5 ms·

> The days of carefree travel are long gone. I've been digging up videos of people from the early 1920s and I see very little impact of the Spanish Flu on peop

> The days of carefree travel are long gone. I've been digging up videos of people from the early 1920s and I see very little impact of the Spanish Flu on people's mannerisms even just within a year or two after (like no masks in the streets even though mask wearing was apparently a big thing during the pandemic). Just the other day, I was reading up on Charlie Chaplin. Looking at his filmography, I noticed a a gap of just 1 year (between "A Day's Pleasure" released Dec 1919 and "The Kid" released Feb 2021) which is when the pandemic would've been raging across the land. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin_filmography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin_filmography) So, while I certainly watch in horror at what is happening with COVID-19 and how the whole world has come to a standstill, if history is to be believed, we'll bounce back faster than we suspect. Not tomorrow, maybe not even within the next six months, but very likely within a year I think we'll be back in full force.

ekianjo 6y ago
> Within a year after a vaccine becomes available, We have never successfully developed a vaccine for a coronavirus before. And even if it's proven to be feasible, it will be unlikely to be very practical (are we going to manufacture billions of doses? How long will it take? Won't there be some kind of herd immunity by then?) and there are also indicators that such vaccines would not be effective beyond 6 months or so. The more I hear about a vaccine for this coronavirus, the less it seems like the true solution for this crisis.
- walterbell 6y ago
  Vaccines are unlikely to work or be scalable, though that won't stop companies from trying. More practically, repurposing widely available low-cost therapeutics, combined with early treatment, have proven effective in many cases. When not detected and treated early, expensive drugs may be necessary for treatment.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    > Vaccines are unlikely to work or be scalable Can you back that up with some kind of science? There are >100 in development and several are done with phase 1. Hell, one is already entering production in anticipation of final approval later this year. Short term, we'll probably rely heavily on plasma.
    - walterbell 6y ago
      Zero vaccines in the entire history of coronaviruses. For the well-known reason that the viruses mutate, so a vaccine against seasonal variant A does not work against new variant B.
      - rootusrootus 6y ago
        This is a common misconception. Viruses mutate, sure, but most do not mutate very quickly or very much. This includes coronaviruses. Influenza, on the other hand, mutates at a prodigious rate in meaningful ways. The reason we don't have vaccines against any coronaviruses is because there aren't very many that infect humans and all of them other than SC2 are so mild it isn't worth spending the effort to eradicate them.
        ekianjo 6y ago
        > The reason we don't have vaccines against any coronaviruses Coronaviruses affect animals too, and yet we haven't been able to develop vaccines against them. And yes, there are vaccines for many other infections for animals.
- icegreentea2 6y ago
  Where did you get the 6 month figure from? It's true we really don't know how things will pan out long term, but we know that there are lot's of possibilities that all work out to something that's not awful in the long term. For example, we already produce and distribute an annual vaccine on the scale of billions (the flu). The flu also has tampering effectiveness on a pretty short time scale. The flu vaccine is also not 100% effective. And despite all of those short comings, we're able to mitigate flu into something that people literally use as the low bar for infectious diseases in terms of spread and severity. I think you're right that the vaccine is unlikely to let us eradicate coronavirus, but it'll let us get back to a new normal - one that isn't fundamentally different from our old normal (at least from a health perspective - who knows what happens at a societal or policy level).
  - fpoling 6y ago
    The flu vaccine efficiency is rather low, between 19% and 60% depending on the year, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectiveness-studies.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectiveness-studies.... But what is interesting is that the current lockdown in Norway killed the flu with season ending abruptly.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      That's not surprising! The lockdown is a general-purpose counter to droplet/airborne-communicable diseases, it's not done for seasonal flu because the cost is seen as disproportionate to the known benefit. Stopping other communicable diseases is an expected side effect of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Those percentages don't tell the whole story. Even when the vaccine doesn't match the circulating strains closely enough to prevent infection, it typically mitigates symptom severity at least a little. For some patients that can be the difference between life and death.
Zigurd 6y ago
There are several simultaneous misperceptions I see: First, noted in the article, is a false sense of security. If the Secret Service in the White House can have an outbreak, any workplace can have an outbreak. The pandemic has yet to hit large swathes of the planet, but it will probably do so before a vaccine is available. This is really, really bad, and will be until there is some substantial change. Third is a sense of false optimism: There is one antiviral that has been tested to have a significant but relatively modest effect on recovery time, and that may reduce risk of death by an as yet unknown amount. Other than that, no confirmed breakthroughs in treatment. Nothing that sharply reduces risk of death or duration and severity of illness. In other words, the risks are almost the same as on day one. Why does anyone thing a lockdown can be lifted with a price in terms of many tens of thousands of lives just in the US? Lastly, there is a sense that we will be in a permanent pandemic. As the above comment points out, the direct impact will be felt for one or two years. There will be permanent changes, perhaps as a result of the realization that access to health care is key to minimizing pandemics. Perhaps infectious disease surveillance will rise in importance. But the economy will resume. Un-parking airplanes will happen. Humans want to travel. Businesses may realize that business travel can be cut down. Schools may realize distance learning can work. But I see no reason why discretionary travel would not resume and grow. I see no reason why in-person social mingling would not resume, maybe with a bang, as people celebrate being vaccinated.
- Saaster 6y ago
  If business travel is reduced, you can expect the cost of regular coach class tickets to increase massively as the former pays for the flight and the latter is just there to wring a bit more profit out of the trip. Business travel right now is non-existent and many companies are finding that things still work just fine without it and will not return to previous spend levels.
  - ec109685 6y ago
    Tickets to leisure destinations are not out of line from flights on business routes, so I don’t think it’s right to say airplanes can’t fly profitably without business travelers footing the bill.
citrin_ru 6y ago
I hope that travel will be a norm again, but what have changed since 1920s - nowadays practically zero risk during air travel is a baseline expectation. It looks like the last couple of generations are much more risk averse than any previous generation.

ekianjo 6y ago

> Within a year after a vaccine becomes available, We have never successfully developed a vaccine for a coronavirus before. And even if it's proven to be feasible, it will be unlikely to be very practical (are we going to manufacture billions of doses? How long will it take? Won't there be some kind of herd immunity by then?) and there are also indicators that such vaccines would not be effective beyond 6 months or so. The more I hear about a vaccine for this coronavirus, the less it seems like the true solution for this crisis.

walterbell 6y ago
Vaccines are unlikely to work or be scalable, though that won't stop companies from trying. More practically, repurposing widely available low-cost therapeutics, combined with early treatment, have proven effective in many cases. When not detected and treated early, expensive drugs may be necessary for treatment.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Vaccines are unlikely to work or be scalable Can you back that up with some kind of science? There are >100 in development and several are done with phase 1. Hell, one is already entering production in anticipation of final approval later this year. Short term, we'll probably rely heavily on plasma.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    Zero vaccines in the entire history of coronaviruses. For the well-known reason that the viruses mutate, so a vaccine against seasonal variant A does not work against new variant B.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      This is a common misconception. Viruses mutate, sure, but most do not mutate very quickly or very much. This includes coronaviruses. Influenza, on the other hand, mutates at a prodigious rate in meaningful ways. The reason we don't have vaccines against any coronaviruses is because there aren't very many that infect humans and all of them other than SC2 are so mild it isn't worth spending the effort to eradicate them.
      - ekianjo 6y ago
        > The reason we don't have vaccines against any coronaviruses Coronaviruses affect animals too, and yet we haven't been able to develop vaccines against them. And yes, there are vaccines for many other infections for animals.
icegreentea2 6y ago
Where did you get the 6 month figure from? It's true we really don't know how things will pan out long term, but we know that there are lot's of possibilities that all work out to something that's not awful in the long term. For example, we already produce and distribute an annual vaccine on the scale of billions (the flu). The flu also has tampering effectiveness on a pretty short time scale. The flu vaccine is also not 100% effective. And despite all of those short comings, we're able to mitigate flu into something that people literally use as the low bar for infectious diseases in terms of spread and severity. I think you're right that the vaccine is unlikely to let us eradicate coronavirus, but it'll let us get back to a new normal - one that isn't fundamentally different from our old normal (at least from a health perspective - who knows what happens at a societal or policy level).
- fpoling 6y ago
  The flu vaccine efficiency is rather low, between 19% and 60% depending on the year, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectiveness-studies.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectiveness-studies.... But what is interesting is that the current lockdown in Norway killed the flu with season ending abruptly.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    That's not surprising! The lockdown is a general-purpose counter to droplet/airborne-communicable diseases, it's not done for seasonal flu because the cost is seen as disproportionate to the known benefit. Stopping other communicable diseases is an expected side effect of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Those percentages don't tell the whole story. Even when the vaccine doesn't match the circulating strains closely enough to prevent infection, it typically mitigates symptom severity at least a little. For some patients that can be the difference between life and death.

Zigurd 6y ago

There are several simultaneous misperceptions I see: First, noted in the article, is a false sense of security. If the Secret Service in the White House can have an outbreak, any workplace can have an outbreak. The pandemic has yet to hit large swathes of the planet, but it will probably do so before a vaccine is available. This is really, really bad, and will be until there is some substantial change. Third is a sense of false optimism: There is one antiviral that has been tested to have a significant but relatively modest effect on recovery time, and that may reduce risk of death by an as yet unknown amount. Other than that, no confirmed breakthroughs in treatment. Nothing that sharply reduces risk of death or duration and severity of illness. In other words, the risks are almost the same as on day one. Why does anyone thing a lockdown can be lifted with a price in terms of many tens of thousands of lives just in the US? Lastly, there is a sense that we will be in a permanent pandemic. As the above comment points out, the direct impact will be felt for one or two years. There will be permanent changes, perhaps as a result of the realization that access to health care is key to minimizing pandemics. Perhaps infectious disease surveillance will rise in importance. But the economy will resume. Un-parking airplanes will happen. Humans want to travel. Businesses may realize that business travel can be cut down. Schools may realize distance learning can work. But I see no reason why discretionary travel would not resume and grow. I see no reason why in-person social mingling would not resume, maybe with a bang, as people celebrate being vaccinated.

Saaster 6y ago
If business travel is reduced, you can expect the cost of regular coach class tickets to increase massively as the former pays for the flight and the latter is just there to wring a bit more profit out of the trip. Business travel right now is non-existent and many companies are finding that things still work just fine without it and will not return to previous spend levels.
- ec109685 6y ago
  Tickets to leisure destinations are not out of line from flights on business routes, so I don’t think it’s right to say airplanes can’t fly profitably without business travelers footing the bill.

citrin_ru 6y ago

I hope that travel will be a norm again, but what have changed since 1920s - nowadays practically zero risk during air travel is a baseline expectation. It looks like the last couple of generations are much more risk averse than any previous generation.