Chinese Balloon over Montana?

And some other anxieties...

The last few years have been unprecedented. We have faced a pandemic, political chaos, threats to civil rights, contested elections, riots, fake news and propaganda from every direction. It’s hard to imagine what’s next.

I have a few theories. I should have a column called ‘I have a theory.’

One of my theories is that the next naturally occurring pandemic could be something that isn’t respiratory. It may be a neurological disease like botulism or polio, or potentially a gastrointestinal issue with intractable vomiting and diarrhea in victims; maybe something like Cholera.

If I were a terrorist organization or a nation wishing to attack the United States with a biological weapon, that would also make strategic sense. Why? Because we’re dialed into the whole respiratory illness thing now. We think that future pandemics will be like that last one. And we certainly don’t like to entertain the idea that biological weapons could be used. Just as physicians sometimes ignore possible diagnoses that make them uncomfortable, nations can ignore things in the same way.

We aren’t prepared to deal with massive numbers of neurologically debilitated victims like one would see with, for instance, botulinum toxin or some new variation of polio. If we thought we didn’t have enough ventilators before, that would be a whole new level.

We certainly don’t have enough protective gear or clean up equipment/disinfectant to manage massive amounts of GI illness. If you’ve worked in a hospital (or on a cruise ship) during an outbreak of intestinal illness, you know that it’s terrible. And if you need more reasons to be concerned, simply read about the recent history of cholera in Haiti.

https://www.cdc.gov/cholera/haiti/index.html

However, as someone who mulls over odd fears, something new has emerged from my ‘anxiety closet.’

(Thank you, Berkeley Breathed, for giving me Bloom County in my formative years!)

These days another threat comes to mind. A Chinese balloon is floating over the United States.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3843240-why-the-discovery-of-a-chinese-balloon-in-us-skies-is-such-a-big-deal/

Here’s the crazy theory part. I mean, a balloon 100,000 feet in the sky has little to no impact on my life. But what if that balloon isn’t just observing and spying. What if those balloons have EMP weapons on board? (Or are doing a test-run.)

https://www.livescience.com/air-force-emp-attacks-protection.html

Electromagnetic pulse weapons could seriously disrupt all of our computers, electronics and communications.

Not only does this leave us vulnerable from a strategic standpoint, it would make it nearly impossible to manage healthcare disasters, or even the daily disaster of modern American medical care. A truly microscopic example: I worked a shift once as the only physician when we had 12 victims of a bus wreck, and a nearby car crash severed area Internet cables and phone lines. Teleradiology was unavailable, normal lines of communications with specialists and transfer centers were down. It was a challenge. What if all of that were down for weeks to months?

A US Air Force General recently predicted war with China by 2025. Disrupted US communications would make that much easier, and cause all sorts of internal chaos in the US separate from the actual conflict.

https://humanevents.com/2023/01/31/four-star-air-force-general-predicts-full-scale-u-s-war-with-china-by-2025

Look, I’m no military, aerospace or international security subject-matter expert. I’m not a geopolitical writer. I’m certainly not a balloon afficianado. And odds are good that this is a big ‘nothing-burger,’ like so much that the the news brings us these days.

But I am very concerned about my ability to do my job for the people who need me. And sometimes, that requires that I think about things outside the walls of the ER. These days, as weird as things are, maybe it’s not out of the question just to be the slightest bit worried about something as seemingly disconnected from my life as a Chinese balloon floating over the country.