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At this point, I think learning how to manage a pandemic without destroying the economy is the only question we should care about. Pandemics will keep showing

At this point, I think learning how to manage a pandemic without destroying the economy is the only question we should care about. Pandemics will keep showing up regardless of if they're engineered or natural. It may be a 100% antibiotic-resistant bacteria next time, or some weird prion thing no-one thought about before, or the T-virus, or whatever's floating in the atmosphere of Venus. Who knows. If we learn to correct what we're doing right now, then even if this happens again from a completely novel threat vector we didn't anticipate, we can handle it quickly and effectively.

tfigment 6y ago
I sort of agree. You right that is pragmatic but we do still need to manage it to minimize its effects. Economic leaders can focus on managing the economy and science and medical communities can focus on the outbreak and hopefully the politicians stay in their corner and not overrule everything trying to get reelected.
zdragnar 6y ago
I am not entirely sure that we would learn those lessons from dealing with covid-19. Much of the policy around it has been with the assumption that a vaccine could be produced in a somewhat reasonable time line, and we just need to hold out a bit longer. The genome was sequenced increadibly quickly, and much of the vaccine work is based on all of the research that went into dealing with SARS 20 or so years ago. A pandemic caused by something completely novel- whether a contageous and infectious prion disease (does that even make sense?) Or T-virus or venus flu- means that there will be far greater uncertainty than what we have been dealing with. A vaccine wouldn't even make sense in the case of a pandemic prion disease. I think that Sweden had the right of things, but as others have pointed out before (and likely will again) it is still too early to tell. Not only that, but complicating matters is that every country captures statistics differently- especially the US and UK versus Europe. Numbers get bandied about quite a bit, and I suspect it will be many years before cool heads can evaluate all of the confounding factors into what actually helped and what we should do in the future.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  What will be interesting is if we aren't able to develop a safe and efficacious (enough) vaccine. We might need to find ways to make social-distancing the status-quo for multiple years. Edit: Hang on, why couldn't you make a vaccine against a prion? I can't see why it's not possible theoretically.
  - guitarbill 6y ago
    presumably since the protein is usually present, and the prion is just has a misfolded shape, it would be very tough to get the immune system to attack just the prions... however, there's at least one paper that has researched a vaccine in mice against a scrapie prion infection. are there even treatments for any prion diseases? for BSE/mad cow disease, they killed millions of cows. to this day, if you're from/were in the UK during the outbreak, you can't give blood in quite a few countries. and - surprise! - apparently prions could be spread via the air [0]. but it isn't clear how this could occur naturally, so at least that's good news. [0] https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/ https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      That's a cool question about treatments. I guess there's no FDA-approved therapy for mad cow, but I did find this cool animal model using 'anti-prions.' "Here, we report a novel experimental strategy for preventing prion disease based on producing a self-replicating, but innocuous PrPSc-like form, termed anti-prion, which can compete with the replication of pathogenic prions." "...a prophylactic inoculation of prion-infected animals with an anti-prion delays the onset of the disease and in some animals completely prevents the development of clinical symptoms and brain damage." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ So that's more good news. Edit: Hold on, that's the paper you were talking about, right? I didn't make the connection until just now.
- NumberCruncher 6y ago
  > I am not entirely sure that we would learn those lessons from dealing with covid-19. Just as much as we learned those lessons from dealing with the spanish flu. As one of my friends said, people doesn't learn, unless one of their relatives or close friends die. Until then they complain about having to wear a mask or missing out the prom ball.
cipher_system 6y ago
Sure but we also need to figure out how to reduce the risk of pandemics occurring at all. There will be different measures required for natural and engineered pandemics. There are enough people on this earth to be able to focus on more than one question.
throwaway189262 6y ago
One result of the research bonanza is discovering just how effective masks are. Research is pouring out showing that N95 mask effectiveness exceeds all expectations. It used to be assumed that N95, especially unfitted, had an effectiveness between 0-50%. And that surfaces play a large role in transmissions. It's increasingly obvious that neither are true. Hell, the CDC came out and said the epidemic might be over after 4-6 weeks of universal mask usage. And that masks may be more effective than the vaccine. Thats hyuge, and shows just how idiotic certain people in the US government were with initial guidance on masks.
- tharne 6y ago
  Why on earth are people downvoting this? The fact that universal use of even basic cloth masks dramatically reduces the spread of COVID is nothing short of a miracle.
  - throwaway189262 6y ago
    Probably brigaded by bots of some kind
  - parliament32 6y ago
    WHO disagrees with you: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/question-and-answers-hub/q-a-detail/q-a-on-covid-19-and-masks https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... >Non-medical, fabric masks are being used by many people in public areas, but there has been limited evidence on their effectiveness and WHO does not recommend their widespread use among the public for control of COVID-19. Further reading: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of... >Many countries have recommended the use of fabric masks/face coverings for the general public. At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider >Results from cluster randomized controlled trials on the use of masks among young adults living in university residences in the United States of America indicate that face masks may reduce the rate of influenza-like illness, but showed no impact on risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza.(62, 63) At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID- 19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. The whole PDF is worth a read, especially the "Guidance on the use of masks for the general public", and is the most recent guidance from WHO about mask use.

tfigment 6y ago

I sort of agree. You right that is pragmatic but we do still need to manage it to minimize its effects. Economic leaders can focus on managing the economy and science and medical communities can focus on the outbreak and hopefully the politicians stay in their corner and not overrule everything trying to get reelected.

zdragnar 6y ago

I am not entirely sure that we would learn those lessons from dealing with covid-19. Much of the policy around it has been with the assumption that a vaccine could be produced in a somewhat reasonable time line, and we just need to hold out a bit longer. The genome was sequenced increadibly quickly, and much of the vaccine work is based on all of the research that went into dealing with SARS 20 or so years ago. A pandemic caused by something completely novel- whether a contageous and infectious prion disease (does that even make sense?) Or T-virus or venus flu- means that there will be far greater uncertainty than what we have been dealing with. A vaccine wouldn't even make sense in the case of a pandemic prion disease. I think that Sweden had the right of things, but as others have pointed out before (and likely will again) it is still too early to tell. Not only that, but complicating matters is that every country captures statistics differently- especially the US and UK versus Europe. Numbers get bandied about quite a bit, and I suspect it will be many years before cool heads can evaluate all of the confounding factors into what actually helped and what we should do in the future.

phobosanomaly 6y ago
What will be interesting is if we aren't able to develop a safe and efficacious (enough) vaccine. We might need to find ways to make social-distancing the status-quo for multiple years. Edit: Hang on, why couldn't you make a vaccine against a prion? I can't see why it's not possible theoretically.
- guitarbill 6y ago
  presumably since the protein is usually present, and the prion is just has a misfolded shape, it would be very tough to get the immune system to attack just the prions... however, there's at least one paper that has researched a vaccine in mice against a scrapie prion infection. are there even treatments for any prion diseases? for BSE/mad cow disease, they killed millions of cows. to this day, if you're from/were in the UK during the outbreak, you can't give blood in quite a few countries. and - surprise! - apparently prions could be spread via the air [0]. but it isn't clear how this could occur naturally, so at least that's good news. [0] https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/ https://www.wired.com/2011/01/airborne-prions-disease/
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    That's a cool question about treatments. I guess there's no FDA-approved therapy for mad cow, but I did find this cool animal model using 'anti-prions.' "Here, we report a novel experimental strategy for preventing prion disease based on producing a self-replicating, but innocuous PrPSc-like form, termed anti-prion, which can compete with the replication of pathogenic prions." "...a prophylactic inoculation of prion-infected animals with an anti-prion delays the onset of the disease and in some animals completely prevents the development of clinical symptoms and brain damage." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738294/ So that's more good news. Edit: Hold on, that's the paper you were talking about, right? I didn't make the connection until just now.
NumberCruncher 6y ago
> I am not entirely sure that we would learn those lessons from dealing with covid-19. Just as much as we learned those lessons from dealing with the spanish flu. As one of my friends said, people doesn't learn, unless one of their relatives or close friends die. Until then they complain about having to wear a mask or missing out the prom ball.

cipher_system 6y ago

Sure but we also need to figure out how to reduce the risk of pandemics occurring at all. There will be different measures required for natural and engineered pandemics. There are enough people on this earth to be able to focus on more than one question.

throwaway189262 6y ago

One result of the research bonanza is discovering just how effective masks are. Research is pouring out showing that N95 mask effectiveness exceeds all expectations. It used to be assumed that N95, especially unfitted, had an effectiveness between 0-50%. And that surfaces play a large role in transmissions. It's increasingly obvious that neither are true. Hell, the CDC came out and said the epidemic might be over after 4-6 weeks of universal mask usage. And that masks may be more effective than the vaccine. Thats hyuge, and shows just how idiotic certain people in the US government were with initial guidance on masks.

tharne 6y ago
Why on earth are people downvoting this? The fact that universal use of even basic cloth masks dramatically reduces the spread of COVID is nothing short of a miracle.
- throwaway189262 6y ago
  Probably brigaded by bots of some kind
- parliament32 6y ago
  WHO disagrees with you: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/question-and-answers-hub/q-a-detail/q-a-on-covid-19-and-masks https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... >Non-medical, fabric masks are being used by many people in public areas, but there has been limited evidence on their effectiveness and WHO does not recommend their widespread use among the public for control of COVID-19. Further reading: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of... >Many countries have recommended the use of fabric masks/face coverings for the general public. At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider >Results from cluster randomized controlled trials on the use of masks among young adults living in university residences in the United States of America indicate that face masks may reduce the rate of influenza-like illness, but showed no impact on risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza.(62, 63) At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID- 19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. The whole PDF is worth a read, especially the "Guidance on the use of masks for the general public", and is the most recent guidance from WHO about mask use.