That’s my thinking as well.

I don’t necessarily disagree that people in the US would take a bird flu pandemic with a much higher fatality rate than COVID more seriously. I do think it’s worth pointing out that COVID is still a serious problem that the vast majority of people are ignoring even if they know it means putting their well-being at risk. Even according to the CDC, COVID has been killing an average of 525 people in the US a week over the last 12 weeks. To compare, gun violence deaths minus suicides in the US in 2024 was about 319 deaths per week. It’s also well known at this point that even a “mild” COVID infection comes with significant risks of long term complications, from a severely increased chance of heart attack and stroke, to neurological issues, to damage to the immune system, and more.

Obviously it is not killing as many people as it did early in the pandemic, nor is it anywhere near 10% CFR, but it is still something that people should be concerned over and yet are not. I’ve talked to many people who know these things, who agree that COVID is still something worth worrying about, and yet do not mask or even keep their vaccines up to date. These are normal people, not even your Q-Anon freaks. It worries me to imagine having to rely on those same people in the potential bird flu pandemic.

COVID kills you in the long term as it destroys your immune system and blood vessels

The biggest problem is that the capitalist took their lesson from COVID and are not giving this any coverage.

Also can’t have people getting a taste of state support, or the lucky ones who could to experience a sort of temporary post-capitalist world. It made office workers too uppity and labor too undisciplined. Even in my “essential” public facing job that was living hell for months we basically give few shits about simpering customer service now.

It also destroyed the neoliberal illusion deployed during the Great Recession that says the state has to intervene. Now they can just roll the dice, hope the mortality rate is lowish, and even if not know they have their luxury bunkers and can finally get the population culling so many of the elite want (at least ecofash wing not the Breeder Kinksters)

i haven’t seen anyone else wear a mask here in 2+ years

The biggest problem is that the capitalist took their lesson from COVID and are not giving this any coverage.

Doomlathing: The bird flu becomes a global pandemic. Billions die. This causes a brief reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which results in brief improvements of the climate. Capitalists use this to argue the climate crisis has been solved and the mass death was just “mother nature’s immune system kicking in, killing off the sickness”; ecofascism reigns.

Yeah, I don’t know enough about H1N-whatever we’re up to, to know how long people are infectious before they die, but basically shit goes transnational within the span of a plane flight. It could be everywhere before 90% of the world is even aware that it’s happening.

The banning of observation and reporting in the US means like, yeah, we’re all fucked. Monitoring and combating these diseases requires global cooperation and we’re obviously not going to be seeing that any time soon.

I mean I agree, but that’s sort of aftermath scenario stuff. I’m thinking more about how C19 spread through passenger flights and cruise ships before anyone was really taking it seriously outside of 4chan where it was being overhyped the other way.

If nearly every other person died, there wouldn’t be too many reckless egotistical deniers left to maintain the foolishness.