If only we had a way to slow down or stop the spread of disease. three-heads-thinking

Someday, far onto the future, scientists will figure it out!

Around the world, a post-Covid reality is beginning to sink in: Everyone, everywhere, really is sick a lot more often.

At least 13 communicable diseases, from the common cold to measles and tuberculosis, are surging past their pre-pandemic levels in many regions, and often by significant margins, according to analysis by Bloomberg News and London-based disease forecasting firm Airfinity Ltd.

The resulting research, based on data collected from more than 60 organizations and public health agencies, shows that 44 countries and territories have reported at least one infectious disease resurgence that’s at least ten times worse than the pre-pandemic baseline.

The post-Covid global surge of illnesses — viral and bacterial, common and historically rare — is a mystery that researchers and scientists are still trying to definitively explain. The way Covid lockdowns shifted baseline immunities is a piece of the puzzle, as is the pandemic’s hit to overall vaccine administration and compliance. Climate change, rising social inequality and wrung-out health-care services are contributing in ways that are hard to measure.

We can explain it, covid takes a toll on our immune system, and we are constantly exposed to it and can catch it multiple times a year. No one in public office wants to acknowledge it because that would mean putting money and effort into infection control.

  • Rojo27 [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    Also it just feels like the anti-vax movement has gained way more momentum "post"-Covid. Like hasn't the rise in measles cases been mainly in school children who haven't been vaccinated due to anti-vax parents?

    • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      In order to normalize ending lockdowns and masking and whatnot, corporate media platformed so many anti-science folk to the point that I don't think we're ever gonna get that genie back in the bottle.

        • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          5 months ago

          I mean, the future isn't great, but the struggle is the same. We still have the same enemy, we've just gotta fight them while wearing N95s and using nasal sprays now. I don't know if it'll make you feel any better, but I read The Grapes of Wraith a few months back and it still very much resonates with the struggles we're facing today. Capitalists are fucking us over and they've infected the minds of our fellow workers with a debilitating belief that the way things are, are the way the things always have to be. The big challenge I've found is freeing your own brain to be able to see possibilities of a different world and what we might have to do to get there. The brightside is since you're here at least you recognize that "Back to Normal" is a lie, so hopefully you're also picking apart at all the other related mental chains that keep your inner revolutionary arrested. dudes-rock

            • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
              ·
              5 months ago

              Welcome. Did you happen to listen to that Death Panel episode about the NPR lady trying to shame her husband about not caring about Covid? It's pretty cathartic; nice to be able to hear other people talking about actual reality. But also, they hit on an excellent point that we often touch on here which is that so many people out there are basically abandoned by their government, and thus society. And I think the interesting thing about Covid is that, it's growing that class of abandoned people at an incredible rate, to the point the middle class that thrived off the pride of not being that abandoned class has largely joined it. It gives me a lot of hopes seeing the Pro-Palestine protests being so mask friendly, because that's where a lot of these middle class folks are going to be radicalized. There's a lot of potential there, I think.🤞

                • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
                  ·
                  5 months ago

                  Not quite the same, but I was caregiver for my grandparents in their final years basically right up into the beginning of Covid. And yeah, the things I learned with just some of the hoops we had to jump through working with the US healthcare system was horrifying. Definitely contributed to my radicalization. Funny you mention the USSR, but also not all that unexpected I suppose. Learning about the link between the rise of Nazis and the Spanish flu certainly cements their positions as polar opposites. I can only hope that some of our comrades start waking up from their complacency before it's too late.

        • Hello_Kitty_enjoyer [none/use name]
          ·
          5 months ago

          There is nothing like the confluence of what we are going through in any history book I know

          Yea there is, 90% of the population dies within the next 4 decades from a diverse variety of causes

      • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        5 months ago

        It's not just that but the anti-vax movement is mainstream conservatism and fascism now as it was pushed hard in those media circles because COVID was made into bs culture "war" issue. It's fucking idiotic the society we live in.

    • TheModerateTankie [any]
      hexagon
      ·
      5 months ago

      The anti vax campaigns people and governments have been running are doing damage, for sure.

      In the UK at least, vaccination rates are at a 10 year low. With something as infectious as measles that might be enough to see the huge outbreaks we are seeing.

      Then you have Dtap vaccines, which are down a couple percent in the UK over the last few years, but is that enough to explain things like this:

      Show

      And we are also seeing a rise in rare cancers and other diseases that are usually only associated with immune disorders like AIDS.

    • sewer_rat_420 [he/him, any]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Millennial I know who have had kids since 2020 are forgoing all vaccines. That hardline ideology developed for them during Covid. In 5 years measles outbreaks will be widespread