Last Year in Collapse: Disease, 2024
Superbugs, COVID, microplastics, bird flu, starvation, obesity, PFAS, mpox, and dengue. No wonder anxiety and depression are soaring.
Last Year in Collapse: Disease, 2024
This is a special edition of Last Week in Collapse, ordinarily a post compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse. Usually these free special editions come in December, but I was am too busy to get them out on schedule this time. Thank you for subscribing to the Substack.
This is a retrospective on disease, plagues, and other afflictions from the year 2024.
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COVID-19 turned 5 years old last week (half a decade!) according to the WHO. COVID is reportedly surging in the U.S. after the holidays. Yet, in many U.S. states, like Michigan and in Florida, COVID deaths were at all-time lows in the pandemic.
Long COVID—and COVID—continued to pose a problem for those (temporarily) disabled by the disease, and for the economy writ large. Studies’ Long COVID rates vary wildly; one study claims that only 7% of American adults ever had Long COVID; other sources claim that up to 20% of COVID survivors develop Long COVID. One recent study claims that about 70% of youths suffering from Long COVID recovered within 2 years. The CDC says that 90% of Long COVID cases result from mild COVID infections. Scientists are still learning more about this coronavirus, even as all the world seems to have moved on.
Data from 2023, which are finally being reported on now, indicate that U.S. life expectancy was up in 2023 compared with 2022; data from 2024 will probably take months to analyze. The full CDC report has more data.
While not a disease per se, famine worsened among those affected in 2024, increasing the likelihood of diseases and their spread. Conflict was also a driver of famine and illnesses. In Sudan, and in Gaza, and in Haiti, Mali, Ethiopia, and beyond, food shortages added another pressure on post-Collapse societies. Research shared in March 2024 claimed that 1 in 8 humans worldwide is obese—a big new record. 43% of adults on earth are considered “overweight.”
After Africa’s CDC declared an emergency for monkeypox mpox, the WHO declared an mpox emergency in August. Since the virus reemerged onto the world stage in 2022, over 95,000 people have been killed. Vaccines are being rolled out in small numbers, though the virus has already spread to the DRC’s colossal, sprawling capital (pop: 17M). Countries across the world are reacting to failed efforts to contain mpox, and are bracing for what could still become a serious global pandemic. The new clade, Ib, was found in Thailand, the United States, Sweden, and other countries in 2024.
As the year ended, scientists argued that bird flu still needs to be taken more seriously by policymakers and citizens. H5N1, avian influenza, H5N7, bird flu….whatever you call this virus and its many strains, still has not gone human-to-human transmissible, but some observers believe it’s inevitable. “We are in a terrible situation and going into a worse situation,” said one virologist. “I don’t know if the bird flu will become a pandemic, but if it does, we are screwed.” Since August, over 70% of dairy cattle herds (not cows) in California have tested positive for bird flu. Current data on the number of culled farm animals, and the total number of dead birds (and other animals, like seals) is impossible to determine. Some figures suggest that about 90M birds are dying from bird flu every year. The virus has reached Antarctica and also Australia.
Polio was confirmed in Gaza in August, the first case detected there this century. Vaccines were administered but the virus may remain in the soil much longer. In Pakistan and Afghanistan the virus is making a comeback, too. A new oral polio vaccine was also launched in 2024. New York state, which reported a strange case of polio in 2022, went the entire year apparently polio-free.
33 countries reported cholera outbreaks in 2024. Sudan in particular is reeling from cholera, with 50,000+ cases and 1,300+ deaths reported in just the past 4 months. Cases are growing more common in Tanzania, Kenya, Yemen, even in Mayotte. A drug-resistant strain moving around Africa is concerning epidemiologists.
In Nigeria, diphtheria worsens. In the United States, whooping cough cases in 2024 exceeded 5x their 2023 figures. In the heart of Africa, measles is making a comeback in the absence of vaccines. In a moment of good news, researchers created a solid HIV vaccine with an injection that provides six months of protection at 96% reliability. And although drug addiction remains, American overdose deaths dropped about 10% in 2024 from 2023 totals.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) was detected in Washington state for the first time in 2024. Western Minnesota also recorded its first case, as did Idaho at an elk farm. Meanwhile, Candida Auris continues to move within the U.S. and detected in more states’ wastewater than in 2023.
Scientists predicted in The Lancet that humanity might lose 39M people over the next 25 years to AMR (antimicrobial resistance), also known as drug-resistant pathogens—a superbug. One potential superbug is MRSA, which reportedly killed 120,000+ people in 2024. The possibilities may be fungal in nature, or one of several sexually-transmitted diseases with strong antibiotic resistance. Such superbugs may emerge out of India, or from Gaza, or your own neighborhood.
PFAS. The so-called “forever chemicals” have been steadily detected more and more across the world—and they’re not going away. About 50% of U.S. wells are contaminated with PFAS, which causes cancer, immune dysregulation, brain problems, and more. Globally, more than 30% of tested groundwater sources have been confirmed to have PFAS. This intractable problem is perhaps the greatest water cleanliness problem today (though nanoplastics are also quite bad). Regulators are very slow to cut its use entirely, to put it mildly.
Some 1 in 7 children worldwide are believed to be suffering from mental illness—a number which I find too low to be convincing. Some companies are poised to exploit AI for treating various psychological/mental conditions in 2025. Studies indicate that about half the population will experience a “mental health disorder” within their lifetime. Depression is currently the #1 mental condition.
The world suffered the largest dengue fever outbreak ever before, with 14M+ cases reported before the end of December. This mosquito-borne illness is moving northward as the earth warms. 10,000+ people have died from dengue this year, mostly in tropical regions of the world like Central America and Southeast Asia.
It was another banner year for microplastics, and nanoplastics, and macroplastics, too. A majority of surveyed brains found microplastics in the brain’s olfactory bulb. Microplastics continue to interfere with hormones and cognitive function. The tiny pieces of plastic can also carry chemicals and germs into your body. They were also found to damage cells, increase cancer rates, and cause inflammation. There is currently no way to remove microplastics from most organs in your body.
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Things to watch for next year include:
↠ The surge of some preventable illnesses has been forecast, or at least foreshadowed, by a number of health experts concerend about the nomination (and likely confirmation) of the vaccine-skeptic RFK Jr. to a position of authority in the U.S. government in January 2025.
↠ Potential genetic mixing of bird flu with other seasonal flus may result in a bird flu which is transmissible between humans. This is the top fear for epidemiologists in 2025—and it should be taken seriously. Yet, apart from medical prepping, thoughtful investment, and large life changes (which seem unlikely), there is little that ordinary humans can do about it.
Thank you for processing all this. Click here to read the Reddit comments on this edition. Do you know somebody who ought to read this?
Thanks for this focus on disease and all of your investigative journalism, so much needed in these days of the MSM otherwise just "entertaining" us to death. I'm a retired physician/psychiatrist and author of the e-book "Stress R Us", available online for free thanks to the good folks at Stanford. I do wish that you'd include the explanations of the data displayed on your pieces, often at the bottom of the pics but cut off in your reprints. As for COVID-19, I am a LONG COVID survivor and contracted the viral infection in Dec. 2019 in Madison, WI. It spontaneously cleared after a mild flu-like 10 days, but returned with steadily increasing multi-organ involvement 3 mo's later and lasted 15 mo's, significantly infecting every organ in my body, and from which I only survived after 2 Pfizer vaxs. Still have many symptoms/signs, and the medical lit indicates much higher number than in your piece. Both of my cousins down here in rural SE Ohio have symptoms, including the unsteady gait from neurological damage. The truth of the ongoing LONG COVID impact on us is yet to be fully laid out. The accurate list of the top ten killers you display are also called, mostly, "stress diseases", and rightly so, as NONE of them are found in Hunter-Gatherer/pastoralists living in their traditional lifeways. "Paleolithic Prescription" by 3 anthropologist/physicians is a good reference. As for the "depression" mention, our overactive stress responses caused by our stressor filled "modern" "built" physical environments/lifeways is well established as the cause and is elaborated in "Stress R Us". Thanks for your work and HAVE A VERY HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!. Gregg Miklashek, MD