3 ms·

I remember thinking when coronavirus was a new thing that it was an almost perfect mix of harmless and deadly, harmless enough that most people would carry it a

I remember thinking when coronavirus was a new thing that it was an almost perfect mix of harmless and deadly, harmless enough that most people would carry it asymptomatically, deadly enough that it would reliably kill the vulnerable. I figured that something like bubonic plague, which is absolutely lethal in comparison, wouldn't get very far against modern surveillance tactics and medical practices. Since then, my estimations of our ability to deal with pandemics has taken a few hard knocks. It seems to me that even a comparatively nasty disease, with correspondingly obvious symptoms would probably be able to reach pandemic status, just because so many countries are a chaotic mess. Obviously, even with a South Korea level competent response, I guess it's possible to have a disease that stays asymptomatic but remains contagious, then kills a large number of carriers after some length of time. Doesn't seem likely though - contagion more or less involves some kind of symptom (sneezing, coughing, etc) and it's hard to imagine a body developing a really high viral load or bacterial population without becoming feverish.

staplers 6y ago
something like bubonic plague, which is absolutely lethal in comparison, wouldn't get very far against modern surveillance tactics and medical practices. This is probably true given the drastic measures used for ebola, MERS outbreaks. If the mortality rate of covid was 50% you wouldn't hear people bitching about masks, hoaxes, fake science, etc.
wahern 6y ago
> Doesn't seem likely though - contagion more or less involves some kind of symptom (sneezing, coughing, etc) and it's hard to imagine a body developing a really high viral load or bacterial population without becoming feverish. AFAIU, the profile depends on the class of virus, though obviously not all hosts behave similarly. Evolutionary strategies differ. From the MIT COVID-19 page (https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/COVID-19 https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/COVID-19): > evidence indicates that people who are infected with 2019-nCoV may be at their most contagious in the 48–72 hours before symptoms are noticeable. In addition, it is now estimated that up to 25 percent of infected individuals remain asymptomatic and may unwittingly infect others. Knowing what we know now about significant aerosol transmission from merely speaking, it should be obvious now that coughing or sneezing isn't a prerequisite for highly contagious respiratory viruses. It should have been obvious before as we already knew that viral host reservoirs often remain asymptomatic. Bats, for example, are common reservoirs for respiratory viruses because a) they roost in dense groups, b) have strong selective pressure for consistently high function (flight is exhausting), and c) they've evolved immune systems that can handle a high viral load (a consequence of (a) and (b)), so don't often exhibit symptoms. I would presume many bird species make good reservoirs for similar reasons, though birds aren't mammals, which might complicate jumping to humans. IIRC, a friend of mine, who had been researching rhinoviruses for several years at the time, explained to me that the coughing and sneezing fits from some types of cold viruses are caused by viral fragments rather than primary infection, in such cases symptoms peak at the tail-end of infection as fragments build up, and the fits might even be incidental/accidental from an evolutionary perspective. Some human cold viruses are specialized to infect children, who usually exhibit no symptoms or, at worst, a runny nose (again, latter might be incidental). Asymptomatic respiratory infections run rampant among children.
- pasabagi 6y ago
  That's pretty scary. An interesting thought experiment: given a disease that was asymptomatic but after some time, deadly, do you think it would be possible to contain given current technology/social situation? An interesting aside: I just looked it up, and it turns out that quarantine predated the germ theory of disease by many centuries. It's interesting that people can come up with effective strategies for defence against something that they both have no treatment for, and no real understanding of.
makomk 6y ago
Your initial estimation was probably right - the press just likes to emphasise the negative. We've already had more deadly and more obvious versions of Covid-19 in the form of SARS and MERS, and for the most part western countries just quietly stopped them using testing and contact tracing without most people even noticing. If Covid-19 was similar, there's every reason to believe that it would've ended the same way since pretty much everywhere put those same measures into place early on. You just didn't hear about it much because early on it wasn't of interest to the press, and later it made for an easier narrative to claim that countries inexplicably did nothing.

staplers 6y ago

something like bubonic plague, which is absolutely lethal in comparison, wouldn't get very far against modern surveillance tactics and medical practices. This is probably true given the drastic measures used for ebola, MERS outbreaks. If the mortality rate of covid was 50% you wouldn't hear people bitching about masks, hoaxes, fake science, etc.

wahern 6y ago

> Doesn't seem likely though - contagion more or less involves some kind of symptom (sneezing, coughing, etc) and it's hard to imagine a body developing a really high viral load or bacterial population without becoming feverish. AFAIU, the profile depends on the class of virus, though obviously not all hosts behave similarly. Evolutionary strategies differ. From the MIT COVID-19 page (https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/COVID-19 https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/COVID-19): > evidence indicates that people who are infected with 2019-nCoV may be at their most contagious in the 48–72 hours before symptoms are noticeable. In addition, it is now estimated that up to 25 percent of infected individuals remain asymptomatic and may unwittingly infect others. Knowing what we know now about significant aerosol transmission from merely speaking, it should be obvious now that coughing or sneezing isn't a prerequisite for highly contagious respiratory viruses. It should have been obvious before as we already knew that viral host reservoirs often remain asymptomatic. Bats, for example, are common reservoirs for respiratory viruses because a) they roost in dense groups, b) have strong selective pressure for consistently high function (flight is exhausting), and c) they've evolved immune systems that can handle a high viral load (a consequence of (a) and (b)), so don't often exhibit symptoms. I would presume many bird species make good reservoirs for similar reasons, though birds aren't mammals, which might complicate jumping to humans. IIRC, a friend of mine, who had been researching rhinoviruses for several years at the time, explained to me that the coughing and sneezing fits from some types of cold viruses are caused by viral fragments rather than primary infection, in such cases symptoms peak at the tail-end of infection as fragments build up, and the fits might even be incidental/accidental from an evolutionary perspective. Some human cold viruses are specialized to infect children, who usually exhibit no symptoms or, at worst, a runny nose (again, latter might be incidental). Asymptomatic respiratory infections run rampant among children.

pasabagi 6y ago
That's pretty scary. An interesting thought experiment: given a disease that was asymptomatic but after some time, deadly, do you think it would be possible to contain given current technology/social situation? An interesting aside: I just looked it up, and it turns out that quarantine predated the germ theory of disease by many centuries. It's interesting that people can come up with effective strategies for defence against something that they both have no treatment for, and no real understanding of.

makomk 6y ago

Your initial estimation was probably right - the press just likes to emphasise the negative. We've already had more deadly and more obvious versions of Covid-19 in the form of SARS and MERS, and for the most part western countries just quietly stopped them using testing and contact tracing without most people even noticing. If Covid-19 was similar, there's every reason to believe that it would've ended the same way since pretty much everywhere put those same measures into place early on. You just didn't hear about it much because early on it wasn't of interest to the press, and later it made for an easier narrative to claim that countries inexplicably did nothing.