“Hot Virus Summer”: The Next Pandemic

Medicare for All

It’s our 100th episode folks, and we are celebrating the only way we know how – by sharing our predictions of the grim, apocalyptic future that surely awaits us if we fail to get our healthcare system together! That’s right, we’re talking about the next pandemic, and if experts are right, it’s coming sooner than we think. In addition to several somewhat less familiar pathogens on the rise this summer, COVID is back, and this time it’s FLiRTy. Today we’ll go into some of the outbreaks currently threatening to explode into our next global disaster and explore how prepared our for-profit healthcare system is to keep us safe. Spoiler: It isn’t.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErXbxe4U-QQ

Show Notes

This emerging new pandemic situation is pretty serious, and more people should be taking it seriously. Forbes healthcare reporter Alex Knapp called this: “Hot Virus Summer.”

First, COVID is up! Again! It’s important to point out that COVID never really left – in 2023 75,000 people died from COVID 19, nearly 1 million were hospitalized, and plenty of people are still suffering from Long COVID. Now we have the new FLiRT variants — sexy! There are almost 34,000 new cases per week globally.

Next up: Bird Flu, which has historically tended to infect birds, is evolving and has begun to infect mammals. For now, that mostly means livestock – so far 129 dairy herds in 12 US states. As far as animals are concerned this is already a pandemic – it’s impacting industries all over the world and could cause shortages of meat and dairy. You may be panicking: IS OUR CHEESE SAFE? Don’t worry, most commercially available dairy products are pasteurized, which kills the virus.

There have, however, been three cases of the virus in humans reported in the US. Around the world, more than 50% of people infected with Bird Flu die from the virus. All three of those people in the US worked on farms in direct contact with birds and livestock, and right now the CDC is just limiting their warnings about Bird Flu to folks who also work in close contact with animals. BUT, scientists are warning that at any time the virus could mutate and become transmissible between humans, at which point, we would be facing epic disaster.

How likely is that to happen? In August 2023, Dr. Michael Greger said of Bird Flu, “The question is not if, but when.”

In addition to COVID and Bird Flu, Mpox (fka Monkey Pox) is having another moment, as is West Nile Virus, so there are a lot of ingredients in the virus stew we’re cooking.

So the best indicator of future outcomes is to look at how we’ve fared in similar situations in the past. Luckily (or not), the 2020 COVID outbreak is still fresh in some of our minds. You may remember that we, as a country, were not particularly well-prepared. For one, our profit-driven healthcare system creates disparities of access and care, which were exacerbated by the pandemic.

Also, we don’t have a truly cohesive public health program in this country. Health departments in various counties, municipalities, and states work largely independently of each other, so there was little to no coordination on surveillance and testing. We had to rely on private companies for important preventative measures like PPE and, most notably, vaccines (the research and development for which were PUBLICLY FUNDED with our tax dollars.)

During pandemics, a lot of people stopped going to healthcare facilities for elective procedures and surgeries – the real moneymakers for the for-profit healthcare system. That led to layoffs of staff at the same time that patients who desperately needed care struggled to get it. In countries with a national health system, hospitals don’t lose money if people stop going; they have a fixed amount to cover the operating expenses based on past history. So you don’t see mass layoffs and shrinking of the healthcare workforce when they are most needed.

So if we were to do the whole pandemic over again – and it looks like we might, what preventative measures should we be advocating for?

• Surveillance, testing, and a readily available stock of vaccines.
• Medicare For All (doy). One thing we sorta did right was at the height of the COVID pandemic, when so many Americans lost their jobs and employer-based health insurance, we extended Medicaid coverage to millions and required states to provide continuous coverage, preventing them from being kicked off. That ended in mid-2023 when the public health emergency was declared over. At least 23 million Medicaid enrollees have been disenrolled as of June 14, 2024. (Over 60% are eligible but were unenrolled for administrative reasons.) Before the next catastrophe, wouldn’t it be neat if we had a national health plan that covered every American without worries about income, employment, and eligibility hoops?
• Don’t forget to stock up on masks and toilet paper.

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