[Snorlax94]

O

But even so, we are dealing with a virus that in some respects is much milder than it might have been. Something to keep in mind, as the world shrinks. Before the Black Death, the last major disease wave to sweep through Europe was during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, nearly 800 years before. Now we see new flus seasonally, and pandemics every decade. We certainly have not seen the last, and quite possibly not even the most serious.

I share your concern, though I consider a different root cause. I have been struck how many assume this will be a once-in-a-century experience, after SARS, AIDS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, West Nile, H1N1.

My impression from some news stories (one on CNN with Sanjay Gupta) is that animals like bats already have many diseases that could be devastating to humans. They could have been around for many years. It’s just that now, as developers go deeper into the jungles in China, deeper into the jungles of Brazil and Africa, we are rubbing up against more and more animals who could already be dying of diseases that would be lethal to us. 

I don’t see what the solution will be. Maybe China will finally close its wet markets, but countries — China, Brazil, the US, African nations — will keep developing available undeveloped land, and I fear it could continue to unleash diseases from the animals and insects living there.

Even in CA, near Coalinga, in recent years we’ve unleashed “Valley Fever” that has killed some Californians and does not yet have a surefire cure, and the hypothesis is that we unearthed these spores by digging up the lands in that region. Luckily, it’s not contagious, and few get sick, but what if it was contagious?

I don’t say this with some kind of “don’t touch undeveloped lands” ego-agenda. I view this as an underlying cause of these diseases that actually may not be “new”, and why I worry we will encounter new ones over and over in the years ahead. For one, hopefully the US and the world will get better at containing pandemics. And thankfully, not all of them are contagious, or they aren’t asymptomatic. Also, countries clearly should develop more capacity to domestically produce certain critical medical (or essential supplies). Maybe we shouldn’t run our supply chains quite so tightly. But also, maybe the world needs to adopt new guidelines about developing new lands, that will helps reduce the risk of run-ins with new diseases. I also don’t think it’d be too intrusive to start checking peoples’ temperatures at every airport, permanently (I’ve seen videos of the Chinese using scans that don’t require you to walk up to every person).

[Snorlax94]

O

But even so, we are dealing with a virus that in some respects is much milder than it might have been. Something to keep in mind, as the world shrinks. Before the Black Death, the last major disease wave to sweep through Europe was during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, nearly 800 years before. Now we see new flus seasonally, and pandemics every decade. We certainly have not seen the last, and quite possibly not even the most serious.

I share your concern, though I consider a different root cause. I have been struck how many assume this will be a once-in-a-century experience, after SARS, AIDS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, West Nile, H1N1.

My impression from some news stories (one on CNN with Sanjay Gupta) is that animals like bats already have many diseases that could be devastating to humans. They could have been around for many years. It’s just that now, as developers go deeper into the jungles in China, deeper into the jungles of Brazil and Africa, we are rubbing up against more and more animals who could already be dying of diseases that would be lethal to us. 

I don’t see what the solution will be. Maybe China will finally close its wet markets, but countries — China, Brazil, the US, African nations — will keep developing available undeveloped land, and I fear it could continue to unleash diseases from the animals and insects living there.

Even in CA, near Coalinga, in recent years we’ve unleashed “Valley Fever” that has killed some Californians and does not yet have a surefire cure, and the hypothesis is that we unearthed these spores by digging up the lands in that region. Luckily, it’s not contagious, and few get sick, but what if it was contagious?

I don’t say this with some kind of “don’t touch undeveloped lands” ego-agenda. I view this as an underlying cause of these diseases that actually may not be “new”, and why I worry we will encounter new ones over and over in the years ahead. For one, hopefully the US and the world will get better at containing pandemics. And thankfully, not all of them are contagious, or they aren’t asymptomatic. Also, countries clearly should develop more capacity to domestically produce certain critical medical (or essential supplies). Maybe we shouldn’t run our supply chains quite so tightly. But also, maybe the world needs to adopt new guidelines about developing new lands, that will helps reduce the risk of run-ins with new diseases. I also don’t think it’d be too intrusive to start checking peoples’ temperatures at every airport, permanently (I’ve seen videos of the Chinese using scans that don’t require you to walk up to every person).