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Friday, January 24, 2020

Pandemic?



China just locked down cities with 18 million people. This quarantine is an attempt to keep a new coronavirus from spreading. Anybody remember SARS? That outbreak killed an estimated 800 people. Frankly, we got lucky with that one. Time will tell how this one sorts itself out.

With modern travel being the way it is, there’s been a number of cases that have popped up all around world. So far they’ve been held in check.

Will this be the next world wide panic? Too early to tell. It may all depend on how the virus mutates from here on out. Then there’s the fact that the Chinese quarantine may prove effective. It’s a defense that’s worked since the Middle Ages, but there can be no exceptions. My guess is that the normal varieties of flu will end up doing more damage than this new virus.

Eventually the world will suffer another Black Death or Spanish Flu event. It’s only a matter of time. Modern medicine can do wonders, but it’s not geared towards huge numbers of people getting sick all at once. Hospitals have only so many isolation wards.

Individuals have a few options. One way is to just avoid people. Hermits living in complete isolation don’t get communicable diseases. That’s probably not practical for most people. Keeping healthy and sanitary will have to do for most.

-Sixbears

5 comments:

  1. Hospitals have no isolation wards.
    (Other than 4-6 BL IV containment centers, for all of North America.)
    Hospitals have a few woefully ill-used isolation rooms.
    With staff criminally under-prepared.
    And massive shortfalls in available basic PPE.

    I know; I see the hospital-acquired infection postings for where I work. Times every hospital in the country.

    China isn't PC.

    Quarantines work.

    But it would probably have been better to have some functional public health program. And to stop eating things that should be shot and burned, rather than consumed, and which are prepared under conditions that would make a medieval kitchen appear sanitary.

    Now they're paying for that short-sightedness.

    - Aesop

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looks like the quarantine has already failed. Does not look good and it's not going to be just a China problem either.

      Delete
  2. Saw a report of the Chinese government fumigating neighborhoods for this stuff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Watching the news that's come out of China recently, it looks like they are behind the curve. The cat is out of the bag.

      Delete
  3. Kids in NH being tested for Corona virus. https://www.wmur.com/article/student-from-school-in-bethlehem-being-tested-for-coronavirus-being-treated-in-littleton/30683455#

    ReplyDelete