The details are still coming into focus, but The Associated Press reported Monday on an emerging public health threat in Russia. From the article:

Russian authorities have quarantined a hospital and are monitoring contacts of an employee at a plague research institute in Siberia who contracted pneumonia of an “unknown” cause. Local state TV said the woman died last week.

Russian authorities said they found no evidence that her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with. But the case has raised alarm in Russia after unconfirmed media reports suggested she might have died of pneumonic plague — a less common but severe form of plague that can spread from person to person.

The AP’s report went on to note that the woman worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East in Irkutsk but died in a nearby hospital that is now under quarantine.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he doesn’t think there is cause for alarm but that the U.S. is watching the case closely, aware that “it could spread quickly” despite the quarantine.

Around the same time, a reporter asked Donald Trump about his level of concern regarding the developments.

After referring to what he described as “the pneumonia plague” — I suspect he meant to use the word “pneumonic” — the president said, “Well, I hate to see them having it, it’s a rough, it’s a rough disease.”

He went on to say, “You know that’s a disease that we used to be able to control, but somehow those microbes have gotten stronger and smarter, they’re like an army. And we don’t have the same medical — even with great advancement, the germs have really become relatively stronger than they were, and things that used to work on pneumonia don’t work as well anymore, so, but we’ll help. Anybody that has that kind of a problem, we’re always willing to help, we’ll help.”

Later, in the same Q&A, the Republican added, “We’re looking at it very strongly. We just heard about it, and they called it pneumonia. And pneumonia, you know, years ago, you could treat pneumonia easier. … But we’ll help them; we’ll help them as much as we can.”

Much of this answer was difficult to understand, and everyone can certainly hope that the issue is resolved quickly and safely.

But the broader circumstances offer a timely reminder of why it’s unwise to put a nation’s public health infrastructure in the hands of those who cannot manage it effectively or responsibly.

Trump, for example, is notorious for his bizarre beliefs about science, and became an international laughingstock six years ago by suggesting treating Covid-19 by injecting people with disinfectant.

The same president tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as the secretary of health and human services, despite RFK Jr.’s record of anti-science radicalism, and the anti-vaccine activist has done sweeping harm to federal health agencies.

“Though public health experts say there’s no cause for Americans to panic, the episode serves as a wake-up call emphasizing the nature of global biological threats and the need for pandemic preparedness,” an Axios report noted. That’s true, though it’s inherently difficult to focus on such goals when the United States’ public health infrastructure is led in large part by unqualified cranks and charlatans.

It’s nice, I suppose, that the president said the U.S. is “always willing to help” a country facing a public health emergency. It’d be even better if we still had the capacity to follow through on such a commitment.

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