Before COVID, nobody laughed at the CDC saying stuff like “the age of infectious disease is over.” The CDC was rapidly expanding its focus on non-communicable diseases and we all got to live this easy happy life where we never had to worry about it.
This period of frivolous decadence, vanity, and callous disregard for human life is over. The truth is that since the 1980s, we have seen a very large increase in novel infectious diseases arising, and the number of potential threats is rising fast too.
We are probably re-entering a period where infectious disease is gonna be a more frequent issue. If it’s not SARS or MERS or COVID or Ebola or AIDS it’ll be something else: resistant tuberculosis, for example.
In the grand scheme of things, we dodged a bullet with COVID: a pretty low IFR, and virtually zero death rate among the young. The worst possible tragedies were avoided.
That won’t be true for every future epidemic.
That won’t be true for every future epidemic.
This is my response to “so when does the pandemic end?”
The pandemic ends. The new age of infectious disease does not. My grandma was a hygiene nut until the day she died because her little brother died in childhood from infectious disease.
The pandemic ends. The new age of infectious disease does not. My grandma was a hygiene nut until the day she died because her little brother died in childhood from infectious disease.
My elders are tidy and fastidious in ways that seem absurd to me. Or rather, SEEMED absurd. Now I get it. They lost people. Or their parents lost people. And they learned. And they developed new habits. And so my life was easy and carefree.
What I’m saying folks is harden up a little you softies. COVID was a cakewalk: the next time a severe influenza strain makes the jump it’s gonna be kids. Learn your lessons. Develop the right habits. Learn to mask up at the slightest provocation.
Somebody is gonna reply with fists full of pearls and say BUT THE CHILDREN or BUT YOU DONT KNOW WHAT I SACRIFICED
Your children will benefit from a more demanding upbringing giving them earlier exposure to reality. The idolization of innocent childhood is bad.
Your children will benefit from a more demanding upbringing giving them earlier exposure to reality. The idolization of innocent childhood is bad.
As far as what you sacrificed: I agree that broad spectrum lockdowns were basically useless. That’s why I’m talking about masks. Because there’s some evidence masks work. There isn’t much evidence stay-at-home orders work.
But if what you sacrificed was that you feel sad not seeing people smile probably you are the weak link in society in urging to get tough before the next big bad one hits.
People talk about 1918, but the thing about 1918 is it was the LAST big mortality spike like that until COVID. We remember it also because it was one of the only big old-school plague events for which a ton of countries had good data systems for tracking deaths.
But if you look at the places that did have death records before 1918, while it was still a bad year, extreme mortality spikes happened a lot! Yellow Fever routinely knocked out huge shares of the population of coastal cities. Cholera, tuberculosis… it was bad stuff!
We are not going to have that happen because our health systems are 👍👍👍 but it’s likely with globalization that we WILL experience frequent challenges to our system.
Like with COVID, we will respond with innovation and keep death rates way lower than they would be naturally.
Like with COVID, we will respond with innovation and keep death rates way lower than they would be naturally.
But even though our health systems will work wonders, the simple reality is there’s still gonna be growing demand for conscientiousness around infectious disease at the individual level to a greater extent than was socially normative in the past.
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