Bird flu in Canada may have mutated to become more transmissible to humans

I wonder if we'll be firing any more pandemic surveillance staffers like we did last time[1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-us-slashed-c...

> The USA re-elected the same idiot that worsened the outcome in US and globally.

This seems a-historic to me. The start of the lockdown in the US was as firm as Canada and most other western countries. Trump also funded Operation Warp Speed. Not saying he handled it perfectly, but as I recall the US had tests and vaccines available before we Canucks did.

The real problem is that the political capital needed to get people to agree to something like lockdowns or wearing masks was all spent in 2020. I don't think any administration would be able to make it happen again without heavy use of force and considerable risk of social upheaval.

He did the one thing that was unambiguously, knowably, certainly incorrect, which was to slow down testing: https://youtu.be/Ti4sSRonNwY?t=27

And he did it because he didn't like "his numbers."

Lots of mistakes were made, some less excusable or more harmful than others, but this wasn't "a mistake." This was inarguably and knowably a selfish decision to put self above millions of Americans.

> The real problem is that the political capital needed to get people to agree to something like lockdowns or wearing masks was all spent in 2020

Let's not act like this attitude emerged out of thin air. Trump also had an opportunity to bring Americans together against a common threat, and he (and his lookalikes abroad) decided to turn it into the cultural catastrophe that you're now supposing was inevitable.

>> The real problem is that the political capital needed to get people to agree to something like lockdowns or wearing masks was all spent in 2020

> Let's not act like this attitude emerged out of thin air. Trump also had an opportunity to bring Americans together against a common threat, and he (and his lookalikes abroad) decided to turn it into the cultural catastrophe that you're now supposing was inevitable.

I don't agree with your implication, because I don't interpret the original statement the same way. The attitude was present, Trump turned into a cultural catastrophe. What political capital that remained was spent. We have less agreement now among the population as to what is acceptable and what is useful than before the last pandemic. The trenches have been dug, the no-man's land will be filled with mud and bodies.

In an alternative universe, Trump said something like, "Hey folks, I know wearing masks can be a bit unusual and uncomfortable at times, and we're not totally certain how effective they are, but there's good reason to believe they'll save the lives of some of our fellow Americans... please put them on when you're around other people, we'll re-assess as we get a better understanding of the cost-benefit tradeoff."

In that universe, we're not even toying with the idea that the American public would violently revolt at the idea of some basic mitigations of a respiratory epidemic.

I agree. And I think a lot of the most extreme backlash took off towards the end of the pandemic, when vaccine mandates became a thing. This was the moment where many people I know who were otherwise ok going along with many of the other measures started drawing a line and then began working backwards towards doubting everything else they had been told up to that point.

Notably, this was not Trump's fuckup.

And just to be clear about where I stand - I get the COVID booster together with a flu shot every fall now.