#SARS epidemic

[sophsweet]

Quotes from Coronavirus Vaccine Designers and Researchers since SARS-COV1

Coronavirus Vaccine History Back in 2004, SARS vaccine trial spotlights continued peril by Helen Pearson was published in the science press. But public-health experts remain concerned that a second wave of infections could erupt, either from human contact with infected animals or by the virus escaping from laboratory samples.Pearson, Helen SARS vaccine trial spotlights continued peril. Nature…

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

By Faras Ghani

Some 4.5 billion people worldwide are currently without adequate access to essential healthcare services, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

This comes as more than 100,000 cases of mpox and at least 200 deaths have been confirmed globally, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, with the WHO declaring it a public health emergency earlier this year.

The ongoing cholera outbreak in Sudan alone has affected almost 15,000 people with at least 473 deaths reported, according to the country’s health ministry.

A new COVID-19 variant has spread across 27 countries, infecting hundreds of people.

At the 2024 World Economic Summit, it was also revealed that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become the leading cause of death globally and could kill 10 million people by 2050.

A report titled Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health, launched earlier this year, predicts that by 2050, an additional 14.5 million deaths could occur due to climate change as well as $12.5 trillion in economic losses globally.

With healthcare systems across the world already under extra stress, they could face an additional $1.1 trillion burden due to the impact of climate change, the report added.

Al Jazeera spoke to Dr Ahmed Ogwell, vice president of global health strategy at the United Nations Foundation and former deputy director general for the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on the current state of healthcare, the risk of infections and diseases across the globe and whether the world has learned any lessons from the coronavirus pandemic.

Al Jazeera: Let’s start with the general health situation of the world. What risk level are we talking about with infections and diseases?

Ogwell: For the general health of the world, I’d put the temperature at moderate risk right now. We are in the middle of a public health emergency of international concern that is the mpox multi-country outbreak. It means that we need to be in heightened surveillance and ensuring we have the health tools that we need and that we also need to be improving the way we work together as a global community.

Secondly, there are increasing numbers of disease outbreaks – not just disease threats – including mpox, dengue fever, cholera, polio etc. And we still have effects of COVID on health systems. The world is still not comfortable when it comes to health issues.

Finally, the current geopolitical situation. We need to be coming together as a globe to address these issues because they are very international and cross-border in nature. But the situation is still hindering the delivery of a more united front to address global health. The world is at a moderate risk and can go either way, depending on what we do as a global community.

A heightened level of preparedness is required. There is a lot more we can do to make the situation more comfortable.

Al Jazeera: You spoke about preparedness. Is the world prepared for another pandemic? Did we learn any lessons from COVID?

Ogwell: Well, the lessons we should have learned from COVID, we did not. You see how we wore our masks, washed our hands, sanitised and kept our distance during the pandemic. Today, the situation has been completely forgotten. You don’t see anyone really wearing masks even when they are sneezing their heads off. That’s why we are struggling with controlling things we should have been able to.

At the healthcare level, the systems we put in place should have clicked in globally to address the potential outbreak of diseases. These systems were folded up when COVID passed. For example, the temperature scanning machines at airports. It means the very basic screening mechanism of someone who is feverish is not there.

At the policy level, during COVID we had vaccines being processed within six to seven months. But today, mpox has come and you don’t see the same urgency in trying to bring it under control. We have dengue fever and we don’t hear the same urgency. Policymakers are also seemingly not compelled to accommodate the lessons we should have learned from COVID.

Al Jazeera: You mentioned mpox. What is the situation with its spread and how worried should we be?

Ogwell: The risk is still high for spread because of the ease of communication that we have around the world today. The mode of transmission of mpox is close contact. Someone can carry it to another part of the world easily and can transfer it, setting off a chain that results in something bigger than it is right now.

In this world, an outbreak anywhere is a risk of an outbreak everywhere.

We need to put into good use the lessons of COVID, Ebola, cholera. All these outbreaks required solidarity across borders. Those who have the tools, resources and knowledge needed to address the outbreak, they need to provide support.

Al Jazeera: This solidarity, the geopolitical nature of the world today, where wars and conflict are aplenty, does not really work, right? How does this affect the state of global health?

Ogwell: Well, the reality on the ground is very different to a perfect world where the above would have worked well. The presence of humanitarian crises, where you find people living in very unsavoury conditions – being forced to consume very unhealthy water or food, forced to breathe very unhealthy air – the risks are twofold.

The first is the risk of contracting disease for the affected community whether it is IDPs or refugees in a conflict area or warzone. A situation like that becomes a breeding ground for new superbugs to develop. It may be that people there start getting used to difficult situations. When you start developing certain coping mechanisms, the bugs in you will also start adjusting to that new situation. If they get out in communities that are not under similar stressful circumstances, it becomes a new variant or a new type of resistance that developed with those bugs. The rest of the world immediately becomes at risk, whether it is a resistant variant or deadlier variant. And these environments, these conflict areas, can wreak havoc on the rest of the health system across the world.

Al Jazeera: Is climate change also playing its part forming these environments that you talked about?

Ogwell: Health is the face of climate change because it comes in a painful way. Communities that may not have experienced a certain disease are now areas being colonised by diseases that were only found in certain places because of these weather changes.

It is also the [duration] of conditions that gives rise to diseases. When there’s flooding and a lot of water stays for only a few hours, chances are slim that you’ll get water-borne disease. But if it stays for longer, the community may be affected.

As climate change continues to ravage the world, we find communities suffering for a long period. Natural disasters give rise to a situation where a disease can be able to grow.

Also, areas, for example, forests or glaciers, now become exposed to human beings. When we go into caves, forests and ocean depths that we have never been to, there may be bugs and pathogens that the human beings have never been in touch with. Because of the interaction due to climate change, those bugs, pathogens, animals, insects then get into the human population and we start seeing diseases never experienced before.

Al Jazeera: Let’s talk about healthcare. Some 4.5 billion people are currently without adequate access to essential healthcare services. Why is healthcare such a luxury?

Ogwell: It’s because of government investment in the health sector. Most governments have very low levels of investment there and this means that the vulnerable population is unable to access quality healthcare.

The second reason is the commercialisation of healthcare. It has been so heavily commercialised that you find in some jurisdictions the governments actually getting out of health services. You then have a population that is not heavily wealthy and it means the vulnerable are not going to have access to good healthcare, if any at all.

That commercialisation needs to be within certain parameters and boundaries so it doesn’t end up being a burden on the vulnerable.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

[creature-studios]

SARS-CoV-2, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, is a novel coronavirus responsible for the global COVID-19 pandemic. It is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the genus Betacoronavirus within the family Coronaviridae. The virus is zoonotic in origin, with genetic similarities to bat coronaviruses suggesting it emerged from such a source. SARS-CoV-2 primarily spreads through respiratory droplets and aerosols, making close contact a significant risk factor for transmission. It enters human cells by binding to the ACE2 receptor, a protein found on the surface of various cell types, particularly in the respiratory tract.

The virus causes COVID-19, a disease with a wide range of symptoms, from mild respiratory issues to severe complications like acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Common symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, and loss of taste or smell, while severe cases may lead to pneumonia, organ failure, or death. SARS-CoV-2 has demonstrated a remarkable ability to mutate, leading to the emergence of variants with increased transmissibility or immune evasion capabilities. These variants, such as Delta and Omicron, have posed challenges to public health efforts and vaccine efficacy.

Efforts to combat SARS-CoV-2 have focused on vaccination, public health measures, and antiviral treatments. Vaccines targeting the spike protein of the virus have been instrumental in reducing severe disease and mortality. Preventive measures like mask-wearing, social distancing, and improved ventilation have also played a crucial role in controlling the spread. Despite advancements, SARS-CoV-2 remains a significant public health concern, with ongoing research aimed at understanding its evolution and developing more effective interventions.

[ginaporterr]

Miss Jenn has a joke about the strike in 4x03 so i think he had some idea it was likely to happen but i do think he felt like it was a good time to end for story purposes

mhmmm def possible

[clarabowmp3]

Also it wasn’t just me (most of) the guys in my year are actually genetically shorter than they should be lmaoo

[imadfamily87]

I hope everyone will help my family survive the war🇵🇸

Hello, my name is Imad Naeem Muhammad Roqa.

I am 38 years old and live in the Gaza Strip that was afflicted after October 7.

I will tell you the story of my life and my family before and after October 7th I was working as a physical education teacher in a school in the Gaza Strip I was teaching and educating the children of Gaza, and I had great love for these children because of what I was doing in terms of raising and educating the children. My daughters used to go to school to receive proper upbringing and education

But after October 7, I lost my job, my livelihood, and my work stopped due to the Israeli aggression My daughters lost their education in schools

I have a family consisting of 3 girls, in addition to my wife, A girlie Wafa is 10 years old Walaa is 8 years old Leanne is 6 years old As for my wife, her name is Maha, she is 31 years old We lived in a house filled with love, reassurance, and happiness Until our lives turned into hell after the events of October 7th

We were forced to leave our home and move from our home from Gaza City to the city of Khan Yunis. The displacement was repeated and we were displaced to the city of Rafah. We returned and were displaced to the city of Khan Yunis because of this devastating war. During displacement, my daughters were exposed to skin diseases and epidemics due to malnutrition Lack of a healthy and sound environment We suffered from a lack of medicine and an increase in the price of this medicine if it was available in one of the pharmacies, in addition to the lack of hospitals and the lack of health care.

Now my family and I live inside a small tent made of straw and wood We suffer from the cold of winter and the heat of summer in this dilapidated tent We lost our home and it was bombed and destroyed by the Israeli army We lost what was inside of my daughters’ toys, clothes, and beautiful memories Our lives have become difficult, and from here began the story of torment and suffering in order to provide food, drink, clothing, and the simplest daily necessities and duties necessary for a simple life.

My daughters and I now stand on the food sheds in order to get food and bread We are suffering from the provision of pure drinking water The lives of my daughters and my entire family have become destroyed and disastrous The most difficult thing we face during this period is the lack of money to buy food and clothes

Therefore, I am begging you and asking you to help me with money, with my daughters and my wife, to go out and travel outside the Gaza Strip and provide the most basic necessities of human life, such as food, bread and water. To live in security and stability The cost of travel for one person from the Gaza Strip is 5,000 US dollars per person I want you to help me by donating money and extending a helping hand to my family to travel and live a life of stability and safety.

Thank you all.

@aleciosun @fluoresensitivearchived @khizuo @transmutationdice @schoolhouserockk-blog @timogsilangan @appsappsapps @sayruq @malcriada @palestinegenocide @sar-soor @akajustmerry @feluka @tortiefrancis @flower-tea-fairies @tsaricides @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @visenyasdragon @belleandsaintsebastian @ear-motif @kordeliiius @raelyn-dreams @troythecatfish @theropod @4ft10tvlandfangirl @queerstudiesnatural @northgazaupdates2 @skatezophrenic @awetistic-things @baby-girl-aaron-dessner @nabulsi @sygourie @junglejim4322 @heritageposts @chososhairbuns @palistani123-blog @imjustheretotrytohelp

[transmutationisms]

ive been saying this for Literally Years Now but the most direct medical comparison to covid probably is never going to be HIV on any metric, overall it's probably the SARS outbreak of the early aughts (related viruses, similar transmission, what appear thus far to be similar rates/experiences of post-viral conditions and disability) and politically i do understand why people reach for HIV but like you really need to understand that our current situation is similar to how EVERY SINGLE pandemic / epidemic / outbreak has 'ended' in recent / capitalist history. these are political designations, that tend to get made once the ruling class considers itself safe, and it is typical that workers, global southerners, racialised people, &c continue to bear the brunt of diseases that would be treatable or preventable, were imperial countries and their ruling classes to care. we should be furious every time this happens and in every case where it is still happening: flu, TB, malaria, ebola, zika, plague, on and on, even the smallpox eradication campaign championed as a definitive triumph for public health occurred unevenly and the US and europe allowed the disease to continue to exact its most brutal toll on people in the Horn of Africa and southeast Asia until it was finally eradicated. covid is not unique in its medical OR political properties or ramifications, if you think it is you sorely need to do some more reading and this is why it is both unhelpful and yes, often homophobic to see how often 'covid communicators' jump straight to making alarmist and poorly contextualised comparisons to HIV, Specifically.

[marconswarehouse]

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[80eman]

I'm Eman Dalat Inshasi, lam 43 years old

A distress call from Gaza, a family searching for safety 🍉🙏🏻🍉🫶🙏🏻

A family trapped in Gaza asks for help to survive

Hello, I am Iman, 43 years old, a mother of nine children Abdul Rahman 27 years old, Montaha 25 years old, Fadl 23 years old, Amr 22 years old, Helen 19 years old, Dalia 16 years old, Shaza 14 years old, Dana 10 years old, Mohammed 8 years old I live in very difficult circumstances. My children and I lost our home and are now living in a tent amidst epidemics and diseases. We suffer from a lack of water, food, and treatment. Please help me and my children.

@ibtisam @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @vakarians-babe @7amaspayrollmanager @fairuzfakhira @fallahsart @sayruq @humanvoreture @kaapstadgirly @sar-soor @dimonds456-art @plomegranate @commissions4aid-international @nabulsi @stil-macher @soon-palestine @communitythings @palestinegenocide @vakarians-babe @ghost-and-a-half @7amaspayrollmanager @kaapstadgirly @annoyingloudmicrowavecultist @feluka @marnota @toughknit @flower-tea-fairies @the-stray-liger @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @vivisection-gf @communistchameleon @troythecatfish @the-bastard-king @4ft10tvlandfangirl

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #200 )✅️

[princegaza]

🚨🚨🚨Urgent for you save childhood in Palestine🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉This is the daily suffering of my son Abdul Rahman while transporting water for drinking, which is not suitable for human consumption due to the shutdown of desalination plants and their complete destruction in the Gaza Strip from north to south.

With your support, re-publishing and donating at least 5 euros, you will make a difference and save Abdul Rahman and his family from genocide, which has several means, including killing, death by hunger or thirst, and the spread of diseases and epidemics due to the shutdown of sewage and desalination plants, and there is no water for cleaning.

Do not hesitate to be with us, help us and contribute to saving my family‼️. 🙏 🌹.

they have been verified on @/el-shab-hussein's and @/nabulsi's list of vetted fundraisers here (#250, line 254)

@heba-20 @soon-palestine @el-shab-hussein @ibtisams-blog @marnota @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @i-am-aprl @northgazaupdates2 @fallahifag @fairuzfan @sar-soor @90-ghost @hellspawnelf @aroacekitty @ttohrus @proheromidoriyashouto @quagsiredoesnotfuck @turian @iamjustthinkin @genera1kenobi @fireyfobbitmedicine @tasteofyourblood @lesbianmaxevans @chimney-begins @ratmanwalking @aleksstroud @shellofashadow @ibtisams-blog @buttercuparry @wlwaerith @vetted-gaza-funds @sayrunhh @ripe @straycatj @thunderstruck9 @haflacky @catasters @northgazaupdates2 @northwezt @northernsiberiawinds

[covid-safer-hotties]

(From 2023)

(From 2021)

(From 2024)

(A study)

This is not new information, and the complete lack of connection made by the media and public health communicators is creating a new epidemic of diabetes through ignorance. Mask up. Protect yourself and others from long-lasting disease induced by this virus.

[shah599]

Painful reality 💔

We live under an unknown future. We do not know what is coming. We live under famine, begging, diseases, epidemics, poverty, displacement, homelessness, killing, destruction and bombing. What is this world, why is there so much injustice? I cannot continue my life You are our last hope

@apol @appsa @buttercuparry @malcriada @palestinegenocide-blog @orble @sar-soor @akajustmerry @annoyingloudmicrowavecultist @feluka @marnosso-blog @sayruq @tortiefrancis @flower-tea-fairies @tsaricides @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @visenyasdragon @belleandsaintsebastian @ear-motif @kordeliiius @communistkenobi @brutaliakhoa @raelyn-dreams @troythecatfish @the-quasar-hero @tamarrud @4ft10tvlandfangirl @queerstudiesnatural @northgazaupdates2 @skatezophrenic @awetistic-things @baby-girl-aaron-dessner @nabulsi

[noorplog17]

Hello, I am Noor, my family consists of five members and we live in Khan Younis, I am 19 years old. I was at the beginning of my university life and studying engineering. My dreams were shattered and my future was lost because of the war and its horrors. We were living a quiet and safe life before the war.💔

Suddenly, these events broke The events are a curse to destroy our lives in the Gaza Strip and our house in Khan Younis was destroyed and exposed to continuous displacement. We have suffered for more than 260 days of destruction, displacement, continuous bombardment and constant fear. 🍉

We have survived four previous wars and more than 17 military escalations, but this war has been different … 🇵🇸

since it broke out on Gaza on October 7, and nowadays we live in the tent amid the atmosphere of cold and widespread epidemics, please help us💔

@ibtisams @tsaricides @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @belleandsaintsebastian @beserkerjewel @buttonpoetry @bananahirl@buggie-colors @90-ghost @skatehardorskatehome @awetistic-things @gentl @mooshro0ms @vampiretranscending @sar-soor @blossomdan @vakarians-babe @villadiodatis @perrfectly @ashwantsafreepalestine @pls-noraneko

[satancheeto]

Huge shoutout (/s) to my Microbiology professor, in our class of all Med Lab Tech students, for deciding it was important to have a conversation about the AIDS epidemic, the societal epidemiology, and how it was handled in the lab (since we’re lab students). About how terrible it was that the government denied its existence, put out false information, insisting it was only a gay men problem, repressed scientists voices and denied funding. And how there was so much hate and and uncaring about what was happening, bc it supposedly only affected gay men, so it wasn’t everyone else’s problem to do anything. She alluded to not trusting the public beliefs and just following everyone else’s behavior (of hatred specifically). Obviously all my classmates were in agreement saying it’s terrible all this happened, we need to listen to science, be compassionate and support victims, etc.

I raised my hand and tried to emphasize that much more and also add not to trust the government for the truth, not even to trust the CDC and FDA. How you need to do your own research in order to find out how to deal with a pandemic.

Very notably, I’m the only one wearing a mask (N95), and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone else in the health education building that wears one more than just when they are actively sick with either Covid or Flu, in which case they wear baggy surgical masks for a few days. The only other person I have ever seen wear a proper mask about half the time was an older gay man (he moved to teach elsewhere now).

For the record, AIDS has killed ~1 million people. SARS-COV-2 has killed >10 million people, and many many deaths aren’t recorded attributed to Covid when they die of later complications like stroke or heart attack.

It is not enough to teach history. We need to teach how to apply it to the present. It is so easy to say how you would have acted considerately with compassion and reason and followed science instead of society. But clearly none of the 22 other people in this room understood that this was the same situation and they were not applying what they were claiming they would.

[darkmaga-returns]

The Transcript

We created this video to cover the medical definition and provide a brief overview of this topic. 💥What is SEERS? [Full Guide] ➜ ➜ ➜ https://bit.ly/3oW3QPY ➡️ Severe Epidemic Enterovirus Respiratory Syndrome (SEERS): Severe Epidemic Enterovirus Respiratory Syndrome (SEERS) is a hypothetical disease, as there is no known condition with this specific name. However, it appears to be a combination of terms related to respiratory infections and enteroviruses. ➡️ Enteroviruses. Enteroviruses are a group of RNA viruses that include polioviruses, coxsackieviruses, echoviruses, and others. They can cause a variety of illnesses, such as hand, foot, and mouth disease, meningitis, and encephalitis. Some enteroviruses can also cause respiratory infections, but these are typically not as severe as other respiratory illnesses, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Both SARS and MERS are caused by coronaviruses and can lead to severe respiratory infections, causing symptoms such as fever, cough, and shortness of breath. SARS emerged in 2002–2003, while MERS was first reported in 2012. Both have been associated with high mortality rates and global public health concerns. ➡️ Epidemiology. In our hypothetical scenario, SEERS emerges in a densely populated urban area, rapidly spreading through respiratory droplets and close person-to-person contact. The virus would likely demonstrate a high reproduction number (R0), indicating its ability to spread quickly and efficiently among susceptible populations. As the outbreak escalates, healthcare systems would become strained, with hospitals and clinics overwhelmed by the surge of patients seeking treatment for severe respiratory symptoms.

[mariacallous]

For years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has spread conspiracy theories and factually incorrect information about vaccination, drug regulation, epidemiology, and biomedical science in general to advance his skepticism of evidence-based science and medicine.

The anti-vaccine organization Kennedy helped found, Children’s Health Defense, has conducted extensive disinformation campaigns, including funding propaganda films such as Plandemic, the Vaxxed trilogy, and Medical Racism: The New Apartheid, which specifically targeted Black Americans to discourage vaccination. The scale of the destruction Kennedy could wreak at the helm of HHS is immense.

HHS is tasked with overseeing government efforts to take care of the American people, and its 10 component agencies, from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), play different specialized roles to do so. Kennedy has already floated some of his ideas that would harm public health in the United States, including ending water fluoridation; rescheduling or withdrawing regulatory approval for numerous vaccines; reshaping the drug approval process and removing lifesaving drugs from the market; giving infectious disease research a “break”; and lifting food safety regulations on some products, such as unpasteurized “raw” milk, while imposing new regulations on others.

Even small changes to these essential functions of HHS would have catastrophic consequences without Kennedy needing to ban vaccines. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy used the tragic deaths of two infants from mis-formulated measles vaccines in Samoa to advance his theories. Kennedy flew to Samoa to support a campaign that falsely suggested that vaccination was unsafe and potentially deadly. Several months later, a massive measles outbreak sickened nearly 6,000 people and left 83 dead, most of them young children. Curtailing routine childhood immunizations would conservatively result in more than a million preventable deaths in the United States.

Highly pathogenic emerging viruses—such as the Ebola virus, avian influenza viruses, and coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic—often appear unexpectedly and, if not effectively contained, cause epidemics and pandemics. Imagining worst-case scenarios about outbreaks is essential for preparing for, responding to, and ideally preventing pandemics altogether.

As a virologist who specializes in such outbreaks, having Kennedy at the helm of HHS during an outbreak of a lethal virus is the worst pandemic scenario I can conceive—and it’s a worryingly real possibility. A massive outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza has impacted nearly a thousand herds of dairy cattle across 16 states. The cattle outbreak began in late 2023 with a single spillover from an infected bird in Texas because of the global H5N1 panzootic (a pandemic in animals) that has been ongoing since 2021. Because H5N1-infected cows were not detected for several months, animal transport and milking operations allowed the virus to spread throughout the United States.

More than a year later, the full scope of the cattle outbreak remains unknown. Spillovers from wild birds into domestic poultry have continued and necessitated culling millions of birds. As the tally of infected dairy herds and poultry flocks has risen, human cases have also increased at an alarming rate. Currently, there are more than 70 confirmed or probable cases, including the first cases with severe disease and the first fatal case in the United States. Multiple studies show that a substantial number of H5N1 cases in dairy workers are likely going undetected.

More troublingly, three cases of H5N1 have occurred in children in California, one of which is linked to consumption of raw milk, and spillovers directly from birds also continue with increasing frequency. Although there is no evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred, the biological reality is that with enough opportunities to adapt to a human host and potentially reassort with seasonal influenza viruses, H5N1 could gain this ability. If that happens, a rapid and effective response will be imperative for containment. If efforts to detect and contain a human outbreak fail, an influenza pandemic is a very real possibility.

Nobody can say with certainty when or if this will happen, but we can anticipate what might happen if it does under Kennedy’s leadership. Although the COVID-19 pandemic response in the United States was replete with mistakes, the first Trump administration did manage to execute some critical interventions that were largely attributable to HHS agencies’ actions.

The initial research on COVID-19 vaccines was conducted at the Vaccine Research Center at NIH in collaboration with NIH-funded academic investigators. The immediate action of these scientists that hastened the research into a development pipeline comprising pre-clinical studies and clinical trials was essential to producing mRNA vaccines at national scale within a year. Operation Warp Speed—which was a joint effort among multiple HHS agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NIH, and FDA, the Department of Defense, and the private sector—allowed for nationwide distribution of the vaccines and saved millions of lives.

In the event of a bird flu pandemic, millions of lives will again depend on the urgent actions taken by HHS and its component agencies. However, unlike the COVID-19 pandemic, these responses would be orchestrated by someone who promotes conspiracy theories, questions established tenets of science and medicine, and has significant financial interest in pseudoscientific profiteering. Given that Aaron Siri, the lawyer reportedly vetting Kennedy’s picks to lead HHS agencies, has previously petitioned FDA to withdraw or suspend the licenses on the polio and hepatitis B vaccines, it is likely these putative leaders would be equally unsuited to effectively lead essential pandemic responses.

Trump’s putative CDC director, Dave Weldon, is celebrated by anti-vaxxers for his consistent vaccination opposition. He rejects basic facts about vaccines, has appeared in several anti-vaccine documentaries, and is willing to dismiss reliable population-level data in favor of anecdotes.

The nominated FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, has stated that he may rethink current policies for approving diagnostics and medications, including vaccines. Until recently, Makary, a gastrointestinal surgeon who has indicated willingness to loosen food safety regulation and block essential medicines, also sat on an advisory board for Biosafety Now, an organization that opposes research on pandemic viruses, called for the prosecution of virologists, and whose founders have allegedly conducted harassment campaigns against virologists (including myself). Makary’s track record of COVID-19 pronouncements includes his prediction in early 2021 that America would reach “herd immunity” by April.

The nominated NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, has been an outspoken opponent of critical research priorities. In early 2020, he co-authored a profoundly flawed study underestimating the severity of COVID-19 to bolster economic arguments for ending pandemic mitigation measures. Bhattacharya co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), an anti-lockdown policy proposal recommending mass infection as a path to herd immunity, which studies estimate would have significantly increased deaths in the United States beyond the estimated 1.2 million Americans who died from COVID-19.

The GBD gave rise to the Brownstone Institute, where Bhattacharya was a regular content contributor. He has also appeared in a Falun Gong-produced documentary promoting anti-vaccine ivermectin conspiracy theories. He is deeply antagonistic to virology, vaccinology, and public health research, and, like Makary, was also affiliated with Biosafety Now, serving on the board of directors.

Finally, the nominee for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Mehmet Oz, is a cardiothoracic surgeon and failed U.S. Senate candidate who used his television show as a vehicle for promoting unproven supplements to promote weight loss and has a long history of distributing medical misinformation. During the pandemic, he opposed masking and vaccination in favor of hydroxychloroquine and supplements he sold through social media.

The damage these figures could do would be exponentially magnified during a pandemic. Early identification of human cases is essential to isolate and contain a growing outbreak. This depends on CDC and state public health officials identifying human cases using sensitive, specific molecular diagnostic tests in combination with standard epidemiological approaches such as contact tracing. This would trigger critical containment measures and medical countermeasures—such as antivirals and vaccines—rapidly.

For H5N1, we are already failing to detect human cases thanks in part to a sluggish response from the CDC, the CDC’s self-imposed monopoly on confirmatory testing, and continued incompetence at developing effective tests.

If the FDA delays or withholds authorization for diagnostic tests, we will be powerless to contain the spread, particularly for very mild or asymptomatic cases that are less likely to be identified clinically but may still be contagious. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC and FDA’s technical ineptitude, poor quality control, and bureaucratic paralysis resulted in a nearly two-month period of undetected virus spread. Containment failed, and the virus established itself in the American population.

In early 2024, the CDC and FDA under the Biden administration repeated many of these errors with H5N1 diagnostic tests, although fortunately no human-to-human transmission has occurred to date. Still, delayed implementation of diagnostic testing further hampered elimination from dairy cattle and delayed diagnosing some human cases. It’s hard to imagine improvement in the Kennedy HHS.

A failure to contain a human H5N1 outbreak will be disastrous over the long term if there is no biomedical research occurring to understand it. Some of the greatest successes of the COVID-19 response were led by NIH-funded investigators, both within NIH itself and by academic scientists supported by extramural NIH grants. Such research can drastically accelerate the timeline for developing and deploying effective countermeasures and inform us where the virus is spreading, who is at the greatest risk, and what treatments work best to save lives.

Kennedy and Bhattacharya have proposed radically reorganizing NIH and reducing funding for infectious diseases and vaccine research. Ultimately, this would create a situation in which we know little about the virus, how it spreads, how it causes disease, or how to treat it. Vaccines would be unavailable, we’d have no information on resistance to antiviral drugs or a pipeline for developing other therapies, and we won’t know where cases are primarily occurring until the hospitals are overwhelmed with H5N1 patients. Our options for intervention would be limited to supportive care and unproven remedies embraced by Kennedy: thoughts, prayers, raw milk, and roadkill.

The devastating impacts of such failures across HHS will not be limited to America, since pandemics transcend national borders. Any suppression of effective public health policy by Kennedy will exacerbate economic, agricultural, ecological, and medical ruin at home and abroad. Anywhere from thousands to millions could die as a direct result.