D&D and the rising pandemic

[MoonSong]

So, there's a problem with humanity. We stink at vigilance without stimulus. If a truly threatening global pandemic comes along once a century, major funding efforts to prevent or manage them will be extremely hard to sustain. I mean, we had this back in 1918, and see how ready we are today?

A hundred years ago everybody was too busy fighting WWI or staying out of it.

 

[FrogReaver]

It was bad, half a million deaths weren't nothing. It was easier to control in its early stages, and it was overestimated in reports. It also helped that the City was put under lockdown quite quickly. Our doctors reported the outbreak as soon as they detected it. This virus though, is more virulent and has been allowed to spread since at least October, it also is a new species of virus that doctors aren't familair with instead of a variant on a known virus.

H1N1 virus killed about 12,000 in the U.S. that year.
In the US normal Flu killed more that year.

 

[MoonSong]

H1N1 virus killed about 12,000 in the U.S. that year.
In the US normal Flu killed more that year.

That many people died on my country's central region alone. Overall it was 50,000 deaths. And we are about a fifth of the US population.

Ok, don't get me wrong. I'm worried about influenza too. This season has been particularly nasty, yet the Health ministry has done nothing about it -and sadly many people just refuse to get the annual shot-. I dread what could happen should this new virus get our of control. We don't need yet another bad disease running amok here.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, there's a problem with humanity. We stink at vigilance without stimulus. If a truly threatening global pandemic comes along once a century, major funding efforts to prevent or manage them will be extremely hard to sustain. I mean, we had this back in 1918, and see how ready we are today?

I agree, but in fairness, between 1918 and, say, 1970, people thought scientists were going to solve all the world’s problems. New vaccines! Cures for terrible afflictions! Some of mankind’s nastiest killers reduced to vials in labs. Could complete freedom from diseases be achievable?

Weeeelllll, no. IOW, we got complacent.

Mother Nature + human nature condemned us to repeat the lessons.

 

[Celebrim]

That many people died on my country's central region alone. Overall it was 50,000 deaths. And we are about a fifth of the US population.

Influenza's mortality rate depends heavily on how much the population is exposed to, and at least partially immune, to different strains of the virus. Related viruses can appear over a period of many years, and impart immunity to similar viruses that are of a very different character.

Overall mortality in the 1918 Spanish Flu - which is believed by some to also be an H1N1 variant - was about 2%. That virus had a nearly unique trait of killing the young and healthy at relatively high rates and higher rates than those just younger or older than they were - peaking at age 25 at about 1% mortality. But it was actually less lethal overall for the elderly than most seasonal flu. Some believe it was because the very old had been exposed to H1N1 before.

It also had the unusual trait of killing people in rural areas at higher rates than urban areas.

My family at the time was living in the southern part of Arkansas (a state in America). In the rural community that they lived in, the death rate among those about age 25 hit 20% of the population. Old people in wagons and those that had survived would go house to house in winter, and people would leave their corpses on the porch to be picked up and buried, because they were too sick to attend a funeral.

 

[FrogReaver]

I agree, but in fairness, between 1918 and, say, 1970, people thought scientists were going to solve all the world’s problems. New vaccines! Cures for terrible afflictions! Some of mankind’s nastiest killers reduced to vials in labs. Could complete freedom from diseases be achievable?

Weeeelllll, no. IOW, we got complacent.

Mother Nature + human nature condemned us to repeat the lessons.

I much prefer to simply blame it all on the greedy corporations. No profits in curing all diseases

 

[MoonSong]

Overall mortality in the 1918 Spanish Flu - which is believed by some to also be an H1N1 variant - was about 2%. That virus had a nearly unique trait of killing the young and healthy at relatively high rates and higher rates than those just younger or older than they were - peaking at age 25 at about 1% mortality. But it was actually less lethal overall for the elderly than most seasonal flu. Some believe it was because the very old had been exposed to H1N1 before.

This was also a feature of the epidemic 11 years ago, it was deadlier with young people and specially women as opposed to older people.

 

[slobster]

I much prefer to simply blame it all on the greedy corporations. No profits in curing all diseases

As an immunologist who works in healthcare and is on the frontlines of this outbreak, I can assure you that medical science is nowhere near being able to cure all diseases, profits or not. I'm not gonna argue that corporate decisions aren't really shortsighted and inhumane in many cases, and that you can't find plenty of examples of corporate actions costing lives, but that's not the whole story either.

I'm not at all confident that if we'd been funding the development of a vaccine or cure nonstop since 1900 for even just all coronaviruses (the old "cure for the common cold") at the scale of the US national defense budget, that we would necessarily have a completely airtight foolproof treatment by now. Science just fundamentally doesn't work at the scale of "double the funding, double the progress", and these are some seriously devious diseases. And that doesn't even get into the fact that coronaviruses are like 25% of common colds, not to mention all the other tens of thousands of pathogenically distinct diseases out there.

But hey, if someone ever finds the panacea to treat all illness, the second person behind them will be trying to patent and get rich off of it, so I get where the cynicism comes from.

 

[Zardnaar]

Re: booze

Our liquor cart:

Our stockpile:

Not pictured: pantry or refrigerator contents...

Despite that impressive display, though, our nuclear family isn’t heavy into drinking. The three of us might combine for a drink in a typical week. It’s mostly consumed on special occasions and used for cooking. Those bottles are dusty AF.

Over here it's what you gonna do for next

Back in 2009, US pandemic preparedness was slated to be boosted by @$800m. That boost was stymied by bipartisan efforts, Some of that was because some of that funding was tacked on to unrelated bills, but not all of it.

I’m thinking that some of those legislators are rethinking those votes. I know some of their constituents are. Hopefully, we’ll get it right this time.

That guy who uses keys to predict electiobs. Well this triggers two of them. Stockmarket downturn plus crisis.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

This was also a feature of the epidemic 11 years ago, it was deadlier with young people and specially women as opposed to older people.

Where does the "especially women" part come from? Ive never heard about the spanish flu being especially lethal to women. Ive heard plenty about it and somehow never heard that part.