The next pandemic

Just when Barb and I thought we were getting a pretty good view of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Next Epidemic Could Be a Potentially Deadly Fungus

The next pandemic could be a sometimes deadly fungal infection called Candida auris, according to experts with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The yeast-like fungus can be fatal if it enters the bloodstream, experts said, namely if it enters the body via healthcare and hospital settings.

“One of the things that makes Candida auris so scary is the fact it can linger on inanimate surfaces for long periods and withstand whatever you throw at it,” Johanna Rhodes, an epidemiologist with London’s Imperial College, told the New Scientist several weeks ago.

Dr. Tom Chiller, who runs the CDC’s anti-fungal division, said it’s unclear where the fungus originated.

“It is a creature from the black lagoon. It bubbled up and now it is everywhere,” he said, according to the New York Post over the weekend.

I want an underground bunker someplace where the nearest neighbor is at least a half mile away. With Barb, a good Internet connection, reliable electricity, a well, and a few acres, I could be relatively content, and survive the pestilences and plagues.

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17 thoughts on “The next pandemic

  1. BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID! WE CAN’T CONTROL YOU UNLESS YOU ARE AFRAID!

    That is ALL this talk about plannedemics is about…..fear mongering.

  2. The answer is clear – send all foreign nationals home and seal the borders completely. Arty, minefields, automated auto-cannons, drones, free-fire zones, everything. Sink foreign fleets and vessels too close to the shore. Invade Canada and annex them without voting rights for a generation while we seal their arctic borders the same way. Minimize hospital access to critical care only, and admit only those with good underlying health that are worth saving – no land-wales or people clearly self-destructing through personal choices like drug abuse or alcoholism. Once it’s totally under control, start selectively opening things up – that should take another forty or fifty years. You know…. just to be sure.

    OK, so maybe my tongue was just a wee-tad in my cheek for some parts of that. But given how over-the-top they have been for the current flu season….

    • The Land-Welsh would complain, and ask why the Land-Scots and Land-Irish are protected classes.
      😉

  3. Nice try there, Joe.

    While you and Barb might happily live out your lives, being productive and successful and not posing a harm to, nor being exposed to, others- do you think that our betters will actually allow you or anybody else to do that?

    I do expect that we will be kept in a near permanent lockdown to some new threat that hasn’t even been decided on yet.
    That will be decided when Covid ceases to have people sufficiently cowed.

  4. I understand that Neptune is nice this time of year . . . jus’ sayin’ . . .

  5. All done with this crazy lockdown. Had the covids, didn’t even notice. But somehow, they still want me to mask up and social distance despite the fact that they can hardly wait to get my blood for the anti-bodies. I don’t know why they want everyone isolated but I’m done playing.

    • What happens before, during, and after every coup? Lockdowns and control of media is communist coup crap 101.

  6. A friend of mine, undergoing serious cancer treatment, ended up with that fungus. Her immune system was basically non-existent due to the chemo treatments, and the fungus lodged in her lungs. Doctors saved her, but ended up removing an entire lobe of the infected lung to get rid of the fungus infestation.

    Fungal infections can be very nasty and hard to treat – I hope that some big plague from this stuff doesn’t come about. However, I didn’t think that they were all that communicable.

    • My wife died from an undiscovered(until too late) fungal infection on the mitral valve. The growth blocked the proper function of the valve and reduced the blood flow from her heart throughout her body.

  7. Maybe that wasn’t the intent, but the way I read that quote is “don’t go to hospitals, they are dangerous”.
    That’s not exactly a new notion, of course, and it is a pretty rational one. Consider: why would you voluntarily stay at a facility where a large number of very sick people, suffering from many different diseases, all gather? If you can avoid it, that is?

  8. Joe, You want a bunker? I’ll build you one. Complete with ozone/ particulate filtration, both air and water. You want it to withstand nukes, EMP? Or just tank/RPG fire?
    It’s always just about the money bro.

    • Thanks for the offer. But I just say that when I get a little depressed or annoyed with the state of the world.

      In reality I would want windows. Which, of course, makes it incompatible with hardening against even common rifle fire.

      • Windows are doable. But I understand about getting depressed with the world. You would have to be insane not to. Location is far more important anyway. You got that covered already.

      • Have you considered remote windows? It’s a standard SF item, it would work fine for bunkers too.

  9. Do you know how I know that WON’T be the next deadly pandemic?

    …Because someone is looking at it, saying “this might be the next big one.”

    It’s always the bus you don’t see that hits you.

    • True. And it was discovered 11 years ago, so it’s unlikely to turn into a killer plague _now_. That’s not how long it’s been around, but only how long since scientists distinguished it from all the _other_ infectious yeasts that might be present in hospitals, and they still need a DNA test to diagnose it. It’s no danger to someone with an infective immune system, so it spreads between hospitals mainly when infected immuno-deficient patients are moved from one hospital to another. It can kill the immuno-deficient because it’s become antibiotic resistant, but that’s old news.

      In summary, it’s not new. If you’re healthy, you’re not going to catch it, and you’re not going to give it to your feeble grandmother – except by taking her to a medical center that isn’t doing a good enough job of cleaning.

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