7 ms·

Return to travel restrictions + contact tracing, and if community spread flares up again, reinstitute social distancing. Repeat until vaccine is developed.

the-pigeon 7y ago
It's also very normal for viruses to become more mild over time. We strongly react to strong threats. It's in the viruses interest to become a weaker threat like the common cold so we tolerate it instead of actively fighting it.
- jeremyjh 7y ago
  They can also become much more deadly. The first pass of the 1918 pandemic was not nearly so bad as the second, which slaughtered millions of people in their 20s and 30s.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    True. But I have heard that that was because, among all the soldiers in the trenches, it could be virulent and still be able to spread effectively, so it had no selection pressure to not be virulent. Covid is a bit different, because it has a longer incubation time, but that wasn't the issue with the 1918 influenza outbreak. (Note well: I am not an epidemiologist.)
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    That's a much rarer course and seems to be related to the conditions of WW1. Under normal circumstances, people with mild illnesses are out and about and able to spread the virus, while people with severe illnesses are confined to a bed or hospital and tend to result in an evolutionary dead end. As a result, the descendants of mild cases outcompete the descendants of severe cases, and eventually natural selection results in the dominant strains of the virus all being mild. With the 1918 flu pandemic, mild cases of flu remained with their unit, while extremely sick cases were transported home via train for improved medical care. As a result, it was the severe cases that ended up sparking new infections, while the mild cases died out after generating herd immunity within an army company. Most respiratory viruses follow the first scenario, although there is a caution there for people who suggest eg. transporting sick people by airliner to regions with fewer cases to make better use of available hospital capacity. Ironically asymptomatic transmission is your best friend here: if all transmission is asymptomatic, the strains that get transmitted will be the ones more likely to not cause symptoms.
tempestn 7y ago
I'm not sure why you're downvoted. That is exactly the right approach. Implement serious social distancing measures to reduce R0 below 1, get local outbreak under control, and then work on keeping it contained, increasing measures when necessary. Once it's more established which countries are effectively controlling the virus, travel could be more open with those countries, and more restricted with those that still have active outbreaks. (Which doesn't necessarily mean cutting off completely, but perhaps only essential travel and cargo, or unrestricted but 14 day isolation on arrival.)
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Interestingly, that comment started out as +3 and is down to -2 now. I think it may be a good harbinger of the public's willingness to endure repeated, long-term changes to their behavior. The way I see this going, we're going to get lockdowns in most countries within the next week or so. After 6 weeks or so, new cases will be negligible, and we'll declare victory and pick up our lives. The virus will silently spread from a few undetected cases during the summer, but then take off again around October, when we get a second wave. Assuming it hasn't mutated to become significantly less deadly (pretty likely - see sibling threads), that will be the real killer, because instead of starting from 1 index case in 1 city it'll be seeded from tens of thousands of sleeper cases across the globe. Public opinion won't support a second lockdown then - people will just be left to die with their families.
  - rapnie 7y ago
    > Interestingly, that comment started out as +3 and is down to -2 now. Is there somewhere to check that score, or is it a higher karma feature?
    - nostrademons 7y ago
      If you wrote the comment you can always see the score (0 now, FWIW). At least I've always been able to; hidden comment scores arrived a while after I'd already amassed a pretty high karma level.
  - 7y ago

the-pigeon 7y ago

It's also very normal for viruses to become more mild over time. We strongly react to strong threats. It's in the viruses interest to become a weaker threat like the common cold so we tolerate it instead of actively fighting it.

jeremyjh 7y ago
They can also become much more deadly. The first pass of the 1918 pandemic was not nearly so bad as the second, which slaughtered millions of people in their 20s and 30s.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  True. But I have heard that that was because, among all the soldiers in the trenches, it could be virulent and still be able to spread effectively, so it had no selection pressure to not be virulent. Covid is a bit different, because it has a longer incubation time, but that wasn't the issue with the 1918 influenza outbreak. (Note well: I am not an epidemiologist.)
- nostrademons 7y ago
  That's a much rarer course and seems to be related to the conditions of WW1. Under normal circumstances, people with mild illnesses are out and about and able to spread the virus, while people with severe illnesses are confined to a bed or hospital and tend to result in an evolutionary dead end. As a result, the descendants of mild cases outcompete the descendants of severe cases, and eventually natural selection results in the dominant strains of the virus all being mild. With the 1918 flu pandemic, mild cases of flu remained with their unit, while extremely sick cases were transported home via train for improved medical care. As a result, it was the severe cases that ended up sparking new infections, while the mild cases died out after generating herd immunity within an army company. Most respiratory viruses follow the first scenario, although there is a caution there for people who suggest eg. transporting sick people by airliner to regions with fewer cases to make better use of available hospital capacity. Ironically asymptomatic transmission is your best friend here: if all transmission is asymptomatic, the strains that get transmitted will be the ones more likely to not cause symptoms.

tempestn 7y ago

I'm not sure why you're downvoted. That is exactly the right approach. Implement serious social distancing measures to reduce R0 below 1, get local outbreak under control, and then work on keeping it contained, increasing measures when necessary. Once it's more established which countries are effectively controlling the virus, travel could be more open with those countries, and more restricted with those that still have active outbreaks. (Which doesn't necessarily mean cutting off completely, but perhaps only essential travel and cargo, or unrestricted but 14 day isolation on arrival.)

nostrademons 7y ago
Interestingly, that comment started out as +3 and is down to -2 now. I think it may be a good harbinger of the public's willingness to endure repeated, long-term changes to their behavior. The way I see this going, we're going to get lockdowns in most countries within the next week or so. After 6 weeks or so, new cases will be negligible, and we'll declare victory and pick up our lives. The virus will silently spread from a few undetected cases during the summer, but then take off again around October, when we get a second wave. Assuming it hasn't mutated to become significantly less deadly (pretty likely - see sibling threads), that will be the real killer, because instead of starting from 1 index case in 1 city it'll be seeded from tens of thousands of sleeper cases across the globe. Public opinion won't support a second lockdown then - people will just be left to die with their families.
- rapnie 7y ago
  > Interestingly, that comment started out as +3 and is down to -2 now. Is there somewhere to check that score, or is it a higher karma feature?
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    If you wrote the comment you can always see the score (0 now, FWIW). At least I've always been able to; hidden comment scores arrived a while after I'd already amassed a pretty high karma level.
- 7y ago