4 ms·
It's interesting that MERS was about twice as deadly as the Spanish Flu. I guess because it happened in a certain part of the world, the Western media just deci
by anonsivalley652 7y ago
It's interesting that MERS was about twice as deadly as the Spanish Flu. I guess because it happened in a certain part of the world, the Western media just decided it wasn't worthy of wall-to-wall Snowpocalypse yellow journalism.
- dragonwriter 7y agoThreat from a disease is a combination of tendency to spread, circumstance of initial outbreak, and deadliness. The latter alone isn't what makes it a matter of urgent global concern on a simple pragmatic level.
- anonsivalley652 7y agoThat's obvious. It's more contagious than Ebola but less so than Norovirus. You're discounting that MERS hasn't gone away... it's sitting in reservoir(s) of wild and/or domesticated animals right now, likely on two continents thanks to travel and clusters of human cases in South Korea as well. If that doesn't worry you, then I guess anticipation isn't your strong suit. The point is: hantavirus was a rare disease but was hyped up in North America, MERS is much worse and has the potential to be a minor Ebola again and again.
- occamrazor 7y agoMERS had apparently a low infectivity, making it a low level threat to the rest of the world.
- anonsivalley652 7y agoIt's difficult to say that because it was still transmitted to people more easily than Ebola. And the data and research show MERS isn't going away; bats maybe its natural reservoir. Pretending it doesn't exist or not doing anything about is playing Russian roulette with public health. If the US Army Corps of Engineers can eliminate malaria from the southern US, maybe a vaccine can be developed for the natural host and domesticated animals to prevent the risk to humans.