Kind of wild how we have a potential pandemic brewing in Amerikkka that no one in power seems to even acknowledge exists.

Don't worry, as soon as Trump is sworn in the liberals will remember that pandemics exist.
- And genocides. Wow, can you believe that??
  
  tbf democrats this time around have just decided to lean into the evil shit they were supporting before the election instead of performatively opposing it after the fact
  
  We must stop them from funding the genocide!
  Coming soon as a slogan near you !
  
  Remember "kids in cages"? Yeah, its about to make a comeback!

Society-wide veganism via massive livestock pandemic is going on my 2025 bingo card.
- I'm gonna stop being vegan if everyone else does it!
- I fucking wish but people would rather die
- I'd like to think mass extinction of livestock would help stop climate change, but then capitalism would just invent a meat cloning factory that would produce double the methane
  
  It's actually kind of an issue right now with single-cell protein production. These companies are popping up with these very electricity intensive ways of culturing yeasts or bacteria for protein and if it takes off on our dirty grid, it'd result in a lot of CO2 emissions.
- What if the eco-fascists saying Covid was the earth trying to cleanse itself were right?
  
  they wouldn't be since it was manmade in a North American laboratory
- Death drive will prevent this one. It makes too much sense.

Fucking funny that Trump will manage another pandemic
- Getting a lot of mileage out of this one lately
- Tbh at least he gave out cash and instituted a lockdown, however brief. As soon as Biden came in it was Back To Normal
  
  Yep, it's funny, because as dangerous as he was and is for many populations, he was actually kind of decent at pandemics.

are the other states not testing?
cant wait for "it's just the flu" round two because it's literally a flu
- "relax, it's just covid"
- it’s just flu

Because it’s not coming from “bad country” and isn’t “effecting the gays” like monkeypox. So you alarmists should stop trying to control our rugged individualism and push vaccines onto us.
- Without a doubt, if they do acknowledge it, it will be blamed on China 100% like the last time.
  
  Doing a heckin' orientalism by calling it ASIAN Bird Flu and claiming the strain originated in Chinese geese populations

Years that now repeat forever, 2016, 2019, 2020 soon to be 2024.
- It's like a dark Chinese calendar.
  Oh I see its the Year of the Trump, that means next year is the year of Heather Heyer
  
  MFW no year of the Chanty Binx

Important to remember that there is already a vaccine for h5n1. It would need to be updated if it mutates to a point where human to human infections are consistent. It should be faster to get something out than it took for covid.
I obviously have no idea what it would look like if it does mutate to human to human transmission but I'm not an omega doomer about it. We cant predict when or even if a process like evolution will produce a certain result. The US and other countries will obviously let it rip so stay safe if it does.
- Feels like predicting the next pandemic is like predicting the next recession at this point
  
  Like how there's no need to because we're already in one?
  
  In the sense that both happen at a way higher rate than what we've seen lately & we know the quiet period is purely by chance?
  Yes.

Wait til it shows up in China then they'll acknowledge it and blame it on the Chinese.

I don’t have a source, but I read somewhere earlier that a teen in Canada is in intensive care with it, and there’s no connection between the teen and fowl or livestock. There has been a couple of these in the last couple months. I like to think of it as the couple engine turn overs before you get the lawnmower started. There was also something about it infecting about farm I saw, which is tre bad because the pigs can host human flu and this one at the same time and possibly generate the jump.
I wonder about whether large swathes of the public are capable of doing quarantines or taking safety measures… I mean they’re definitely done with Covid, but if this kicks off it will be way scarier way fast with hospitals collapses and bodies rotting in houses, so maybe that’s enough. But honestly we’re so far into hyper reality mode that they also might not be physically capable of acting rationally or believing things that run counter to what they want to believe.
- but if this kicks off it will be way scarier way fast with hospitals collapses and bodies rotting in houses, so maybe that’s enough
  After everything, I would honestly just expect for reactionaries to claim its fake AI footage/images or whatever. Half this country threw a massive temper tantrum over simply being asked to wear a mask. I truly wish you're right, but I have no hope left for anything even approaching a rational response if this does evolve into another pandemic.
- article - archive
  Health officials do not yet know how the patient was exposed.
  “It is very likely that it is an exposure to an animal or bird or something in the environment,” said Henry, adding authorities may never determine how the patient became infected.
  The teen was exposed to pets inside and outside the house, including dogs, cats and some reptiles but no birds.

Isn't person-to-person transmission incredibly rare? The R value is significantly below 1 for humans. Lots of factory farms will probably have issues, but other countries have had similar outbreaks of H5N1 among livestock and have always had limited human cases.
- Once they hit the hog farms, because pigs are very close to us medically, an incredibly infectious human to human variant is just a matter of time.
  
  Hog flu! Hog flu! Hog flu!
- it will be rare until it isn't

Welp... I'm literally building air purifiers for around my house and workplace.
- search corsi-rosenthal box, comrades
- Yep, I've built some already in different configurations, some using PC fans too to make it quieter. These things legit can save lives, the higher flow filters actually remove aerosolized viruses faster than HEPA.

are other countries even acknowledging it
- The HPAI H5N1 outbreak in cows has been limited to the US so far
  The Australian government put $100 million towards H5N1 related measures last month, but that's more because they haven't done much about it because H5N1 isn't present on the continent (yet)
  
  canada has a slightly different strain, but still H5N1, it is circulating there in bird flocks and showing up in wild mammals and now a human: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/canadas-national-lab-confirms-h5n1-hospitalized-teen
  
  Imagining that as a ticker scrolling across the top of the screen in the mid game of Plague Inc
- No. At least not where I am.
  This just makes me surer that my late 2019 covid was really covid (all the hallmark symptoms) and the only reason it was taken seriously was China calling it out. Or at least it had been brewing a lot longer.

64 in my state....
- 64 tested and reported in your state.
  
  these lyrics are about a big storm but whatever
  24 dead in my state
  Motor spirit subjugate
  Creator, a burning mouth
  Carnage North, East, West, and South

Isn't this the one that had like a 50% mortality rate?
- in theory but if it goes human to human it could be more like 5 to 10%.
  i mean real spanish flu time. this one would be bodies in the streets.
  
  But you're coming into the office, right?

Turns out the fakest part about Roland Emmerich movies wasn't the aliens or the moon crashing after all, but rather that anyone with power would actually give a shit about any of it happening.

I am once again asking the admins for Pathologic emotes
- Pick a few images and ping whyesseff

Don't worry it's gonna spread around the world, China will immediately react and alert everyone and then the US will call it the Chinese Flu and acknowledge it all cases that appear ~~from that point onward~~ until investers determine line has to go up more quicker.
First part is basically what happened with the spanish flu

What would I even do to prevent being infected this time?
- Same as last time: social distance (abstinence is best, but if you must be around humans, stand away from them), keep your face covered, wash your hands at least five times a day.
- Stop eating meat, which is currently the primary infection vector