@westside-steve said:

Okay. Teleport into the future a year and a half or two years from now. Just before cold and flu season. The inklings of the next big influenza or other viral outbreak pop up on some internet news site. Does President Biden , or the vice president AOC,  if by that time Joe Biden is too far into the grips of Alzheimer's to speak on television, immediately lock down the country at the very first sign? And if so do we begin with baby steps or go directly to military enforced home quarantine for every citizen?

Of course before anyone blows up yes I'm being facetious somewhat. But there will be other viruses and is it the new normal to shift directly into panic mode for each one?

WSS

Only if Trump is still in office.

@diehardbrownsfan said:

Don't forget the so called 'Spanish Flu' actually started in Kansas, USA.

Prolly south Kansas before the border wall with Oklahoma.?

@texasag1969 said:

I found this relatively short video about the 1918 Flu very instructive in terms of this virus and future viruses. Excellent video to watch. So predictive because the video was done just the year before this thing got out of the bag and into the world. From Nov 2018.

Don't forget the so called 'Spanish Flu' actually started in Kansas, USA.

@westside-steve said:

Okay. Teleport into the future a year and a half or two years from now. Just before cold and flu season. The inklings of the next big influenza or other viral outbreak pop up on some internet news site. Does President Biden , or the vice president AOC,  if by that time Joe Biden is too far into the grips of Alzheimer's to speak on television, immediately lock down the country at the very first sign? And if so do we begin with baby steps or go directly to military enforced home quarantine for every citizen?

Of course before anyone blows up yes I'm being facetious somewhat. But there will be other viruses and is it the new normal to shift directly into panic mode for each one?

WSS

not the new normal - the next time, I imagine the normal will be - overstocking on med supplies, and stopping travel immediately if it starts spreading from another country.

   If china had been honest, they would have quarantined wuhan from the beginning. they would have shut down international travel after seeing it spread. But they didn't, I doubt they'd do it next time either.

Consider this:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/10/15/356098903/ebola-in-the-united-states-what-happened-when

" President Obama asks Congress for $6.2 billion in emergency funds to help stop the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and bolster screening and prevention efforts in the U.S. The money would go to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies. "

and rightly so. You stop it asap before it goes everywhere and causes a pandemic.

with china, they lied, covered up, denied, still deny. china refused to let the CDC in. expelled western journalists. and, they let it go all over the globe.

if they had been forthright and honest - it could have been contained with few exceptions.

The new normal is learning the lessons from it, and stopping it from ever happening again, meaning, stopping it as soon as it breaks out somewhere, protecting the rest of the world.

WSS