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The next pandemic is already happening – targeted disease surveillance can help prevent it

7 Comments
By Maureen Miller

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What do you do if it seems to have gotten out of a lab that was testing biological weapons?

You log off of Qanonwhackjobs.com

1 ( +1 / -0 )

If the problem is disease transmitted from animals to humans, there are several simple common sense measures to take:

First, close and outlaw zoos. Zoos are full of non-native species, harboring vast varieties of microbes harmful to people, and it is nothing unjust and inhumane to imprison and cage animals simply for our own amusement.

Second, end the barbaric practice of pet ownership. Every type of pet sheds hair, skin cells, feces and other media for dangerous pathogens. If emotional support or companionship is needed, Japan has proved that robotic pets can provide such services in a hygienic manner.

Third, we must do a better job with sanitary means of garbage disposal so that vermin such as rodents and scavengers birds do not thrive on our refuse.

A few common sense measures would eliminate the need for such draconian measures that impose on a person's right to privacy.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Wait! They want us to trust the work being done in the Wuhan Lab from which the current virus might have been leaked?

I'm not a fan!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

What do you do if it seems to have gotten out of a lab that was testing biological weapons?

So a completely different situation than COVID-19? then obviously make it a priority to investigate this as the most likely explanation. In the same way that it is being done for COVID where the most likely explanation (a natural origin) is the one that should be given priority.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

What do you do if it seems to have gotten out of a lab that was testing biological weapons?

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

China is a hotbed of all kinds of crap...

3 ( +5 / -2 )

People that only read about new infections and viruses on the media often believe that anything reported about new diseases means those pathogens are the only ones that have developed such characteristics, but if you have real interest you can follow much better sources, medical journals, alerts, communications from universities and institutes that research emerging diseases, etc. And this illusion disappears immediately.

The "almost pandemic" mentioned in the article are a great example of why scientists still consider the natural origin of COVID the much more likely explanation, it happens continuously without control and we only find out when it becomes a huge problem. Experts that follow the primary sources find out much more often.

The most important problem to prevent pandemics is that it is absolutely essential to have the cooperation of the local governments to do the necessary epidemiological surveillance, in countries like Malaysia or Vietnam, where new virus are also constantly being discovered there is already a system that let scientist conduct those studies without too much problem. But in countries like China, this becomes a bargaining chip where the government demands absolute control of the information to let people do the research or find out the results, this is what ends up causing controllable outbreaks to become pandemics.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

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