COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

It’s inevitable that there will be another pandemic. The only question is when.

And I strongly believe that no matter when it is, 5 years from now, 50 or a hundred, we will have learned zero lessons

One of the things some people said (and still say) was that covid was not “that” serious

If the next one is undeniably “that” serious, that there is no such thing as asymptomatic cases

If it’s Black Plague serious, which if I remember right was in many cases, feel perfectly fine today, sick a dog tomorrow, dead the day after that (sometimes skipping the ‘sick as a dog’ day

If during the next pandemic the daily death toll is measured in tens of thousands we still will not have leaned anything

If a near future strain of covid is not really effected by the vaccine but is as contagious as omincron but just as deadly as the original strain we will not have learned anything

And that is a depressing thought
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The Lancet Commission on the coronavirus pandemic has delivered a harsh verdict on how the world responded — it was “a massive global failure,” the prestigious journal declared.

Governments were too slow and cautious, faced deep public mistrust, were undermined by misinformation and failed to serve the most vulnerable. “

The result was millions of preventable deaths,” the Lancet said. This sorry record must provide impetus to do better in the future.


The Lancet convened 28 experts under Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs for a two-year examination of pandemic preparedness, response and recovery, delving into public health, virology, social policy, economics, finance and geopolitics.

The report is but one of several worthy efforts to draw lessons from the gravest public health disaster in a century.

The authoritative new findings deserve attention, though we wish Congress and the White House had ordered a comprehensive, 9/11 Commission-like national panel in the United States. They did not.


A major lesson is that when a highly infectious disease breaks out in a vulnerable population, rapid response is essential, and even more so when many infections are asymptomatic, as was the case with covid-19. A single new case became thousands within a month.

“The ability of the public health system to identify cases, trace contacts, and isolate infected individuals can be overwhelmed in just a few weeks of uncontrolled community transmission,” the report says. That’s what happened, over and over.

“National responses were often improvisational, occasionally bordering on the absurd,” the commission states. “Several national leaders made highly irresponsible statements in the first few months of the outbreak, neglecting scientific evidence and needlessly risking lives with a view to keeping the economy open.”

Governments “showed themselves to be untrustworthy and ineffective,” and “rancor among the major powers” then “gravely weakened the capacity of international institutions” to respond, especially the World Health Organization, which comes in for sharp criticism for repeatedly erring “on the side of reserve rather than boldness.”

The panel calls for strengthening the WHO and giving it stronger powers and more solid financing……..

Two and a half years after it began, the pandemic catastrophe has led to 6.9 million reported deaths. The actual toll might be three times as high.

It is absolutely essential to apply the knowledge and lessons of this experience to prevent it from happening again……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/17/lancet-covid-pandemic-failure-reforms/