1 pandemic flu, the standard protocol was to monitor the spread of contagion, and then at a certain point, cut off air travel to keep it isolated to countries of origin.
This failed in 2009 as by the time it was determined to be highly infectious in some regions of Mexico, it had already spread to the USA. Shortly thereafter they started using FLIR monitoring of airline passengers basal temperature with very poor success and it kept spreading from country to the other.
The health authorities have consistently failed to bite the bullet as if they close air travel, a huge potential economic result will occur.
In 2014, after Ebola had spread to seven other African nations, and there were numerous initial false positive test results, China had workers in at least one of these countries. But they delayed bringing them home for quite awhile, almost certainly because they feared contagion in their densely populated cities. But then were wildly irresponsible about quarantining these returning workers.
It’s aspects like that which are troublesome and likely to one day cause very serious global outbreaks.
These are not just medical decisions, but political decisions made by bureaucrats worried about the longer term economic ramifications of bad calls that don’t pan out.
During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic flu, the standard US state protocol was to have a large surplus of Tamiflu and yet when the state reports came in, the actual amounts on hand were abysmal. Another aspect that came out was governors planned to close state borders by roadblocks and bridge closures to limit the spread. And Northcom had made recommendations that pandemic FEMA camps be set up to isolate potentially infected patients where doing so would almost certainly result in acquiring the contagion.
I started to die the day I was born. That was depressing enough of a revelation. Now I have to face the fact that something that doesn’t exist will also terminate me. To quote Ernest Tubb …. “bartender, pass the booze”!
_____ Doesn’t Even Exist Yet, But ***Could*** Kill MILLIONS Of Healthy People
There is a disease named for writers that excess on this kind of crapoli.
This kind of ***could*** reminds me of every science story on all of the UK ‘news’ websites. They report “could, possibly, someday” as if it was a noteworthy news item.
[I laugh at all of this shit passed as news] Websites around the world released images from Neptune and its newly discovered moon.
They mentioned it was discovered by the Hubble.
They failed to disclose the discovery image was a blurry pixel in size.
The images released to the news agencies were of course, NASA ANIMATIONS.
(sarc — X Doesn’t Even Exist Yet, But Could Fill MILLIONS Of Easter Baskets with Jelly Beans, your car will never need gas, and it reveals the lottery numbers.
Why are we taking about X.
Y is the real problem.)
“Rapid urbanisation does, however, pose enormous challenges. More than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas. According to the United Nations, the proportion is set to rise to almost 70 per cent by 2050.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe
“A Malthusian catastrophe (also known as Malthusian check, Malthusian spectre or Malthusian crunch) is a prediction that population growth will outpace agricultural production – that there will be too many people and not enough food.”
Maybe, it’s something ghoulish, to measure this, but notice the line graph, in the right hand margin, of the Wikipedia page. I have a more interesting idea than just measuring one single trend. They are charting just demand, instead of a PE ratio.
At the point where demand and production cross, is where you might expect a Malthusian event.
If you like projections, if anything can go in the projection, plot the expenses created by AOC’s green New Deal, vs other economic models. In other words, in how long will it cause starvation.
One possible way of gauging things, which don’t even exist yet, is to see where there is a confluence of several trends, rather than just one single data set, without reference points for perspective.
(It looks like an X.)
A Malthusian check is not simply starvation. It is the accident that leads to starvation.
Millions of people can slip on a cartoon banana peel. It can be (hypothetical) vampires. A steamroller rampage. This much is hypothetical. Fill in the blank with any absurdity of your choosing.
imho, this imaginary point might exist, where historical population growth is plotted against real gdp. If planners were literally planning, it would be mathematically possible to find a natural limit.
With genetics research they prob have a dozen “X” viruses that have been developed and stored for research ect. If you think they havent graphed mutant strain combinations like rabies / smallpox / influenza. Or ebola and tuberculosis ect ect. Its not fantasy only on Sci fi chanel
et cetera. etc.
But disease X does exist. It’s already got a patent. They’re just waiting to release it on you. You know they are. You can’t hide. Be afraid. Be very afraid. It’s in the soap. Don’t use soap anymore. It’s in the water. Don’t use water anymore. It’s in the air. Don’t breathe anymore. Oops.
Take two shots of corn whiskey/’sqeezins’ before bed. Whatever don’t kill you will cure you.
Better make it two good gulps.
Right now, we have patients who suddenly die as their conditions cannot be treated with antibiotics. There is nothing left to give them.
There are few antivirals and these only lessen symptoms.
There are patients living with persistent fungal infections.
There will come a time when the number of deaths will be massive because this has happened in history with pandemic influenza, tuberculosis, the Black Plague, cholera, typhoid, smallpox, etc.
We are whistling in the dark and it’s likely going to happen when city utilities fail as they are happening in South Africa and in Detroit. It goes waterbourne or airbourne.
If doesn’t have to be a new disease, as what is likely is an old microbe slightly changes and no longer is there an antibiotic and or there are to many cases and not enough medical personnel and patients flee and spread the contagion.
You will reach for fishs antibiotics and they won’t work.
Mother nature is a cruel bitch, but she knows how to take care of the earth.