5 ms·

Randall Munroe did a small section on eradicating the common cold in his What-if book, the basic idea is if that all of humanity stayed away from each other for

Randall Munroe did a small section on eradicating the common cold in his What-if book, the basic idea is if that all of humanity stayed away from each other for a week or two then the common cold would die out as it can't survive outside of the human body for more than a week and normally survives by continuously hopping from host to host.

nullc 7y ago
Do we know for sure that it* doesn't have an animal reservoir? [*] The common cold is a half dozen distinct viruses.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  > The common cold is a half dozen distinct viruses. Some of them coronaviruses. It makes sense, but it's funny that we classify the common cold by symptoms, ignoring that the viruses are in different families.
- nickthemagicman 7y ago
  True. Maybe something like chickens or pigs could be an animal vector. Then a very minor mutation could make it infectious to humans.
  - nullc 7y ago
    Doesn't even need the mutation. It may be that it is infectious with R0>1 to some other animals as is, but with few health effects so we don't notice it. If so, it'll just immediately get reintroduced to humans even if we distance it out of our population successfully. No mutations required.
saalweachter 7y ago
This current situation had me wondering how hard it would be to coordinate a regular -- maybe not yearly -- global self-isolation for say 2-3 weeks at a time. Aside from the difficulties of getting everyone in the world to agree that the first three weeks of February during a leap year are observed through social distance, it doesn't seem like it would be as bad on a recurring basis as it is during an emergency like this. You could plan for your self-isolation in advance, so there wouldn't be a rush for supplies the way there is now; you would already know not to schedule anything for February; you'd probably still have to solve some money problems for a large number of people, since being able to WFH probably anti-correlates with living paycheck to paycheck. If you could actually eliminate -- or at least, dramatically reduce the incidence of -- common colds and seasonal flu through such a scheme, it would probably be worth both from a QoL standpoint for the everyone in the world (would you trade 3 weeks of cabin fever every four years for never having another actual fever?) and from an economic standpoint (three weeks of predictable low productivity is almost certainly better than the unpredictable constant costs associated with illness and death).
- myself248 7y ago
  I've theorized this about sexually transmitted diseases, too. It's even less realistic to imagine compliance, but suppose everyone only had sex with people who were born the same year as them. Any given disease would lose the ability to spread into younger people, and simply fall off the end of the age conveyor-belt.
  - javagram 7y ago
    It’s pretty easy to stop STDs just by only ever having sex with 1 person, or more liberally, 1 person at a time and both getting tested before then. Having to go with the “same year” rule is probably harder than that.
    - Cogito 7y ago
      Small reminder that STIs are not just transmitted by 'sex', but also through other intimate acts like kissing. The only suggestion that seems remotely plausible is 'all participants getting tested first'. There are still issues with getting tested, as there are false negatives and it can be hard to get tested for all diseases, but this would dramatically reduce incident of STIs.
  - stOneskull 7y ago
    I don't like embracing Big Brother
    - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
      You will learn to love him eventually >:)
      - dreamer7 7y ago
        [Off topic] I recently picked up 1984 again and finally managed to complete it this time. I read the last line with a mixture of relief and a tinge of disappointment. Until the very end, I was hoping for a Hollywood-style turnaround in the political situation.
james_marks 7y ago
Do you remember the rest of his anecdote, and the massive disruption and starvation he speculated it would cause? We’re actually seeing a hint of what he described, thankfully not near the full scale.

nullc 7y ago

Do we know for sure that it* doesn't have an animal reservoir? [*] The common cold is a half dozen distinct viruses.

dehrmann 7y ago
> The common cold is a half dozen distinct viruses. Some of them coronaviruses. It makes sense, but it's funny that we classify the common cold by symptoms, ignoring that the viruses are in different families.
nickthemagicman 7y ago
True. Maybe something like chickens or pigs could be an animal vector. Then a very minor mutation could make it infectious to humans.
- nullc 7y ago
  Doesn't even need the mutation. It may be that it is infectious with R0>1 to some other animals as is, but with few health effects so we don't notice it. If so, it'll just immediately get reintroduced to humans even if we distance it out of our population successfully. No mutations required.

saalweachter 7y ago

This current situation had me wondering how hard it would be to coordinate a regular -- maybe not yearly -- global self-isolation for say 2-3 weeks at a time. Aside from the difficulties of getting everyone in the world to agree that the first three weeks of February during a leap year are observed through social distance, it doesn't seem like it would be as bad on a recurring basis as it is during an emergency like this. You could plan for your self-isolation in advance, so there wouldn't be a rush for supplies the way there is now; you would already know not to schedule anything for February; you'd probably still have to solve some money problems for a large number of people, since being able to WFH probably anti-correlates with living paycheck to paycheck. If you could actually eliminate -- or at least, dramatically reduce the incidence of -- common colds and seasonal flu through such a scheme, it would probably be worth both from a QoL standpoint for the everyone in the world (would you trade 3 weeks of cabin fever every four years for never having another actual fever?) and from an economic standpoint (three weeks of predictable low productivity is almost certainly better than the unpredictable constant costs associated with illness and death).

myself248 7y ago
I've theorized this about sexually transmitted diseases, too. It's even less realistic to imagine compliance, but suppose everyone only had sex with people who were born the same year as them. Any given disease would lose the ability to spread into younger people, and simply fall off the end of the age conveyor-belt.
- javagram 7y ago
  It’s pretty easy to stop STDs just by only ever having sex with 1 person, or more liberally, 1 person at a time and both getting tested before then. Having to go with the “same year” rule is probably harder than that.
  - Cogito 7y ago
    Small reminder that STIs are not just transmitted by 'sex', but also through other intimate acts like kissing. The only suggestion that seems remotely plausible is 'all participants getting tested first'. There are still issues with getting tested, as there are false negatives and it can be hard to get tested for all diseases, but this would dramatically reduce incident of STIs.
- stOneskull 7y ago
  I don't like embracing Big Brother
  - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    You will learn to love him eventually >:)
    - dreamer7 7y ago
      [Off topic] I recently picked up 1984 again and finally managed to complete it this time. I read the last line with a mixture of relief and a tinge of disappointment. Until the very end, I was hoping for a Hollywood-style turnaround in the political situation.

james_marks 7y ago

Do you remember the rest of his anecdote, and the massive disruption and starvation he speculated it would cause? We’re actually seeing a hint of what he described, thankfully not near the full scale.