Taiwan's health ministry on Thursday urged the elderly, very young and those with poor immunity to avoid travel to China due to the recent increase in respiratory illnesses there, a move some experts said was ineffective to manage public health risks.
We have had surprisingly few mass infectious diseases despite the massive increase in world population. Its really surprising COVID took so long to happen and that it was relatively mild.
COVID like infection will happen again, we won’t be prepared again and the lockdown/mask compliance will be even weaker. We are really screwed.
If you’re in the position to take time off of work OR can work from home, then it’s imperative that you work to buy a little here and there for an (ideally at least) ~1 month stock of non-perishable food, water (or sanitation kits if you don’t have the space for that much bottled water) and whatever you need day-to-day if you need meds to survive etc, as well as some supplements like vitamin D as you won’t be going outside, NAC which has been shown to help with respiratory conditions, antibiotics (can be purchased online without rx, but have a print out of what works for what… they’re not a 1 size fits all, and don’t use them unless you’re absolutely sure you need to)… a stock of N95 respirators (and battery shaver with battery backup, masks need to fit to work) in case you need to go out…
COVID gave forward-thinkers and planners a good idea of what could happen and what’s required if, say, there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease from Plum Island which is ALL being dismantled and moved to a new facility in Kansas this year, or a new bubonic plague outbreak happens as is expected…
With the Earth warming (which sometimes means colder winters, but not usually), viruses and bacteria are able to breed faster. It also means animals are migrating to new places, and looking for new food sources potentially closer to humans and other like-animals. With the population of humans on Earth increasing so quickly (we were JUST being amazed at the 7 billion mark being hit, and now it’s at 8 billion… exponential growth) that means humans in closer proximity to one another which means faster rates of spread.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a multiviral pandemic in the next decade.