A new strain of flu is tearing through the nation and thanks to poor staffing, funding fights, and now a government shutdown, the CDC and other government facilities are ill-prepared to address it. Add in Americans losing health insurance at record rates, a sizable minority of grass roots conservatives who have been conditioned to avoid vaccines, view any expertise with contempt, and angrily blame whomever Trump tweets is responsible no matter how comical or implausible, and you have the makings of a real health hazard. All that’s missing is a deadly contagious disease, and we can count on nature to fill that requirement any time. This year is already worse than expected:
Flu cases are continuing to rise in the U.S., with some states, such as California, seeing record numbers of patients seeking medical attention. And public health experts say that the looming government shutdown could hobble states’ efforts to anticipate and prepare for patients seeking emergency care. … The government shutdown would also affect not just the current flu season, but our ability to prepare for next year’s epidemic, said Richard Webby, a member of the Infectious Diseases Department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Twice a year, Webby and other experts gather at the World Health Organization Influenza Vaccine Composition Meeting to examine data from the previous flu season and determine which vaccine strains should be part of next season’s shot.
I am barely out of the woods recovering from this and what set it apart was how long it lasted. No exaggeration folks; it lasted three solid weeks. The fever, aches, and and chills started a couple of days after Christmas, but what just about killed me was it went on and on, at full intensity, with no let up, for more than two nightmarish weeks straight. Even when it finally started to fade, the recovery was slow and frustrating. So slow that here we are, four weeks after onset, and I can still feel it.
Imagine if only one-quarter of the workforce got the same illness. This one is highly survivable, perhaps only a few thousand would die. For the rest, just the time missed on the job would be in the billions of dollars, and missing enough time to recover from this year’s especially nasty, persistent flu could get millions fired. That economic combination could easily start a recession.
That’s all bad enough! Now imagine “Doctor” Donald Trump—“I did so great in biology that all my professors said I knew more than any doctor!”—tweeting out scapegoats to blame, in charge of “staffing,” and managing the doubtless chaotic national response, while self-appointed clowns like Tom Cotton happily take on the role of Nurse Squealer, all in the midst of a shutdown. And that’s just one scenario, with a strain that’s highly survivable. If something like a full-on contagious H5N1, i.e., bird flu, were to come along while these conservative bozos are in charge, we might as well brush up on The Walking Dead or Mad Max reruns for tips on how to survive.