I have long felt we are one virus or bacteria mutation away from a global pandemic. It also seems to me that the source of this will either be Africa or what is called the “Asian soup, that lethal mixture of ducks, pigs, and human feces. It is also a fact the human species is overdue for one. The first link deals with the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Congo.
The link is below.
A virus amid violenceThe Ebola outbreak in Congo is getting worse
Attacks on health workers are making it difficult to contain the virus
THE GREATEST fear of most health workers battling Ebola is catching the deadly virus, which makes people gush blood from every orifice. But to Dr Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, an epidemiologist from Cameroon working with the World Health Organisation (WHO), violence was also a pressing worry. Dr Mouzoko was stationed in Butembo, a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the centre of an Ebola outbreak that was detected nine months ago. The area around it is in effect a war zone, home to over 100 militias. Locals misunderstand and distrust health workers.
On April 19th gunmen burst into a meeting of the local Ebola response team that he led. The attackers took everyone’s phone, then started shooting. Two people were wounded. Dr Mouzoko was killed. Hours later a group of people armed with machetes tried to set fire to an Ebola treatment centre at a hospital in nearby Katwa.
The next link deals with how JIT, or the just in time delivery systems means our cities have a three day supply of food. I suggest all of my blog readers have a minimum of 30 days stored food and water.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190319-what-happens-when-the-food-runs-out
Our modern society relies upon complex, modern supply chains for food. How would we cope if they were to suddenly collapse?
20 March 2019
It happened almost overnight. Rešad Trbonja was an ordinary teenager growing up in a thriving, modern city, one which only a few years earlier had hosted the Winter Olympics. Then on 5 April 1992, the place he had called home was suddenly cut off from the outside world.
Worst Case Scenario
This article is part of a new BBC Future column called Worst Case Scenario, which looks at the extremes of the human experience and the remarkable resilience people display in the face of adversity.
It aims to look at ways people have coped when the worst happens and what lessons we can learn from their experiences.
What he – along with almost 400,000 other inhabitants trapped inside Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serb Army – could not guess was that it was the start of a nightmare that would last nearly four years. In the Siege of Sarajevo, ordinary residents trapped inside the city would go about their lives to a daily thump of artillery and crack of sniper rifles. Even simply crossing the street or queuing for bread would become a life-threatening experience as the soldiers on the hills surrounding the city took pot-shots at the local populace.
But while the bullets and shells fired into their city were a constant threat, Trbonja and his neighbours faced another, quieter foe from within: hunger.
Finally, all of us are one major storm away from dealing with a personal crisis, as in no power, and whatever stored food or water we have on hand.
The link is below.
Mesmerizing satellite footage shows late winter Storm Xyler blasting the Midwest and Northeast with up to seven inches of snow over the weekend and the cold spell is not over yet as the region braces itself for ANOTHER snowstorm
- Xyler blasted parts of the northern Plains, upper Midwest, Great Lakes and interior Northeast with snow and rain showers Friday through Sunday
- Some areas experienced the ‘thundersnow’ phenomenon, where snow falls instead of rain during a thunderstorm
- Between 1.2 and seven inches of snow were recorded in the Midwest
- Rain and snow were also seen in parts of northern Pennsylvania and higher-terrain areas of New England
- Weather forecasters predict a new snowstorm hitting the Canadian border and north-central US through Monday
