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I Predicted the Pandemic (over and over and over again)

2021-02-02 · letter vlog · John · 3:54 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, heavy topic

John recalls how often he predicted a pandemic, argues pandemics are historically routine and we should be prepared, and, drawing on Melinda and Bill Gates's annual letter, calls for global health as a shared worldwide effort (alert systems, access to health care, vaccines, and fixing the inequities that let disease hit the vulnerable hardest), since we choose how ready we are.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John's past pandemic predictions; infectious disease as a central force in history; AIDS

  • ★★ John recalls predicting the pandemic: in mid-2019 on Dear Hank and John he said everyone must prepare for the coming global disease pandemic, and a year earlier he listed one among his chief fears. — 00:00:00 · Dear Hank and John, Crash Course
  • ★ John jokes he predicted the pandemic so often that, were he more famous, conspiracy theorists would think he had inside knowledge, which he did, in that he reads a lot of history. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ From the Great Dying in the Americas to the Black Death in Eurasia, infectious disease has long been a central force in human history, and not only ancient history. — 00:00:29 · United States
  • ★★ Since the first US AIDS-related death, when John was four, tens of millions have died of AIDS-related illnesses, mostly in impoverished communities denied antiretroviral therapy for decades. — 00:00:29 · United States
  • ★★★ Pandemics are historically routine, so we shouldn't be surprised by them; what we should be is prepared. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — The Gates letter: rethinking global health; alert systems, health-care access, vaccines, inequity

  • ★★ John recommends Melinda and Bill Gates's annual letter, which articulates things about COVID he hadn't seen written so clearly before. — 00:00:58 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ Following the letter, John says 'global health' has too long meant poor countries; infectious disease threatens everyone, and its greater threat to the marginalized means spending more, not less, fighting it. — 00:00:58 · global health
  • ★★★ Global health should now mean a shared worldwide effort to improve the health of all humans by openly exchanging resources and expertise, which requires truly global cooperation. — 00:01:27 · global health
  • ★★ As the Gates letter says, in a global crisis you don't want companies driven by a profit motive or governments protecting only their own citizens making the decisions. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Post-pandemic global health needs a global alert system to identify new pathogens quickly, which works only if people can access health care in safe, sanitary, adequately staffed facilities. — 00:01:56 · global health
  • ★★ We must invest in vaccine development: per the letter, this pandemic would have been much worse in 2010, given a decade of vaccine progress that now needs accelerating. — 00:01:56 · vaccine
  • ★★ Almost 700 years ago a chronicler of the Black Death in England wrote that virtually none of the lords and great men died in the pestilence. — 00:02:26 · England

  • ★★★ Disease does not treat people equally because social orders don't; unless unequal access to health care is addressed, pandemics will stay routine and keep harming the most vulnerable most. — 00:02:26 · health equity

    “Disease does not treat people equally because our social orders do not treat people equally”

00:02:55 — War-centred history sidelines disease; our choices about disease; vision board item and sign-off

  • ★★ The letter's call to take pandemic preparedness as seriously as war made John note that history centres war and teaches much less about disease, even when tied to war, as with the 1918 Spanish flu or cholera in Yemen. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ Sidelining illness once made sense because history was seen as human choices and disease didn't feel like one; now we have much choice around it: we chose to eliminate smallpox. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ We also choose to accept a world where, on average, the poorest people die 30 years before the richest. — 00:03:24 · extreme poverty, health equity
  • ★★★ We won't choose whether the next novel disease pandemic emerges, but we will choose how ready we are and how quickly and equitably we respond. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ 'Stronger and More Equitable Healthcare Systems' is on John's 2021 vision board. — 00:03:24

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says we are in this mess because, as a species, we did not prioritize strong and equitable health care systems for all humans; we have a choice. — video description
  • ★ The description announces an exceptionally boring semi-secret livestream that day. (playful) — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: COVID-19 pandemic · Gates Foundation annual letter · global health · health equity · infectious disease

Also: Projects: Crash Course · Dear Hank and John

Works: 10 Things That Scare Me

Concepts: antiretroviral therapy · extreme poverty · history · HIV/AIDS · smallpox · vaccine · vision board · war

Places: England · United States

Events: Black Death · Great Dying of the Americas · Spanish flu · Yemen cholera outbreak

Only in the description or credits: Bill Gates · Melinda French Gates · universal health care

Also centred on Gates Foundation annual letter: Are Poor Countries Doomed? · Will Life Get Better for the Poor? · How Energy and Time Change Everything · Human Life Is Getting Better. Faster Than Ever Before.

Also centred on infectious disease: The Great Thing about Infectious Disease · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill

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