• protist@mander.xyz
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    6 months ago

    Over 700,000 people die every year from common variants of the flu, where 463 people total have died over the past 20 years from H5N1. We should always be working to reduce flu mortality, and this H5N1 outbreak is certainly something to watch closely and be prepared for potentialities, but also the sky is not falling.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      No, I’m treating this like it will inevitably become another pandemic. Viruses mutate, and this one has already jumped from birds to cows. It’s only a matter of time.

      • protist@mander.xyz
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        6 months ago

        That sounds exhausting. How have you changed your behavior to affect something that doesn’t yet exist and that you have zero control over?

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Well I don’t eat eggs or drink milk, so I’m not contributing to the petri dishes of laying ops and dairy farms. Maybe if we didn’t pack animals together and torture them for money we could slow down the emergence of new diseases. It always comes back to animal exploitation.

          But I think you misunderstood me. I was only saying that when this inevitably becomes a pandemic there will be zero government response. I wasn’t saying that we should be shutting down society this instant, but rather, that when this jumps human-to-human we’ll just ignore it.

          • protist@mander.xyz
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            6 months ago

            The government has already funded the production of several million doses of vaccine against H5N1, and is planning to produce more, so it seems the government is already doing something.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              Vaccines millions won’t take.

              But you’re right, one thing our society can do is produce medicines. That’s it. When this jumps human-to-human we’ll be told “take your vaccine, get back to work, pay no attention to the bodies piling up.”

              Did you know our life expectancies are falling? Why do you think that is?