this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
674 points (98.7% liked)

Not The Onion

15173 readers
2372 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A controversial proposal from U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to let bird flu naturally spread through poultry farms is raising alarms among scientists -- who say the move could be inhumane and dangerous.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] robbinhood@lemmy.world 13 points 23 hours ago

It's a bit complicated. That survival rate primarily includes people who become severely ill and seek medical attention. Since it's the most severe cases, the case fatality rate (CFR) will appear higher.

HOWEVER, what also needs to be emphasized is that a disease with like a 10% CFR is probably a civilization (as we know it) ending disease. I believe covid 19 was between like 1-2% and we saw how it nearly broke our health care system, and that was with people more competent than RFK in charge.

If a disease emerges that spreads as easily as COVID did and with a CFR rate 3 to 4X as worse, it'd obliterate the health care system very, very quickly. Then people are going to start dying en masse from preventable diseases, like common infections, moderate injuries (e.g. broken leg) etc.

If a disease emerges that spreads as fast and far as COVID and has a 50% CFR, yeah that'd collapse most societies completely. Maybe some societies that can truly lock down and enforce social distancing, like China, could survive long enough for a vaccine or other solution to become available.