Zeihan reports a new Ebola outbreak in central Africa that has killed at least 50 people and argues the US barely noticed because the Trump administration dismantled its three-line disease-defense system: USAID was closed last year, the CDC has been gutted under new leadership including RFK Jr., and BARDA’s vaccine-pipeline funding has been slashed. As a result, the US got no advance warning, the CDC was only called in roughly three weeks after local discovery, and genetic sequencing is only now beginning. The one bright spot is that the WHO—with which the US no longer cooperates—voluntarily shared information indicating the new strain, which he renders as “Bunga Bo,” appears to behave like normal Ebola, spreading through bodily fluids rather than respiration.
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The outbreak and US blind spot: A new Ebola outbreak in central Africa has killed at least 50 people with numbers rising daily, yet it has not made US news. Zeihan attributes the silence to the collapse of America’s early-warning capacity.
USAID’s dismantling: He explains USAID normally placed thousands of Americans in communities worldwide who functioned as an informal first line of intelligence for disease detection. Because the Trump administration closed it last year, the US received no advance warning of the outbreak.
CDC gutted under RFK Jr.: The CDC, which handles genetic testing, mapping, and epidemiology, has been gutted and is largely absent abroad under new leadership including RFK Jr. Instead of being the first or second call, the CDC was only contacted last week, well after the three-week-old local discovery.
BARDA and vaccine pipeline cuts: BARDA, which Zeihan compares to DARPA but for maintaining a new-vaccine pipeline, has had its funding gutted because, in his words, RFK “has basically decided that vaccines are bad.” He says sequencing is only now starting, leaving the US “on the back foot.”
Disease characteristics and the WHO bright spot: Zeihan describes Ebola as a hemorrhagic fever in which the body falls apart from the inside out, “a particularly nasty way to go.” He notes the WHO voluntarily reported that the new strain spreads by bodily-fluid contact rather than respiration, while warning diseases mutate—as seen with COVID—and the US would not know until it arrives.
