4 ms·

Maybe there will be a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, but the one lesson to take away from all this is that if a truly terrible pandemic hits (eg more contagious than S

by Gatsky 7y ago

Maybe there will be a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, but the one lesson to take away from all this is that if a truly terrible pandemic hits (eg more contagious than SARS-CoV-2 but with a 10%+ mortality rate) a vaccine won’t save us. I’m not sure what will. Relying on the source country to quickly identify an outbreak and raise the alarm obviously isn’t going to work...

tluyben2 7y ago
We never have been here before in almost everyone’s lifetime; there are a few over 100 year old people who did ofcourse, but that is it. As with wars on your own soil, people forget fast. In Asia my HK colleagues got stressed in january as they did see this before and they (the people without the gov) already automatically took more care. If this occurs ‘soonish’, I think a lot of people and countries will act differently; I know I will. I was still travelling as, silly me, trusted my gov to warn me; big mistake. I would have wanted to self isolate a month earlier to make sure; next time that will happen. I hope there will not be a next time. Obviously the issue is, as with everything that relates to the effectiveness of education on most people, how to teach future generations to not be so lax. I am not sure how that would work. It does not work generally or with a massive delay; exactly like the parent trying to save the child from making the same mistakes as she did but the child having the need not to listen (old people, what do they know he, world changed and such!) and experience all the crap themselves instead. I think, even with a far worse virus, if all countries would’ve shut all borders with china and self quarantined immediately begin january, nothing would happen. Just everyone, every gov and person, thinks and many keep thinking it is all blah and nothing will happen to them. Apparently only the firsthand experience of ‘something bad’ (like Boris Johnson) will actually give them perspective. I think this prepared us well for a worse virus for the coming 20 years; however I think after that, it is will drop off and you will be right; most people will be screwed.
- jfoster 7y ago
  > We never have been here before in almost everyone’s lifetime That's not really true. 1957 "Asian Flu" resulted in > 1 million deaths, and 1968 "Hong Kong Flu" resulted ~1 million deaths. Difficult to compare viruses directly, but I would say those were in the vicinity of something like covid-19, which has not yet resulted in even 200k deaths, but certainly had the potential to kill millions of people. (and may yet...)
  - dingaling 7y ago
    I have an 80yo friend who lived though both of those pandemics and says that the 1957 one was terrifying in the UK. It hit nursing staff very quickly and hard, many hospitals were running below half-staff. It was the first pandemic of the air-travel era and spread like wildfire. But until this latest pandemic arose he hadn't even mentioned his experience, it was just considered part of life. And unless you know to look for it, it's barely mentioned in modern history.
    - jfoster 7y ago
      Yeah, I'm surprised how little these are mentioned, especially in the context of the current pandemic.
  - jlokier 7y ago
    > which has not yet resulted in even 200k deaths It's almost certainly resulted in a larger number than that already. Estimating the true number of people who have already died of COVID-19 is difficult. I've seen estimates ranging from 15% more to 4x more than the "confirmed" figure, which itself has increased from 100,000 to ~190,000 over the last 2 weeks. That's the number of "confirmed" deaths, by some meaning of confirmed. Some of the contributing figures only counting people in hospital at the time of death, and even that with a significant time delay.
  - tluyben2 7y ago
    Yes, but apparently that is already too far gone for anyone to remember and not hard enough to hit all history books...
    - jfoster 7y ago
      I think another factor is that there wasn't the internet back then. Information about the viruses would've been spreading a lot less rapidly than information about covid-19 has been. Overall, I think even at the time people were probably less informed about what was going on (and the global context of it) than we now are.
bibabaloo 7y ago
I'm not any epidemiologist, so if someone knows more please correct me, but I read that viruses with a high mortality rate are much easier to contain. Mainly because the virus more naturally dies out as it kills its hosts. That was one of the reasons that SARS didn't reach pandemic scale with its 10% mortality rate. I have to wonder if Covid-19 is in the 'sweet spot' of dangerousness, as it has a mortality rate that doesn't hamper its ability to spread but still kills a lot of people.
- amelius 7y ago
  I suppose that if the incubation period is long enough the virus can have an arbitrary mortality rate and still spread.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    Incubation period and lethality are usually correlated, afaict.
    - ignoramous 6y ago
      Or, imagine a HIV-esque virus. Super long incubation period, lethal in that it attacks your immune system, and super different than anything we've seen before to effectively find a cure or a vaccine faster than usual. Now imagine if such a virus was airborne and was already spreading... Who'd know?
- usrusr 7y ago
  > but I read that viruses with a high mortality rate are much easier to contain Only if all other parameters remain the same. There could be much worse viruses than SARS-Cov-2 (e.g. that are similar in eventual mortality but have symptoms lag behind start of shedding even more). A virus could be just as species-ending as a large rock hitting the earth, they are just both very unlikely or else we wouldn't be here.

by Gatsky 7y ago

tluyben2 7y ago

We never have been here before in almost everyone’s lifetime; there are a few over 100 year old people who did ofcourse, but that is it. As with wars on your own soil, people forget fast. In Asia my HK colleagues got stressed in january as they did see this before and they (the people without the gov) already automatically took more care. If this occurs ‘soonish’, I think a lot of people and countries will act differently; I know I will. I was still travelling as, silly me, trusted my gov to warn me; big mistake. I would have wanted to self isolate a month earlier to make sure; next time that will happen. I hope there will not be a next time. Obviously the issue is, as with everything that relates to the effectiveness of education on most people, how to teach future generations to not be so lax. I am not sure how that would work. It does not work generally or with a massive delay; exactly like the parent trying to save the child from making the same mistakes as she did but the child having the need not to listen (old people, what do they know he, world changed and such!) and experience all the crap themselves instead. I think, even with a far worse virus, if all countries would’ve shut all borders with china and self quarantined immediately begin january, nothing would happen. Just everyone, every gov and person, thinks and many keep thinking it is all blah and nothing will happen to them. Apparently only the firsthand experience of ‘something bad’ (like Boris Johnson) will actually give them perspective. I think this prepared us well for a worse virus for the coming 20 years; however I think after that, it is will drop off and you will be right; most people will be screwed.

jfoster 7y ago
> We never have been here before in almost everyone’s lifetime That's not really true. 1957 "Asian Flu" resulted in > 1 million deaths, and 1968 "Hong Kong Flu" resulted ~1 million deaths. Difficult to compare viruses directly, but I would say those were in the vicinity of something like covid-19, which has not yet resulted in even 200k deaths, but certainly had the potential to kill millions of people. (and may yet...)
- dingaling 7y ago
  I have an 80yo friend who lived though both of those pandemics and says that the 1957 one was terrifying in the UK. It hit nursing staff very quickly and hard, many hospitals were running below half-staff. It was the first pandemic of the air-travel era and spread like wildfire. But until this latest pandemic arose he hadn't even mentioned his experience, it was just considered part of life. And unless you know to look for it, it's barely mentioned in modern history.
  - jfoster 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm surprised how little these are mentioned, especially in the context of the current pandemic.
- jlokier 7y ago
  > which has not yet resulted in even 200k deaths It's almost certainly resulted in a larger number than that already. Estimating the true number of people who have already died of COVID-19 is difficult. I've seen estimates ranging from 15% more to 4x more than the "confirmed" figure, which itself has increased from 100,000 to ~190,000 over the last 2 weeks. That's the number of "confirmed" deaths, by some meaning of confirmed. Some of the contributing figures only counting people in hospital at the time of death, and even that with a significant time delay.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  Yes, but apparently that is already too far gone for anyone to remember and not hard enough to hit all history books...
  - jfoster 7y ago
    I think another factor is that there wasn't the internet back then. Information about the viruses would've been spreading a lot less rapidly than information about covid-19 has been. Overall, I think even at the time people were probably less informed about what was going on (and the global context of it) than we now are.

bibabaloo 7y ago

I'm not any epidemiologist, so if someone knows more please correct me, but I read that viruses with a high mortality rate are much easier to contain. Mainly because the virus more naturally dies out as it kills its hosts. That was one of the reasons that SARS didn't reach pandemic scale with its 10% mortality rate. I have to wonder if Covid-19 is in the 'sweet spot' of dangerousness, as it has a mortality rate that doesn't hamper its ability to spread but still kills a lot of people.

amelius 7y ago
I suppose that if the incubation period is long enough the virus can have an arbitrary mortality rate and still spread.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  Incubation period and lethality are usually correlated, afaict.
  - ignoramous 6y ago
    Or, imagine a HIV-esque virus. Super long incubation period, lethal in that it attacks your immune system, and super different than anything we've seen before to effectively find a cure or a vaccine faster than usual. Now imagine if such a virus was airborne and was already spreading... Who'd know?
usrusr 7y ago
> but I read that viruses with a high mortality rate are much easier to contain Only if all other parameters remain the same. There could be much worse viruses than SARS-Cov-2 (e.g. that are similar in eventual mortality but have symptoms lag behind start of shedding even more). A virus could be just as species-ending as a large rock hitting the earth, they are just both very unlikely or else we wouldn't be here.