3 ms·

I found out that "eradicated" doesn't actually mean "eradicated", it means "we think it is and hope it won't come back" That said, I'm glad we've reduced the s

I found out that "eradicated" doesn't actually mean "eradicated", it means "we think it is and hope it won't come back" That said, I'm glad we've reduced the spread of this disease to the point where we think it doesn't exist anymore.

Someone 7y ago
Think about it: a poliovirus is about 30nm in diameter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliovirus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliovirus) It takes only one of them for it not to be eradicated. We discover new species that are a million times its diameter (3 cm) or 10^18 times its volume all the time, and species that are 10 times larger still regularly (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/13/new-mammals-discovered-10-years https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/13/new-mamm...) On the face of that, there’s no way we ever could decide it has been eradicated. We only dare make this claim because, to the best of our knowledge, the virus will not survive for long outside the human body (a few months, according to https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/polio/facts/en/index3.html https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/polio/facts/en/index3...)