6 ms·

The days of carefree travel will return. It'll be a while, but it will be back. In early March, looking for a park to sit quietly with my thoughts in the sunsh

by ISL 6y ago

The days of carefree travel will return. It'll be a while, but it will be back. In early March, looking for a park to sit quietly with my thoughts in the sunshine but away from others, I found myself in a local cemetery. Alone, but not far from a great many people. Seattle's a pretty young place on the scale of things. I was surprised to find that our local graveyard had a substantial contingent that had lived through the 1918 flu. After noting, to my surprise, that there wasn't an obvious peak in the deaths in 1918, I sat there and silently asked a number of them what they'd tell us, if they could. I wasn't sure of the answers, but my perspective was changed. Everything all of us know as "normal" came after a number of devastating pandemics. It'll be back, it'll be slightly different, but it will be the same.

walterbell 6y ago
> I sat there and silently asked a number of them what they'd tell us, if they could. Don't dig up my body and recreate the 1918 virus? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/523163.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/523163.stm > Because the corpses were buried in the "permafrost" - ground that is frozen even at the height of the Arctic summer - tissue samples from the brain, kidney, lungs and spleen were well preserved.
- _drimzy 6y ago
  Viruses can survive in the "permafrost", because they are frozen. Pretty sure no virus can survive for a 100 years buried in ground at normal temperatures!
  - newsbinator 6y ago
    > Pretty sure no virus can survive for a 100 years buried in ground at normal temperatures! I want to agree with you, although usually when we say things like that about viruses a few years later we find a class that can.
vikramkr 6y ago
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattles-quick-thinking-1918-flu-pandemic-now-credited-with-saving-lives/FS6JJQBVVBBINLQQRYR5WAD6FU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattles-quick-thinking-191... We can turn to history to get a sense of what they might have told us. Seattle acted quickly and swiftly, and the damage was mitigated. Compare that to Philadelphia, where it wasnt. And ultimately, research into influenza led to confirming the causative agent and developing the first effective influenza vaccines. We learned, we adapted, and we fought back. Don't know how long it will take, but it's good to remember that for the past few dozen millenia, the lack of fear of pandemics was not normal. The normal we are trying to return to is a new normal created by our species unwillingness to let infectious disease have the last word.
justinator 6y ago
> After noting, to my surprise, that there wasn't an obvious peak in the deaths in 1918 Well, you've seen photos of mass graves circa this year, right?
- ISL 6y ago
  True.
- sp332 6y ago
  More detail https://gothamist.com/news/mass-burials-hart-island-increase-fivefold-covid-19-death-toll-skyrockets https://gothamist.com/news/mass-burials-hart-island-increase...
  - catalogia 6y ago
    To be clear, regular mass burials on Hart Island is normalcy. The increased rate of mass burials is the notable part.
newacct583 6y ago
Can I just say how refreshing it is to see this perspective on HN instead of the "denialist/open-up" faction warring with the "no really this is serious" folks? Indeed, this will pass. It's bad, we have a lot of work to do before it does. There's more suffering to come. But it's not the end of anything.
- ianlevesque 6y ago
  Might be the end of you though.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    High-risk groups can take extra actions for defense, early detection & early treatment.
    - kazagistar 6y ago
      If they have that luxury based on class. Otherwise they are hosed.
      - walterbell 6y ago
        One of the most effective defenses is Vitamin D, which is free if you go outside on a sunny day. Bonus fresh air. Dark-skinned people may benefit from (cheap) supplements, depending on location. A disproportionate number of US/UK severe cases are dark-skinned people. Have you seen research into the cause? Sadly, Vitamin D does not have a pharma marketing budget to convince people that they would be hosed without expensive, emerging, and relatively unproven designer drugs OR addressing Vitamin D deficiency in northern climates. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23119949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23119949
        nradov 6y ago
        There does appear to be a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 risk. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3585561 https://ssrn.com/abstract=3585561
faizmokhtar 6y ago
Personally, I think it will have permanent effects on airport operations. Some of the steps like social distancing, wearing masks, temperature checks, sanitizers, etc will remain even after the vaccine is found.
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  And scary side thing to consider.. how many corona-virus vaccines have been developed and deployed to date? Even after SARS (another corona virus), there were a bunch of candidates and some preliminary successes but none actually made it to market because interest (aka funding) subsided. The same over and over again. As of Jan 1, there were zero. People predicting "we'll have one in a year!" is based on hope and other models, not corona-oriented vaccines. :(
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    There are over 100 vaccines in development, several have completed phase 1 trials, and one is actually in production already so it will be available when it completes phase 3. We didn't need vaccines for SARS or MERS because they were both gone pretty quickly and the number of affected individuals was never high enough to warrant completing the expensive testing required to get approval for a vaccine.
    - caseysoftware 6y ago
      Yes, exactly. I hope a) those vaccines yield useful results b) quickly enough before people lose interest and funding.
      - eyelidlessness 6y ago
        They don't lose interest like it's some unstoppable force of nature on a timer. They lose interest if the harm caused by the disease is either low or contained. As long as the world continues to experience significant death, impact on the health care system, and economic damage... there will be interest in a vaccine.
coliveira 6y ago
There will be some sense of normalcy, but not the old normal. For example, even an event like 9/11, which is small in the scale of a pandemic, had deep consequences for travel and related industries. There will be traveling after the current pandemic, but it will be much different from what we're used to.
brenden2 6y ago
This is just fear mongering. Life will return to normal. Lots of people swore they'd never fly after 9/11 and yet things did recover.
- downerending 6y ago
  Maybe. Two very reassuring things happened right after 9/11, though: (1) cockpit doors were seriously reinforced, and (2) everyone realized that if there was a on-board threat, the only rational response would be "Let's roll". Some might also include TSA changes on that list. COVID-19 is different. We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. And that airplanes always were flying petri dishes and that that sometimes matters a lot. I'm older that most here, and it's somewhat difficult to imagine ever getting on a plane again. It's always been sort of marginal, and now it just looks like a loser. If we actually achieve confirmed herd immunity, perhaps I will feel different.
  - ryanwaggoner 6y ago
    We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. I think we're all learning right now that we don't need to do a lot of things, but we still want to. I can't imagine getting on a plane either, but only this year. I expect I'll be traveling in 2021 or 2022. I wouldn't even be opposed to going on a cruise again in the next few years. If there's not a global pandemic going on, cruise ships really aren't that big of a risk. I've been on 10-15 cruises and have never picked up anything. Norovirus is the typical risk, but you're probably at more risk of catching it on land than on a cruise ship. There's just not the same level of monitoring and reporting of norovirus at places like restaurants. Airplanes always were flying petri dishes, but so are any place where people gather. It's not just airplanes and cruise ships, it's restaurants and concerts and schools and churches and extended family get-togethers. There's just no evidence that the pandemic will affect those things in the long run. Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have.
    - downerending 6y ago

by ISL 6y ago

walterbell 6y ago

> I sat there and silently asked a number of them what they'd tell us, if they could. Don't dig up my body and recreate the 1918 virus? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/523163.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/523163.stm > Because the corpses were buried in the "permafrost" - ground that is frozen even at the height of the Arctic summer - tissue samples from the brain, kidney, lungs and spleen were well preserved.

_drimzy 6y ago
Viruses can survive in the "permafrost", because they are frozen. Pretty sure no virus can survive for a 100 years buried in ground at normal temperatures!
- newsbinator 6y ago
  > Pretty sure no virus can survive for a 100 years buried in ground at normal temperatures! I want to agree with you, although usually when we say things like that about viruses a few years later we find a class that can.

vikramkr 6y ago

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattles-quick-thinking-1918-flu-pandemic-now-credited-with-saving-lives/FS6JJQBVVBBINLQQRYR5WAD6FU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattles-quick-thinking-191... We can turn to history to get a sense of what they might have told us. Seattle acted quickly and swiftly, and the damage was mitigated. Compare that to Philadelphia, where it wasnt. And ultimately, research into influenza led to confirming the causative agent and developing the first effective influenza vaccines. We learned, we adapted, and we fought back. Don't know how long it will take, but it's good to remember that for the past few dozen millenia, the lack of fear of pandemics was not normal. The normal we are trying to return to is a new normal created by our species unwillingness to let infectious disease have the last word.

justinator 6y ago

> After noting, to my surprise, that there wasn't an obvious peak in the deaths in 1918 Well, you've seen photos of mass graves circa this year, right?

ISL 6y ago
True.
sp332 6y ago
More detail https://gothamist.com/news/mass-burials-hart-island-increase-fivefold-covid-19-death-toll-skyrockets https://gothamist.com/news/mass-burials-hart-island-increase...
- catalogia 6y ago
  To be clear, regular mass burials on Hart Island is normalcy. The increased rate of mass burials is the notable part.

newacct583 6y ago

Can I just say how refreshing it is to see this perspective on HN instead of the "denialist/open-up" faction warring with the "no really this is serious" folks? Indeed, this will pass. It's bad, we have a lot of work to do before it does. There's more suffering to come. But it's not the end of anything.

ianlevesque 6y ago
Might be the end of you though.
- walterbell 6y ago
  High-risk groups can take extra actions for defense, early detection & early treatment.
  - kazagistar 6y ago
    If they have that luxury based on class. Otherwise they are hosed.
    - walterbell 6y ago
      One of the most effective defenses is Vitamin D, which is free if you go outside on a sunny day. Bonus fresh air. Dark-skinned people may benefit from (cheap) supplements, depending on location. A disproportionate number of US/UK severe cases are dark-skinned people. Have you seen research into the cause? Sadly, Vitamin D does not have a pharma marketing budget to convince people that they would be hosed without expensive, emerging, and relatively unproven designer drugs OR addressing Vitamin D deficiency in northern climates. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23119949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23119949
      - nradov 6y ago
        There does appear to be a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 risk. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3585561 https://ssrn.com/abstract=3585561

faizmokhtar 6y ago

Personally, I think it will have permanent effects on airport operations. Some of the steps like social distancing, wearing masks, temperature checks, sanitizers, etc will remain even after the vaccine is found.

caseysoftware 6y ago
And scary side thing to consider.. how many corona-virus vaccines have been developed and deployed to date? Even after SARS (another corona virus), there were a bunch of candidates and some preliminary successes but none actually made it to market because interest (aka funding) subsided. The same over and over again. As of Jan 1, there were zero. People predicting "we'll have one in a year!" is based on hope and other models, not corona-oriented vaccines. :(
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  There are over 100 vaccines in development, several have completed phase 1 trials, and one is actually in production already so it will be available when it completes phase 3. We didn't need vaccines for SARS or MERS because they were both gone pretty quickly and the number of affected individuals was never high enough to warrant completing the expensive testing required to get approval for a vaccine.
  - caseysoftware 6y ago
    Yes, exactly. I hope a) those vaccines yield useful results b) quickly enough before people lose interest and funding.
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      They don't lose interest like it's some unstoppable force of nature on a timer. They lose interest if the harm caused by the disease is either low or contained. As long as the world continues to experience significant death, impact on the health care system, and economic damage... there will be interest in a vaccine.

coliveira 6y ago

There will be some sense of normalcy, but not the old normal. For example, even an event like 9/11, which is small in the scale of a pandemic, had deep consequences for travel and related industries. There will be traveling after the current pandemic, but it will be much different from what we're used to.

brenden2 6y ago

This is just fear mongering. Life will return to normal. Lots of people swore they'd never fly after 9/11 and yet things did recover.

downerending 6y ago
Maybe. Two very reassuring things happened right after 9/11, though: (1) cockpit doors were seriously reinforced, and (2) everyone realized that if there was a on-board threat, the only rational response would be "Let's roll". Some might also include TSA changes on that list. COVID-19 is different. We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. And that airplanes always were flying petri dishes and that that sometimes matters a lot. I'm older that most here, and it's somewhat difficult to imagine ever getting on a plane again. It's always been sort of marginal, and now it just looks like a loser. If we actually achieve confirmed herd immunity, perhaps I will feel different.
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. I think we're all learning right now that we don't need to do a lot of things, but we still want to. I can't imagine getting on a plane either, but only this year. I expect I'll be traveling in 2021 or 2022. I wouldn't even be opposed to going on a cruise again in the next few years. If there's not a global pandemic going on, cruise ships really aren't that big of a risk. I've been on 10-15 cruises and have never picked up anything. Norovirus is the typical risk, but you're probably at more risk of catching it on land than on a cruise ship. There's just not the same level of monitoring and reporting of norovirus at places like restaurants. Airplanes always were flying petri dishes, but so are any place where people gather. It's not just airplanes and cruise ships, it's restaurants and concerts and schools and churches and extended family get-togethers. There's just no evidence that the pandemic will affect those things in the long run. Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have.
  - downerending 6y ago