Interesting article in The Atlantic

Quote Originally Posted by Atlantic
Unlike malaria and tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS was identified only 40 years ago, and still we’ve seen the same trend. After the infection emerged in the early 1980s, it went from a condition thought to affect only gay men in the global North to a global pandemic that, yes, mostly affects the global South today. In 2020, nearly 38 million people globally were living with HIV, and 680,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, with two-thirds of both cases and deaths in Africa. When effective antiretroviral drugs first became available in the early 1990s, they were expensive and mainly accessible to people in high-income countries. For these lifesaving tools to reach the global South took incredible activism and years of effort, and millions of people (mostly Africans) died as a result of this inaction. Even today, we do not have a vaccine against AIDS.

Despite the continued toll of these “big three” infectious diseases, they are rarely spoken of as pandemics. “By epidemic we actually mean a pandemic that no longer kills people in rich countries,” wrote Peter Sands, the CEO of the Global Fund, an international group that combats these diseases. “By endemic we actually mean a disease the world could get rid of but hasn’t. HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria are pandemics that have been beaten in rich countries. Allowing them to persist elsewhere is a policy choice and a budgetary decision.”

With the coronavirus, the global South is being left behind once again.
That's very bad for the global south although, thankfully, it does mean things are clearing up in the north. So maybe that means we can start getting back to norm-

Ah. Largest Nuclear plant in Europe on Fire . Nevermind. Maybe the radiation will mutate the bugs and we'll have a zombie invasion after all.

Actually, the Fire is extinguished but that was still a close call.

Doesn't anyone in the military get This lecture ? Anymore? Or is "DO NOT SHOOT AT THE NUCLEAR REACTOR" considered to be so obvious we don't need to say it? Except, obviously, we do?

Respectfully,

Brian P.