At the Atlantic, Ed Yong encourages "us," that is, US policy makers, public health officials, and others, to look ahead to the next pandemic, since "we" have botched doing that before. Without saying the words "national healthcare," he says addressing its current state is high on the list. Sleepy Joe Biden, albeit being hamstrung by a split Senate with Sinister Kyrsten Sinema on the dole from drug companies, has done nothing about this. He can't hide behind her anyway, as he told Dems a year ago he'd do nothing.
Yong adds that what Status Quo Joe IS funding is "magic bullet" stuff that Merika loves but, that because it's not the unsexy basics of public health, is wrong. He notes that Robert Koch's rightly praised work on germ theory has allowed magic-bullet loving Merika to focus on the wrong stuff with medical cover.
Finally, as Biden touts infrastructure, the infrastructure of university departments, offices for city, county and state agencies, and other infrastructure aspects of public health are themselves crumbling, Yong says.
In turn, this isn't surprising, either.
America loves to build big, flashy shit. Trump was the epitome of that, but not alone.
America does NOT like to do the unsexy work of maintaining things. Or fund it.
Add in that wingnuts' attacks related to COVID have primarily focused on public health issues, and the problem is complete.
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