Experts Warn World 'Grossly Unprepared' For Future Pandemics (theguardian.com) 148
Prominent international experts are warning that a virulent flu pandemic capable of spreading across the world in 36 hours, killing up to 80 million people, is entirely plausible and efforts by governments to prepare for it are "grossly insufficient." The Guardian reports: The first annual report by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, an independent group of 15 experts convened by the World Bank and WHO after the first Ebola crisis, describes the threat of a pandemic spreading around the world, potentially killing tens of millions of people, as "a real one." There are "increasingly dire risks" of epidemics, yet the world remained unprepared, the report said. It warned epidemic-prone diseases such as Ebola, influenza and Sars are increasingly difficult to manage in the face of increasing conflict, fragile states and rising migration. The climate crisis, urbanization and a lack of adequate sanitation and water are breeding grounds for fast-spreading, catastrophic outbreaks.
The report acknowledges governments and international institutions have taken steps to increase preparedness for outbreaks in the five years since the Ebola crisis in west Africa, but concludes current preparedness is "grossly insufficient." A growing lack of public trust in institutions in some countries, exacerbated by misinformation, hinders disease control, said the study. The report outlined seven steps to ensure the world's health system is better prepared for the next health emergency, calling on heads of states to increase funding and for international organizations to build preparedness into funding mechanisms. "Poverty and fragility exacerbate outbreaks of infectious disease and help create the conditions for pandemics to take hold," said Axel van Trotsenburg, acting CEO of the World Bank. "Investing in stronger institutions and health systems will promote resilience, economic stability and global health security."
The report acknowledges governments and international institutions have taken steps to increase preparedness for outbreaks in the five years since the Ebola crisis in west Africa, but concludes current preparedness is "grossly insufficient." A growing lack of public trust in institutions in some countries, exacerbated by misinformation, hinders disease control, said the study. The report outlined seven steps to ensure the world's health system is better prepared for the next health emergency, calling on heads of states to increase funding and for international organizations to build preparedness into funding mechanisms. "Poverty and fragility exacerbate outbreaks of infectious disease and help create the conditions for pandemics to take hold," said Axel van Trotsenburg, acting CEO of the World Bank. "Investing in stronger institutions and health systems will promote resilience, economic stability and global health security."
EXCELLENT! (Score:2)
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the planet stands a chance still ..............to control this runaway condition that are imposing on the planet
Don't worry about the planet, the planet will be fine and dandy long after we've cooked ourselves off of it.
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Planet != huge rock. He's probably talking about the whole ecosystem.
And it will still have an eco system. It's just we won't be a part of it but again, the planet itself doesn't give a shit about that.
Re: EXCELLENT! (Score:2)
If you ever studied the black plague, or watched a documentary on it, weâ(TM)re starting to mirror these events. People talking about food sustainability. How cattle and its protein to mass ratio is not a limitless model as populations grow. People ranting, and some killing (like the NZ shooter), over unchecked birthrates. All signs point to mother nature bringing about the next population correction. Theres a madman in N Korea about to have 53 nukes by next year. The reason he is so alarming is that h
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It can be argued that because the Black Plague broke the back of the royalty grip on power, it brought about the Renaissance, and something other than brutal slavery. When the nobility just don't have enough backs to break to show why they deserve to be in power, things get better for everyone.
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the biggest takeaway I got was that prior to the plague almost all land capable of cultivation was dedicated purely to grain production. Afterward the land requirements were much less. So they were able to use the land for things like cheeses and wines. It was something that more people could experience instead of reserved for aristocracy and religious orders. Likewise the over abundance of population meant that the need for automation was non existent. Plenty of bodies doing scribes work. Afterward there w
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I think you got your history right, but only to a specific region. Both cheese and wine and renaissance were available long before the black plague. While the western part of the ex - Roman empire was held back by the catholic church and inquisition, there was a huge empire on the Balkans and north west of the Black Sea called Bulgaria that was producing cheese (Feta) and wine for the common folk and was already in the renaissance by the 12/13 century. However all of that was lost with the ottoman turk inva
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While the western part of the ex - Roman empire was held back by the catholic church and inquisition, there was a huge empire on the Balkans and north west of the Black Sea called Bulgaria that was producing cheese (Feta) and wine for the common folk...
Citation needed.
As a side note, I just love how people find it easy to accuse the Church of holding people back when, without Catholicism, much of Western Europe would have been ill equipped intellectually to revive as quickly as it did. Those "backwards, superstitious religious fanatics" (not I4ko's words, but the opinion held by many today) did a pretty good job of preserving knowledge, whatever other shortcomings they or their successors have had.
Anti-Catholic bigotry remains one of the few socially acce
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Anti-Pederasty bigotry remains one of the few socially acceptable bigotries left in American society
FTFY.
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is it the same strain? I would have thought dysentery would be the disease ripping through the homeless.
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Hell, we're starting to see the black plague itself rear its ugly head out west in LA and other major cities being overrun with homeless on the streets, leaving filth all over the place.
Cheap air travel is the real driver of global pandemics.
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one nuke in the wrong hands, picking the right target, could be a disaster. imagine a nuke in Jerusalem, or at Mecca. Or part of a false flag operation that spawns
a domino of retaliation strikes. The subsequent bloodbath that would follow that. But I really doubt thats his only WMD. I'm sure he's got just as many people cooking up biological means as well. But the point is, the next big thing that could wipe out a 1/3 of the population on the planet could come from anywhere. It wont necessarily be a
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imagine a nuke in Jerusalem, or at Mecca
Please, please make my dreams come true, this whole region needs more nukes. They can either finally learn to get along or blow themselves to hell. I ceased to care about 30 years ago, which is way too long to figure out how to play nice with each other. Bloody religious twats.
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i agree, but i suspect the entire world is going to get drug into that shit.
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Wiping out 30% of the population would lead to a change that lasts between 30 and 50 years. Really, you need a much bigger result to have an important effect.
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goes back to my original point of mother nature has a way of doing population correction when things are out of balance. it could be a pandemic, it could be global bloodbath, it could be global warming. I do know that she's been through several ice ages, some comets slamming into her, and several other things. Yes in some cases it was an Extinction Level Event, but here we are... and so is the planet. The only thing at risk is humans, and a bunch of species. Others will adapt to their new environment and ev
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The mad man won't have any nukes.
He blasted the place by accident last year, in case you missed the news.
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I did, and that was my impression, until an article I read this week. Just looked it up... newsweek says 40, I might be off by 53 but i do remember it was not a round number I read. https://www.newsweek.com/north... [newsweek.com]
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Interesting ... so how did he make 40 - 53 nukes in a year without having his facility to make them?
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For those who come through it, there is a silver lining.
Great points.
If it wasn't for the Black Death there never would have been a Renaissance.
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Theres a madman in N Korea about to have 53 nukes by next year
Don't confuse "asshole" with "madman". Like the Soviet Premiers before him, Kimmy is an asshole, but completely rational in his desire for personal total power over his dominion and therefore of only modest concern when it comes to nuclear weapons. To use one is to guarantee retaliation and thus ruin. He isn't in the business of getting into heaven via nukes because he's already there for himself. It's the afterlife guys who care nothing for ruin who are the madmen.
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Still amazes me the number of people who would be delighted if most of humanity died...
...as long as they, personally, weren't part of the "most"....
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(Have I got my USian religious lunacies correct? They're so rare in the civilized world. I'm thinking of the movies where all the dull characters are killed off on the Day of Judgement leaving only relatively interesting people for episode 2+.)
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the planet stands a chance still ..............to control this runaway condition that are imposing on the planet
To put the numbers in perspective, 80 million is roughly equivalent to one year's global population growth. In terms of limiting population growth, it would be no more than a blip.
Cue some anti-vaxer clown... (Score:2)
... telling us how a vaccine is actually more dangerous than the disease and kids everywhere should risk a painful death by disease because some charlatan made up some crap about a tiny risk of getting autism from them.
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"Flu is easily preventable with proper nutrition and diet."
Right, because viruses check your fridge first for salad before they decide whether to make you sick :)
Still, thanks for proving my point so emphatically.
Isn't it time you went off to polish your tin foil hat and go look for Elvis's UFO flying around Area 51?
That is indeed the case (Score:5, Interesting)
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Resources could be dropped in from airplane if necessary. Communication is possible without contact.
If you put armed troops at the border I'd say a quarantine is very possible.
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The biggest risk seems to be from viruses in densely populated poor countries. My guess is you don't even need troops to quarantine them, you just need airplanes to stop flying there.
But the real killer pandemics won't give you time to quarantine until its too late. These will be viruses with lengthy incubation periods that all transmissible for days or even weeks before symptoms prevent the infected from further mobility.
Armed troops on the border to hold back the teeming masses is already something bei
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The biggest risk seems to be from viruses in densely populated poor countries.
Experts have known for decades that the biggest risk/threat is from people who live in close proximity to their livestock.
As in, they have chickens, pigs, ducks, etc, wandering in and out of their house.
The concern is that viruses will crossover between species, which happens.
There are many millions of people, mainly in Asia and Africa that are in that environment of heightened exposure.
Re: That is indeed the case (Score:3, Interesting)
Your assuming it will erupt outside your borders. Theres such an open borders push right now, that the most likely scenario is that we will hear about pockets of outbreaks first, and by the time the reality sinks in, too many refugees will have already carried it in. The longer the incubation period, the harder to contain.
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Depends on the size of the border, now doesn't it? The USA has 10000km of land border between CONUS and Canada & Mexico (note that this ignores the Alaska-Canada border entirely). Not sure just where you're going to find the troops to close 10 megameters of border (certainly the Canadians don't have enough, and I doubt the USA could manage it).
And Russia and China have similar border lengths (though China might have enough tr
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If you're in the scenario of a pandemic and borders are closed, the only thing you're using ground troops for is evacuating all of the border towns, and implementing a no-man's-land in the larger border cities like Detroit or El Paso. Perhaps 5 miles from the border.
The Air Force and Navy will be doing the border security at that point, and simply killing anything between the actual border and the quarantine border.
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The problem with any pandemic won't be land borders. It will be airlines. With most illness you are sick and contagious long before you feel sick. A pandemic level flu would spread very quickly and before the scale of the infection was clear it would likely be spread all over the world by the airlines.
HIV was believed to have been spread around the west's gay community by a single flight attendant. That flight attendant was long dead before they even knew what it was that was killing people and a decade bef
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People don't have any idea of the scale of shipping. US Air freight carried less than 80,000 ton-miles of cargo in 2018 according to the Department of Commerce. A single Panamax ship beats that after going about two miles.
Shutting down the border means shutting down the US economy. Entire regions of the country would stop receiving gas and oil shipments, and experience food shortages. Just the loss in trade would directly cost the US economy over ten billion dollars a day.
If you had to quarantine a m
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Math is your friend...
four pounds per person per day for seven million people is 28 million pounds per day. Which is 14000 tons per day.
Now, 14000 tons per day is not trivial. But it's also not 56000 tons per day....
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Yeah, I switched from NYC to Houston in the middle of the post. Still exceeds what we're capable of doing.
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If there is a pandemic of something against which we do not possess a cure, the only means of dealing with it is quarantine.
Reading Hans Rosling's Factfulness [goodreads.com] reveals a interesting statistic that quarantine alone can cause more deaths than an outbreak. Quarantine is not a viable option anywhere.
Re: That is indeed the case (Score:2)
People make trade-offs. Live in the hills with extra food and appropriate firearms to survive a pandemic or live a walkable distance to arts and entertainment and a convenience store within three miles?
I know a guy who says he doesn't want to be a survivor because he doesn't want to live in an uncomfortable world. Me, I can't stand cities anyway. To each his own genepool.
Resolution of the Fermi Paradox? (Score:2)
The problem is that with a viral infection that has a long incubation period, it likely would have spread and infected a lot of people before the quarantines are put in place. The US especially because people will not go to a doctor if sick because it can bankrupt them and their family, so people who are infectious will not be treated, and will be people working retail or food service, places with a high customer turnover.
Don't think the US is the only one dinking around with bioweapons. Russia had their smallpox lab have an explosion a few days ago. Anyone with reliable power can use CRISPR to hack together something. It is only a matter of time before we some country be able to hack something together, then send some infected "martyrs" out on planes worldwide to spread the "love", and whomever lives or dies, inshallah.
Aye, there's the rub. Much as I hate to acknowledge an AC, the search on "weapon" found your comment, and your comment deserves more visibility.
I think you're describing our most likely extinction-level disaster. A natural pandemic could be bad, but a cyberweapon could be one or two orders of magnitude worse. Let's see. That's starting with 80 million -> 800 million -> 8 billion. Game over.
Genetic engineering used to be a massive problem requiring massive national laboratories. The Human Genome projec
Gross (Score:2)
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Well it is pretty gross when that many people get sick, vomit and crap all over the place. Gross.
Yea, you better hope Ebola or Marburg don't mutate to become aerosolized(sp?) to where sneezing will spread them.
Yepp. One superbug and we're screwed. (Score:2)
The warnings have been there for a few decades. We're too lax with antibiotics and we could use a little more paranoia in public health. That includes a pragmatic and realistic stance on vacination. Perhaps even with legal rules.
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Re: Yepp. One superbug and we're screwed. (Score:3)
1) antibiotics are useless against viruses.
2) if its a flu, the vaccines are not that effective.
We need that new type they announced 2 yrs ago that works on all strains and impervious to type B mutations.
It's easy! (Score:2)
Just play Plague Inc to find out how easy it is.
https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com]
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Just play Plague Inc to find out how easy it is.
https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com]
I'm moving to Greenland, it's my best hope...
maybe that's why Trump wants to buy Greenland, he's been playing Plague.
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Hey, why no love for Madagascar? The weather is nicer too! Just shut the seaport early and hope there's no Tier 3 transmissions mutated.
from the fuck-the-future dept (Score:2)
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And serialization by fire.
I really wan't the option to serialize by fire for my next java project. This option is desperately needed in hibernate.
The advantage is that once you serialized hard enough by fire, you don't have to worry much about deserialization.
Re: from the fuck-the-future dept (Score:2)
FireWire would be the apropos serial interface.
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And serialization by fire.
I really wan't the option to serialize by fire for my next java project. This option is desperately needed in hibernate. The advantage is that once you serialized hard enough by fire, you don't have to worry much about deserialization.
You can add WSUS to that list.
Disgusting fear mongering (Score:5, Interesting)
I find this type of fear mongering really disgusting. I wouldn't be surprised if said experts have a lot to gain by implementing all ths preparedness.
80 million potential deaths seem to be impressive, until you consider that's about 1% of the world population. Risking 1% for a very low chance occurrence is a very reasonable decision to make. I'm certain you take bigger chances crossing the road or using a car. The government should better spend the money where it helps more.
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Whenever you see the words "independent" you can be assured it isn't. All of these "reports" are paid for. These people are being paid VERY well.
Re: Disgusting fear mongering (Score:2)
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And musicians will say we need to spend more money on music education. That is how the world works.
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I find this type of fear mongering really disgusting.
It's interesting to me that your post got modded up this way.
But human nature never ceases to surprise.
You should do yourself a favor and read about the 1918 "Spanish" flu before making glib statements about pandemics.
That wasn't that long ago.
I think modern society has given a false sense of security to people in the first world.
A relative of mine was a doctor during that period and I have heard many stories about it.
The Spanish Flu touched every corner of the US.
From the largest cities to
Silly title (Score:3)
It wouldn't end up as a pandemic if we WERE prepared for it.
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Apocalypse now (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apocalypse now (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, you're on /. and you're that ignorant of Y2K?
It wasn't a prophecy of doom, it was a real deal issue. So do you know what everyone did? They fixed it before most of the problems happened. Y2K is a fantastic example of how people around the world can identify an upcoming problem and rally to prevent most of the ill effects.
You have to remember, Y2K was before YOLO came on the scene, so instead of collectively saying "fuck it", we fixed it.
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Wow, you're on /. and you're that ignorant of Y2K?
It wasn't a prophecy of doom, it was a real deal issue. So do you know what everyone did? They fixed it before most of the problems happened. Y2K is a fantastic example of how people around the world can identify an upcoming problem and rally to prevent most of the ill effects.
You have to remember, Y2K was before YOLO came on the scene, so instead of collectively saying "fuck it", we fixed it.
Yep, right you are.
I had a friend who made a killing the years leading up to Y2K adjusting code for banks.
It wasn't a big deal because people prepared for it.
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if (xx00 < yy99)
continuePayment();
else
terminateContract();
if (2000 < 1999)
continuePayment();
else
terminateContract();
Obviously the two code fragments do something different depending on the value/existence of xx and yy.
Can't be so hard to grasp.
Then there is code that tries to calculate the w
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Prophets of doom can be both secular and religious.
True. As well the profits of doom.
Eighteen years ago experts warned Y2K was going to cause the world to crash.
Not quite. The *Media* warned Y2K was going to cause the world to crash. As others have noted, for us in IT, Business was a-Boomin'!
Apocalyptic predictions arise more from psychologic causes e.g. feelings that something bad will happen than objective evidence.
"I've got a bad feeling about this!" (c) DisneyCorp
Yes, but this is slashdot. (Score:2)
Second verse same as the first (Score:2)
We could stand to lose a few billion people.... (Score:2)
The world needs a good epidemic if you ask me...
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Who's talking shit? You don't think the planet would be better off without a 7 billion person population. Cut that in half or a third, global warming solved. Would I be happy to lose friends and/or family no, but we're going to lose a whole lot more if we continue to grow as a species...
cui prodest (Score:3)
so some experts who are paid for preventing epidemics say they are not paid enough to prevent epidemics. nice try.
they may be RIGHT, fwiw, but how do we, laypeople, know? still a nice try though.
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so some experts who are paid for preventing epidemics say they are not paid enough to prevent epidemics. nice try.
they may be RIGHT, fwiw, but how do we, laypeople, know? still a nice try though.
So your expertise in this area is of greater worth the public and medical professionals than those cited in the article?
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So your expertise in this area is of greater worth the public and medical professionals than those cited in the article?
of course it's not! that's beside my point.
my point is that it's really hard not to suspect ulterior motives from people who have a vested interest. I'm all for "investing in stronger institutions and health systems" but it shouldn't be as easy as "take my opinion for it, because I'm an expert".
Average Joe's Warn Experts 'Grossly Unprepared'... (Score:2)
for saying anything intelligent!
There has always been doomsayers... they have never been correct.
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Until they are and then we call them something else. Do you really think no one saw WWI or WWII coming?
Pandemics are grossly unprepared (Score:2)
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Unfortunately, we have pretty much reached that stage....
Sickos (Score:2)
This story apparently has all of the sickos on Slashdot climbing out of the woodworks.
Duh. The world is big and no one's in charge. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. How can anyone be surprised by this announcement?
There are 195 countries in the world. Each with their own system of states, provinces, counties, cities, towns, and off-the-grid citizens. There are over 7 billion of us right now! Most humans cannot even comprehend what a "billion" of anything entails aside from the number of zeroes you need to represent it mathematically. Those citizens speak over 6,000 languages and aren't particularly concerned with the threat of global pandemics because they're worrying about the granular things in life.
-- My daughter needs new shoes.
-- My neighbor is too loud.
-- I need to ask for a raise.
-- Gosh I wish my plumbing didn't need constant attention.
Of course the world isn't prepared for something that is best managed by I dominating central power. There is no dominating central power! The world is big, complex, conflicted, and full of people with vastly differing preferences, understandings, and capabilities, means, and will.
A non-comprehensive list of things the world is not ready for:
1. Global Pandemics (see summary and article)
2. Global thermonuclear war
3. Genocide
4. Hurricanes
5. Tornadoes
6. Earthquakes
7. Tsunamis
8. Famine
9. Economic Collapse
10. Clever and moderately-well-funded guerillas utilizing extreme ideologies, firearms, and homemade explosives.
Look, I like knowing things, but it does no good to start a panic about disaster readiness (Plan A). If it's your job to prepare Plan A, then do so. If you're going to tell the world about it, prepare them for Plans B-Z because WE ALL KNOW that Plan A falls apart real quick.
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Look, I like knowing things, but it does no good to start a panic about disaster readiness
What panic?
The medical experts, those fighting Ebola and other outbreaks are only trying to rationally warn the public and get people to prepare.
Prepare rationally so a panic doesn't happen.
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Most humans cannot even comprehend what a "billion" of anything entails aside from the number of zeroes you need to represent it mathematically.
A billion is easy. It's the number of cubic millimeters in a cubic meter. Which is a lot. An awful lot. A really huge amount. If you had a nickle for every mm^3 in one m^3 you'd be set for life!
Stock up on emergency supplies (Score:2)
Here's another reason to stock up on food and water. If your community is quarantined, or if the food and water supply are suspect, you'll have to live on your own supplies for a while.
It's not that hard. Make up a list of everything you need (food, water, medicine, flashlights, batteries, plastic bags, etc.). Then log onto your local grocery store and hardware store, order the stuff, and have them deliver it. Food and water are heavy. Let the delivery guy carry them into your garage.
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Re: Obligatory Alarmist Story (Score:2)
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Slashdot could let it be modded to -2.
Then you could browse at -2 so that you could become outraged by the AC FP.
Then you could propose yet another overly complicated solution to the solved problem of irrelevant FPs.
Slashdot could let it be modded to -3...
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"I only wish Slashdot would make such 'comments' even less visible."
Rules for AC, but what of thee?
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Z^-2
Re:Sexual assault by Shannon Jacobs (Score:2)
It's 2:11 am in Japan, and hikikomori Shannon Jacobs continues his campaign of assaulting people on the Internet while simultaneously complaining of trolls. So much projection from one so unaware...
Public masturbation of 946416 (Score:2)
Z^-3
Re:Sexual assault by Shannon Jacobs (Score:2)
It's 3:31 am in Japan, and resident Shannon Jacobs is following his usual routine of sexually assaulting people in the middle of the night. Been too busy doing real work to deal with an old, self-indulgent pervert, so sorry for the late reply.
Oh, it's easy to lay out an effective solution. (Score:3)
I worked in public health for over a decade. I've been at the Fort Collins DVBID center when they were scrambling teams to investigate an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in East Africa. It was, on a smaller scale, like being at a military base the day a war breaks out.
That's what you need, mobile scientific might of the kind only the US possesses at this time, but on an even larger scale. You have to deploy that power to characterize, identify, and contain threats wherever in the world they emerge. Our st
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Would that be a good idea.?
USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) (1986-) USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) (1987-)
We did. they exist, and they go wherever they are needed and supply aid free to people of any nation when a medical emergency exists
What other country in the world does that?
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I expect China will soon. They are making a play to displace the US in soft power.
Those hospital ships were not built for humanitarian assistance; they exist to support the Marines. However 99% of the time they're slack resources.
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I wish I had some points.
There are too many idiots posting on this topic with their heads in the sand(or somewhere else) to have any semblance of a clue.