One of the things that shocked me most about the pandemic was that no country had plans in place for the situation. I had always imagined the basement of some boring government building filled with folders containing plans for all kinds of contingencies, how naive of me.
If you make plans on calm, pleasant days, you’ll forget things; if you make them on the fly in a panic, it will be complete chaos. And it wasn’t just one country, it was everyone; nobody knew what to do. From what I can see, we’re still the same.
They all relied on the CDC’s lead, and Trump fucked the CDC.
There were plans like that, but Trump fired the people who made them in 2018.
I remember reading about how Bush 2 was kind of paranoid about a pandemic and had plans made while in office. And that during the handover to Obama it was one of the things Bush told Obama to not ignore for the safety of the country. The admin after Obama ignored everything.
[Insert Archer gif of “do you want ants? Because that’s how you get ants.” Bonus if “ants” marked out for “pandemic”]
Anyway, I think about this a lot. Especially with the CDC gutted and measles outbreaks popping up. And now the Andes hantavirus strain.
The entire world relied on the US’s CDC? I would think other countries would have their own plans.
Let’s be blunt:
'Murica is a root cause of this, not just because of their stupidity, but because they export it to the rest of the world
If they weren’t so fucking stupid, they could be leaders
Their scientists and working their bollocks off making life-saving vaccines and doing amazing analysis, but their administration and population are basically toddlers
It’s bizarre this isn’t a foregone conclusion. It’s also bizarre science isn’t plotting a course for a hantavirus vaccine. 50-80% mortality last check, on those contracting the HPS version.
