4 ms·

Are you suggesting we will have a pandemic and global lockdowns and associated hits to tourism and travel every year from here on out?

x0x0 7y ago
Unless and until there is a vaccine.
- olliej 7y ago
  The problem with this flu specifically is that it is much more virulent and more dangerous than the regular flu. However unlike the annual flu it does not appear to be changing super dramatically so until shown otherwise eventual herd immunity will drastically reduce the effective virulence. Obviously a vaccine would be a great thing to have, but there is nothing at all to indicate that this is going to be an annual or seasonal outbreak going forward.
  - djannzjkzxn 7y ago
    How certain are we about the low mutation rate? Since many millions of people get the flu each year, there are a lot of opportunities for mutation. Also, perhaps it takes a long time for a mutation to spread widely enough for us to be aware of it. Would it already be apparent if some mutation of coronavirus existed that overcame resistance and allowed reinfection? It seems like the selection pressure in favor of such a mutation would be weak when very little of the population is immune.
    - glofish 7y ago
      SARS-COV-2 is made of a single long RNA segment. The flu has eight segments. With that you get a substantially higher rate of recombination.
    - olliej 7y ago
      Corona viruses are slow to mutate in general, and flu is especially fast. That's why you need a new flu vaccine every year - every year a lot of time is (was?) invested in tracking what flu mutations are appearing and trying to predict which ones will be the main ones next year. Once they've determined what they think are most likely, the vaccines are developed for those. Happily flu mutations mostly impact the protein structures sticking out of the virus wall (the HxNy is an actual description of these proteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase), so it's mostly a matter of retargeting an existing set of vaccines rather than creating a whole new vaccine from scratch.
- throw_away 7y ago
  And until that vaccine is widely distributed to both the places where people want to travel to and the places those people are from.
- wh1t3n01s3 7y ago
  Actually, no. We just need to reach herd immunity. This will be faster than any deployed vaccine. The spanish flu lasted 3 or more years because the globalization was not developed as nowadays. At this rate we’ll reach herd immunity a lot faster than 3 years. This is my personal opinion. No sources!
  - comfymatrix 7y ago
    I feel like "herd immunity" is very speculative right now and not fully thought out. There are even reports and studies suggesting immunity might not be something everyone gets... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3078840/coronavirus-low-antibody-levels-raise-questions-about https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3078840/coro...

x0x0 7y ago

Unless and until there is a vaccine.

olliej 7y ago
The problem with this flu specifically is that it is much more virulent and more dangerous than the regular flu. However unlike the annual flu it does not appear to be changing super dramatically so until shown otherwise eventual herd immunity will drastically reduce the effective virulence. Obviously a vaccine would be a great thing to have, but there is nothing at all to indicate that this is going to be an annual or seasonal outbreak going forward.
- djannzjkzxn 7y ago
  How certain are we about the low mutation rate? Since many millions of people get the flu each year, there are a lot of opportunities for mutation. Also, perhaps it takes a long time for a mutation to spread widely enough for us to be aware of it. Would it already be apparent if some mutation of coronavirus existed that overcame resistance and allowed reinfection? It seems like the selection pressure in favor of such a mutation would be weak when very little of the population is immune.
  - glofish 7y ago
    SARS-COV-2 is made of a single long RNA segment. The flu has eight segments. With that you get a substantially higher rate of recombination.
  - olliej 7y ago
    Corona viruses are slow to mutate in general, and flu is especially fast. That's why you need a new flu vaccine every year - every year a lot of time is (was?) invested in tracking what flu mutations are appearing and trying to predict which ones will be the main ones next year. Once they've determined what they think are most likely, the vaccines are developed for those. Happily flu mutations mostly impact the protein structures sticking out of the virus wall (the HxNy is an actual description of these proteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase), so it's mostly a matter of retargeting an existing set of vaccines rather than creating a whole new vaccine from scratch.
throw_away 7y ago
And until that vaccine is widely distributed to both the places where people want to travel to and the places those people are from.
wh1t3n01s3 7y ago
Actually, no. We just need to reach herd immunity. This will be faster than any deployed vaccine. The spanish flu lasted 3 or more years because the globalization was not developed as nowadays. At this rate we’ll reach herd immunity a lot faster than 3 years. This is my personal opinion. No sources!
- comfymatrix 7y ago
  I feel like "herd immunity" is very speculative right now and not fully thought out. There are even reports and studies suggesting immunity might not be something everyone gets... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3078840/coronavirus-low-antibody-levels-raise-questions-about https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3078840/coro...