Cough, Sneeze, and We All Fall Down, Pandemics, Superbugs and You

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What if there was a good chance 30% of the population would not live past 35? What would you do differently? Would you spend most of your early twenties sleepwalking through university? How far into the future, would you look ahead when you tried to decisions? Would you spend any of your precious time in an unfulfilling and meaningless job to top up your 401K?

This is not a self-help post or a rallying cry that you need to live every day as if it were your last. No, this is a “what if” post based on a plausible future.

“What-ifs” are the bread and butter of futurists and we create them not by recycling the annual thanksgiving rant by a crazy uncle, but by looking at changes or events that are plausible, high impact and yet largely unexpected.

Want to know what is unexpected? A pandemic of epic proportions in the next two decades. I hear you, your saying, that’s not unexpected that’s a frequent trope in Hollywood and boring CDC people drone on about it every flu season. All true. But it is unexpected in that governments, institutions and individuals in no way anticipate the return of pandemic or the emergence of a lethal superbug when they think about the future.

Often some of our greatest shocks come from things we know to exist but have no comprehension of how, if they were to happen, they would make our lives and the structure of society unrecognizable to us.

In this post, I want to deal with two big threats that could radically alter our expected future. Super-bugs and a pandemic unleashed by the increased thaw of arctic permafrost. Right now, these potential futures are now way close to being established but there are some “weak signals” that suggest conditions are starting to emerge that make these futures more plausible than say a decade ago.

Super-Bugs

Recently both the G20 and WHO warned of the threat posed by antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria and stated that the production of new antibiotics was “a critical priority.” Before antibiotics five women out of every 1,000 died in childbirth, 1 of every 9 skin infections, from causes as benign as scrapes and insect bites, proved fatal. Pneumonia had a 30% fatality rate. In the US recorded deaths from drug-resistant bacteria have doubled from 2003 to 2014.

These “superbugs” have been attributed to the over prescription and misuse of antibiotics, and the heavy reliance on antibiotics in global agricultural systems. If this trend continues unabated the World Bank forecasts that superbugs could kill 10 million people annually and cost five trillion dollars pushing 28 Million people into poverty by 2050.

Pandemics

Melting permafrost is allowing centuries old dormant bacteria and viruses to “wake up.” Already corpses containing dormant strains of small pox, bubonic plague and anthrax are being exposed. The threat these thawed pathogens pose was realized in 2016 when a boy from a remote community in Siberia died from exposure to anthrax released from a 75 year old reindeer corpse of which had just recently been exposed by receding permafrost.

The lethality of these frozen pathogens is potentially quite high as melting permafrost may expose us to pathogens hundreds of thousands years old to which we have no immunity. A number of emerging forces increases risk of exposure to these pathogens.

Foremost, melting permafrost and the emergence of a Northern Passage promise to increase trade routes and exchange among Northern communities in Canada, Denmark, Greenland, Russia and the USA. In this sense, if a dormant pathogen emerged new global shipping routes increases the number of transmission points through which this pathogen could travel.

Increased population and loss of habitable land globally will likely see an increase in settlement and city formation in arctic regions that are currently not desirable or particularly habitable. This increase in population could increase the prospects for transmission and would create a richer genetic pool for subsequent mutations.

Demand for precious metals and natural gas will spur resource development in the North. This will increase the likelihood that dormant pathogens in the permafrost are disrupted and given the opportunity to cause infection.

So what could happen?

Well, a hell of a lot. If you want to see the big picture chain, I invite you to check out my cascade diagram in this link: https://mind42.com/mindmap/bab6ad3f-ba9b-494c-a9de-876c757e4789

However, here are some big takeaways.

Anti-biotic resistant bacteria (Superbugs) and the resurgence of dormant pathogens present a number of global implications. Hospitals might restructure to reduce risks of contagion and may require more square footage to decrease patient density; air filtration systems will become more sophisticated.

Public transportation will see new designs to limit exposure to other passengers.

In the case of an increased prevalence of antibiotic resistant superbugs there is a strong possibility that contact sports may decline in popularity. Work that causes routine abrasions and cuts might be automated whenever possible.

Public security issues could arise as different players seek to weaponize superbugs causing biological border security to increase. More robust international collaboration, especially in a period of heightened human movement due to climatic change, may emerge or migration could be greatly curbed further impacting the global economy. This could especially be the case if there is need to monitor the migration patterns of animals around the Arctic Circle to avoid possible cross-species contagion caused by thawed pathogens.

Increased risk of exposure to lethal strains of bacteria could unduly impact the sharing economy, especially the idea of shared mobility transport services.

If dormant pathogens wake up and spark new pandemics roughly at the same time as autonomous cars become viable we will probably witness the continuity of personal vehicle ownership rather than subscription to shared vehicle fleets as some analysts anticipate.

Designs may be put in place to build sanitization systems into vehicles; and homes may become built to optimize bio-security. Anti-biotic inputs into the livestock industry greatly accelerate the emergence of super-bugs, which could be met with pressure to decrease meat consumption.

Higher education and other long-term self-investment in one’s human capital could likely see a decline; productivity would decline as well or accelerate the pace at which productivity is monopolized by capital-intensive components (AI, robots etc.).

Healthcare innovations will shift from battling chronic disease and will become more focused on antibiotics and anti-viral technologies.

Urban densification could either decline or become more costly as quarantines and hygiene measures become integrated in smart city structures.

This future is unlikely but not implausible. The real question and important next step is what should we do with this information? I'll use this as example in my next post to extol the virtues of developing your capacity to think about the future in a meaningful and productive way that helps you increase your resiliency and the resiliency of your firm.