5 ms·

I think a worst case scenario is one in which: - The virus becomes seasonal, like the flu - Like the flu, every year there are new strains (so surviving it do

I think a worst case scenario is one in which: - The virus becomes seasonal, like the flu - Like the flu, every year there are new strains (so surviving it doesn’t grant immunity) - And we’re unable to develop a vaccine for it Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but this scenario implies that the situation we’re in now becomes the new normal. Every year, we’ll lose an additional percentage of our elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. Medical systems will either be ground down by repeated surges, economies will be ground down by enforced social distancing, or both. What else would be in the cards?

alexandercrohde 7y ago
This is what happened with Spanish flu, but people lived with it, and each year it got less deadly, and it still persists to this day as Influenza A [1]. Personally I assume if it's more than a 6-month ordeal people would accept the losses rather than fundamentally changing the economy as we know it. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2749954/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2749954/
- ianai 7y ago
  The Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed around 50 million people worldwide (google) in 1918 when the world population was 1.9 billion. Just linearly that would be around 200 million today.
logicchains 7y ago
> Like the flu, every year there are new strains (so surviving it doesn’t grant immunity) Even if it mutates, the immune systems of people who recovered from it this year will still be able to fight it much better next year, because they've learned how to fight that kind of virus. This is why even though the flu mutates every year, it isn't particularly lethal: our bodies have learned how to fight that kind of virus. If however one were to take the flu to e.g. an uncontacted tribe who'd never encountered influenza before, it'd completely devastate them, much as how viruses from European settlers were estimated to have killed a double-digit percentage of the native American peoples.
- ffdjjjffjj 7y ago
  We don’t develop immunity to other coronaviruses such as the common cold, so I don’t think we can assume we will for this one.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    We do develop immunity to other coronaviruses such as the ones causing common cold - thing is, there are so many different viruses (some of them are coronaviruses, some not - there's a huge variety) causing similar symptoms, so we don't even attempt to diagnose which of the many common-cold-group viruses you have because we don't care; but you do develop immunity against that particular single virus.
  - rimliu 7y ago
    We do. Actually they find antibodies for the orignal SARS ten years after.
  - adrr 7y ago
    Other corona viruses are different. We only get chicken pox once in our lives, but we can be infected with other herpes viruses after chicken pox(infection or vaccine).
- sfj 7y ago
  There are some virii, such as dengue fever, where getting one strain, makes getting the next strain much worse. This is because the change to the immune system to fight off the first strain creates a new pathway for the second strain to use to infect.
sfj 7y ago
Sounds like an improvement actually. Less people leeching off the system, either through welfare, or by being rich enough to just sit and live off savings. A young person with money would be more likely to start a company rather than just retire. Their productivity would help everyone. People that do survive would be healthier to begin with. There would be more room, and less pollution. More research put into medicine would help everybody live healthier lives. The economy would be less ecologically harmful allowing nature to flourish. In San Francisco, wild foxes are already starting to wander through the city. Imagine what it would be like after 20 years of this. Overall, a much better place.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > Sounds like an improvement actually. Less people leeching off the system, either through welfare, or by being rich enough to just sit and live off savings. Any opinion that starts with the equivalent of "I'm OK with the deaths of those people because I don't think that they have full value" (referring to someone as a leech on the system is basically just saying that they are worth less as a part of society than the non-leeches) is not one that I hope to see much endorsed.
  - sfj 7y ago
    I never said they didn't have full value. I'm just looking at what would happen to society in this sort of scenario. It may be harsh to say it, but there is a potential brightside whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.
rimliu 7y ago
It is not influenza it is coronavirus. This means it mutates way slower, so vaccinces will work.

alexandercrohde 7y ago

This is what happened with Spanish flu, but people lived with it, and each year it got less deadly, and it still persists to this day as Influenza A [1]. Personally I assume if it's more than a 6-month ordeal people would accept the losses rather than fundamentally changing the economy as we know it. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2749954/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2749954/

ianai 7y ago
The Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed around 50 million people worldwide (google) in 1918 when the world population was 1.9 billion. Just linearly that would be around 200 million today.

logicchains 7y ago

> Like the flu, every year there are new strains (so surviving it doesn’t grant immunity) Even if it mutates, the immune systems of people who recovered from it this year will still be able to fight it much better next year, because they've learned how to fight that kind of virus. This is why even though the flu mutates every year, it isn't particularly lethal: our bodies have learned how to fight that kind of virus. If however one were to take the flu to e.g. an uncontacted tribe who'd never encountered influenza before, it'd completely devastate them, much as how viruses from European settlers were estimated to have killed a double-digit percentage of the native American peoples.

ffdjjjffjj 7y ago
We don’t develop immunity to other coronaviruses such as the common cold, so I don’t think we can assume we will for this one.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  We do develop immunity to other coronaviruses such as the ones causing common cold - thing is, there are so many different viruses (some of them are coronaviruses, some not - there's a huge variety) causing similar symptoms, so we don't even attempt to diagnose which of the many common-cold-group viruses you have because we don't care; but you do develop immunity against that particular single virus.
- rimliu 7y ago
  We do. Actually they find antibodies for the orignal SARS ten years after.
- adrr 7y ago
  Other corona viruses are different. We only get chicken pox once in our lives, but we can be infected with other herpes viruses after chicken pox(infection or vaccine).
sfj 7y ago
There are some virii, such as dengue fever, where getting one strain, makes getting the next strain much worse. This is because the change to the immune system to fight off the first strain creates a new pathway for the second strain to use to infect.

sfj 7y ago

Sounds like an improvement actually. Less people leeching off the system, either through welfare, or by being rich enough to just sit and live off savings. A young person with money would be more likely to start a company rather than just retire. Their productivity would help everyone. People that do survive would be healthier to begin with. There would be more room, and less pollution. More research put into medicine would help everybody live healthier lives. The economy would be less ecologically harmful allowing nature to flourish. In San Francisco, wild foxes are already starting to wander through the city. Imagine what it would be like after 20 years of this. Overall, a much better place.

JadeNB 7y ago
> Sounds like an improvement actually. Less people leeching off the system, either through welfare, or by being rich enough to just sit and live off savings. Any opinion that starts with the equivalent of "I'm OK with the deaths of those people because I don't think that they have full value" (referring to someone as a leech on the system is basically just saying that they are worth less as a part of society than the non-leeches) is not one that I hope to see much endorsed.
- sfj 7y ago
  I never said they didn't have full value. I'm just looking at what would happen to society in this sort of scenario. It may be harsh to say it, but there is a potential brightside whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

rimliu 7y ago

It is not influenza it is coronavirus. This means it mutates way slower, so vaccinces will work.