Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
This should probably all move back over to the COVID forums, but the thing I wonder about on this point is whether we will be better or worse prepared for such a super bug now.
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The problem is that they're two different things. This is a particular type of virus, but a "superbug" is going to be an antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And it's not just going to be one that suddenly comes out of nowhere. It'll be a cascade of them, steadily getting harder and harder to treat. It's literally a different animal.
Gearing up for a response to another coronavirus is actually reasonably straightforward, if governments want to prioritize it - mostly, it involves stockpiling PPE and other equipment, funding research to deploy vaccine testing quickly and trying to do some of the work ahead of time, and probably most importantly, having more streamlined and reliable supply chains (including local manufacturing sources). In contrast, trying to prepare for superbugs requires so much fundamental change to how the medicine industry (and in particular the R&D sector) works that it's more like trying to fix racism in the United States than preparing for another episode like the one we just had.