the next pandemic

[Ivanhoe]

There has been a little online buzz about the following exercise;

https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/exercises/2022-catastrophic-contagion/

Ordinarily, such things would get no mention. However, the prescience of Event 21 (https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/exercises/event201/) has some folks worried about the latest "table top exercise" by the Bill Gates crowd.

The hypothetical contagion, as described, was apparently modeled on enterovirus D68;

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7140e1.htm

One of the things that struck me about this tale is that the projected victims were children, which resonates with recent attempts to frighten parents with monkeypox in schools (how children were going to contract what is primarily an STI at school was never addressed TMK).

The "lessons learned" (https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/exercises/2022-catastrophic-contagion/lessons.html) has the usual vague boilerplate, but some assertions of concern;

Quote

The WHO can be a globally trusted source, and it can share science and public health information widely, but we should not expect it alone to combat or put a stop to the spread of this mis- and disinformation. Countries need to collaborate to anticipate that threat and prepare to combat it with their own laws and procedures. Just as many types of economic and societal harms can be anticipated and accounted for in pandemic preparedness plans, so too can predictable false or misleading health messaging. Concertedly exploring ways to address this phenomenon on a national level in advance of the next pandemic will be crucial to saving lives.

IOW, free speech and free scientific inquiry are to be suspended during the next contagion. Relatedly, the WHO is working on its "Zero Draft" of an accord to internationalize pandemic response;

https://www.who.int/news/item/07-12-2022-who-member-states-agree-to-develop-zero-draft-of-legally-binding-pandemic-accord-in-early-2023

PDF here; https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb3/A_INB3_3-en.pdf

Interesting critique, if you ignore the clickbait-esque title; https://norberthaering.de/en/power-control/ihr-reform/

I ran across an online mention of some African countries expressing dissent over the WHO-centric approach, but I canna find it again.

Anyways, have a happy, safe, and worry-free 2023!

 

[Ivanhoe]

This looks promising;

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35407-x

Quote

Therefore, immunization with an ISF-vectored vaccine via mosquito bites is feasible to induce herd immunity in wildlife hosts of ZIKV. Our study provides a future avenue for developing a mosquito-delivered vaccine to eliminate zoonotic viruses in the sylvatic cycle.

 

[Burncycle360]

A contagious vaccine is definitely an attractive solution for those stubborn folk from an authoritarian state standpoint

[nitflegal]

Here's my contrarian opinion, sort of.  If a Spanish Flu level pandemic hits in the next 10-15 years  to successfully combat it Western countries are going to have to go full authoritarianism up to the level of military on the streets.  And its their own damned fault because they squandered so much credibility and trust during Covid that sizable minorities (at the least) will simply not believe them and a sizable percentage of them will assume the opposite without any acts or investigation to confirm.  I expect that to be a sizable enough percentage that if they don't take appropriate health measures they could act as a breaker for any sensible policy the countries' can enact that they could collapse a country's society.  

That's why I am so angry at what they did; it set the stage for far worse to come.  If they had the balls to come clean on this instead of doubling down they might regain trust but currently the elites are actually making it worse and setting skepticism in stone.

 

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.eurosurveillance.org/docserver/fulltext/eurosurveillance/28/3/eurosurv-28-3-2.pdf

So, we have the H5N1 avian flu rampaging around poultry farms and now species-jumping to mammals, specifically mink.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11657279/New-bird-flu-pandemic-fears-virologists-sound-alarm-worrisome-spread.html
 

Quote

 

Analysis of samples taken, which were published yesterday in the infectious disease journal Eurosurveillance, show the virus had gained nearly a dozen mutations — most of which had never or rarely been seen before in bird flu strains.

One was previously seen on the virus behind the 2009 global swine flu pandemic. 

 

 

Quote

Professor Francois Balloux, an infectious disease expert based at University College London, said: 'The sequenced genomes carry several rare or previously unreported mutations, likely acquired after mink-to-mink transmission.

 

[nitflegal]

3 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

https://www.eurosurveillance.org/docserver/fulltext/eurosurveillance/28/3/eurosurv-28-3-2.pdf

So, we have the H5N1 avian flu rampaging around poultry farms and now species-jumping to mammals, specifically mink.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11657279/New-bird-flu-pandemic-fears-virologists-sound-alarm-worrisome-spread.html
 

 

 

Yet another reason it was so irritating to see the media go all run-in-circles screaming and crying over monkeypox when avian flu has been spreading and jumping for over a year and is the one that is scaring the hell out of virologists.  If this damned thing jumps to humans (and minks and ferrets are a pretty common intermediate for a virus to learn and mutate to hit people) we are actually in pretty deep shit.

[Ivanhoe]

There are persistent rumors that H5N1 is #2 on the list of biohazards upon with GoF is being eagerly applied. Including the WIV. Thus, not if, but when.

It's too late, IMHO, to prevent the next iatrogenic pandemic. It's a done deal. My cynical take is that, to prevent the third, we must go full Nuremberg. Public Health officials, Big Pharma execs, researchers, state medical and pharmacy boards, journalists, Big Social Media. All taking the long drop.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

America has no direct experience of the Black Death. Think you were inconvinienced? Try losing major percentiles of your population. Who knows, the next Pandemic might be up to that, particularly if the Chinese cluelessly play with it.

The seventh year after it began, it came to England and first began in the towns and ports joining on the seacoasts, in Dorsetshire, where, as in other counties, it made the country quite void of inhabitants so that there were almost none left alive.

... But at length it came to Gloucester, yea even to Oxford and to London, and finally it spread over all England and so wasted the people that scarce the tenth person of any sort was left alive.

Geoffrey the Baker, Chronicon Angliae^[90]

Edited January 30, 2023 by Stuart Galbraith

[Wobbly Head]

One major historical difference between now and the last pandemics is historicaly is a significant amount of people died of disease.

 People knew back then disease was deadly and knew people who had died from disease. antibiotics and vaccines were not a thing back then. Most people now think science will save them from disease and have laid their faith at the alter of science. The vaccine has shown that science is not infallible and nature is unpredictable and not to be messed with.

  Trust the science, but plan for it failing. Might be the best lesson to learn for the next pandemic.

[nitflegal]

For the most part, science is like the police; it will be too late to save you when the murders break in but with luck it will figure out how to stop the murders before they do it again.  In this era of hypertravel any pandemic will go through the populations long before we can understand what we are dealing with.  If you don't already have the treatments ready, produced in large quantities, and ready for distribution you're screwed.  Covid is the first virus to break through our standard defenses and it was a comparatively mild one.  FWIW, this is the philoposphy behind gain of function research; you have to have figured out how to tackle a familily if viruses BEFORE they can emerge.  I still think it makes sense actually, but only if you do it above board and with the most stringent security protocols.  A lab in a metropolitan population center organized by people who cover up mistakes and staffed by people who don't have the safety training or supplies who know if they complain their family disappears is not exactly the model for this. . .

[Ivanhoe]

Recall that the Obama administration stopped GoF research here in the US because of the damned lab leaks. There don't appear to be any organizations on planet Earth capable of safe operation of BSL 3 or higher.

As for inconvenience, this "create a pandemic disease, leak it, then profit from governmental response" looks more like a protection racket than protection. We now know that roughly 75% of the response was authoritarian rather than scientific. And we also know how to deal with that.

 

 

[nitflegal]

1 hour ago, Ivanhoe said:

Recall that the Obama administration stopped GoF research here in the US because of the damned lab leaks. There don't appear to be any organizations on planet Earth capable of safe operation of BSL 3 or higher.

As for inconvenience, this "create a pandemic disease, leak it, then profit from governmental response" looks more like a protection racket than protection. We now know that roughly 75% of the response was authoritarian rather than scientific. And we also know how to deal with that.

 

 

CDC used to a hell of a good job at Plum Island and Vermont back in the day before they got sloppy in the early teens.  The protocols are well defined and you need to have independent oversight and a structure where reporting issues is a career enhancer.  CDC had that until they started getting hammered by the public for hypervigilant reporting internally which gave ammo to the mdeia for criticism.  Which then led to a quick degredation in their culture to start covering things up.  In the USA there are hundreds of operational BSL 3 and 4 labs that have not had issues that are operational to this day.  Partly because if you're a non-governmental lab the feds keep you under a microscope and are ready to swoop in with a rocksalt colonoscopy.  Which tends to keep those labs focussed since they spent tens of millions of dollars to build the lab and they are screwed if it closes.  

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.foxnews.com/science/scientists-revive-ancient-zombie-viruses-siberian-permafrost-infect-amoeba-cells
 

Quote

 

New research from a group of international climate scientists shows that so-called "zombie viruses" once revived, can infect amoeba cells. 

The study, published in the open journal Viruses, looked at more than a dozen new viruses isolated from seven permafrost samples from ancient Siberia. 

The research built upon previous studies from the past decade that showed a virus – in some cases tens of thousands of years old – could be infectious once revived. 

Researchers from France, Russia, and Germany discovered, through radiocarbon dating of the permafrost, that the viruses had been in a dormant state between 27,000 and 48,500 years. 

 

 

 

[17thfabn]

On 1/11/2023 at 1:59 PM, Ivanhoe said:

This looks promising;

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35407-x

 

What could possibly go wrong!

[Ivanhoe]

Don't throw your old hand sanitizer away;

https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/infectioncontrol/103901
 

Quote

 

As of April 5, a total of 14 lab-confirmed cases of MVD have been identified in Equatorial Guinea, with 10 of those fatal, according to the CDC. Eight lab-confirmed cases of MVD have been reported in Tanzania as of the same date. And five were fatal.

The current outbreaks do mark the first time Marburg virus has been identified in either country; the pathogen has been previously identified in neighboring nations, the CDC said. Additionally, its reservoir, the Egyptian fruit bat, is known to be present in both Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania.

Though rare, MVD is a highly fatal viral hemorrhagic fever, CDC officials said. An individual is not contagious until symptoms -- which may include fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal symptoms, or unexplained bleeding -- appear.

 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2018/07/30/the-backsies-billionaire-texan-builds-second-fortune-from-wreckage-of-real-estate-empire-hed-sold/?sh=6cc916ee3a72

The payoff pitch is the comments section; the article author is Team Narrative, its clear he was not expecting a visit from Team Crowdsource.

 

 

[Ivanhoe]

A fun read;

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7088173/pdf/10096_2016_Article_2657.pdf

[Ivanhoe]

St. Fauci of Nuremberg is essentially predicting another pandemic, coincidentally in time for the next presidential election.

Some contagions on the menu:

- Marburg virus

- H5N1, preferably GoF strains

- Monkeypox, GoF enhanced

- Lassa fever

- hantaviruses

- Ebola virus

 

[nitflegal]

13 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

St. Fauci of Nuremberg is essentially predicting another pandemic, coincidentally in time for the next presidential election.

Some contagions on the menu:

- Marburg virus

- H5N1, preferably GoF strains

- Monkeypox, GoF enhanced

- Lassa fever

- hantaviruses

- Ebola virus

 

Well there will be one simply because all of the things that made the last pandemics possible still exist.  More to that point, we do have a reasonably enhanced surveillence program so we should catch that a novel virus is starting to spread and we do have some solid technology development to analyze the early samples and start to genetically describe the new pathogen.  Unfortunately, we've done f**k-all to prepare the infrastructure to deal with one when it happens and our supply chains and braod infrastructure haven't recovered from the effects of the response to Covid.  So we are more fragile than we were, far less trusting of our experts and institutions than we were, and polarized politically on the health front.  I have a horrified fascination with how the next one is going to go. . . 

[Ivanhoe]

5 hours ago, nitflegal said:

 I have a horrified fascination with how the next one is going to go. . . 

[Wobbly Head]

On 4/10/2023 at 8:01 PM, Ivanhoe said:

St. Fauci of Nuremberg is essentially predicting another pandemic, coincidentally in time for the next presidential election.

Some contagions on the menu:

- Marburg virus

- H5N1, preferably GoF strains

- Monkeypox, GoF enhanced

- Lassa fever

- hantaviruses

- Ebola virus

 

There better be Zombies. I was promised Zombies on the next pandemic.

Although if they are the brain eating type they are going to starve when they hit Washington.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Wobbly Head

[Ivanhoe]

An alternate opinion on H5N1;

https://docanarchy.substack.com/p/dont-fall-for-h5n1-hysteria

 

[Ivanhoe]

On 4/12/2023 at 8:07 AM, Wobbly Head said:

Although if they are the brain eating type they are going to starve when they hit Washington.

Likewise Hollywood. 

Likewise any NYC zombies which invade the Federal Reserve.

[DB]

There's no shortage of empty calories in any given setting. Stupidity is the mean, if not the 80th percentile.

[Stargrunt6]

6 hours ago, DB said:

There's no shortage of empty calories in any given setting. Stupidity is the mean, if not the 80th percentile.

 

Yeah...

*wipes cheeto dust from fingers, sips Dr. Pepper* 

 

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2023/04/19/h2n1-bird-flu-dangerous/5491681913849/

Quote

 

April 19 (UPI) -- Scientists are sounding the alarm about dangerous changes in the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza from seasonal to year-round infections. They say an urgent coordinated national response is needed to combat the virus.

We've been dealing with low pathogenic avian influenza for decades in the poultry industry, but this is different," said Jennifer Mullinax, assistant professor in the University of Maryland Department of Environmental Science & Technology and a co-author of a study published Wednesday.

 

 

At least they're not promising a species-jump to humans. Yet.