Post Reply - pandemic strategies (or lack of it !)

The increase of H5N1-first in birds then in mammals- may be related to CoViD in birds/mammals ? Before CoViD H5N1 in wild birds was seasonal and linked to migrating birds...

Less immunity means more diseases get better chances for spread. On top of that global warming is increasing insect spread diseases like malaria, dengue...

Most "old" pandemic strategies had the idea of "fighting one disease-often a type of flu"..A very welcome extra was the "One Health" idea-what happens in animals may reach us (and the other way round). 

CoViD may-after 5 years going global- result in lots of diseases getting out of control. mpox, H5 types of flu, may only be the start...

Dealing with this exponential worsening global healthcollapse HAS to be global top-priority...but it is not...

like climate collapse also pandemics can end humans...going for global war may speed up "ending humans"....

So-if "we" do NOT want to end humans we have to find ways to end pandemics...

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In "war scenario's" those responsible for wars hide in bunkers-getting most other people killed...There may be "an idea" that "if you are rich" you can buy yourself safety for climate/pandemic collapse...

That "ídea" is false...

looking at major healthcrises in humans past did see from time to time pandemics killing over 50% of a certain population. Since travel was limited often those "pandemics" did not go global...

European diseases may have killed 90-95% of the "Indians" since 1492...

Corona-viral diseases in animals are well known-only controlled by killing all the animals on the farm. Some bats are known to carry over 30 types of corona-viruses...

So getting CoViD under control being hard should not be a surprise...

There are estimates over half of all humans may have had at least once a CoViD infection...Between 32 and 40 million people may have died from it...less then 0,5% of the global population...

H1N1-Spanish Flu may have killed up to 5% (100 million people) between 1917 and 1923. The "Black death" did result in 100% of some populations dying...Hardly doing much damage in other areas in the 14th century Europe...

In 2024 life expectency in some countries is over twice the 35-40 years it was-in general- before 1900...Basic healthcare, housing, safe water/food can "pump up" life expectency to 60-80+...Limiting pregnancies=limiting children dying before they reach 10 year...

High child deaths is one of the reasons why life expectency was that low before 1900. Often mothers dying during pregnancies...

We managed to overcome child/pregnancy deaths...better hygiene, women getting pregnant later (in general 18+...during the early 19th century working class women hardly did get 18...). 

So we can find a way out of the global unfolding healthcrisis...However the crisis may be MUCH MUCH worse then any "pandemic strategy" so far did think it would be...

A first step has to be information, education, communication...

A second step could be global masks/eye-protection in public spaces...low costs-may save many lives...

Making profits out of any crisis only is making problems worse..."fighting obesity" for decades-as a commercial enterprise-resulted in obesity becoming a global problem. That "strategy" has been a disaster...

So facing what is NOT working also may help...Smoking -trying to limit tabacco use-is a big ???? Greed driven strategies still find ways to get people smoking...But at least trying to sell cigarettes to parents to get young children smoking (Camel promoted cigarettes to 2-3 y/o in Indonesia some years ago...) is now seen as "unwelcome"...