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If we fail to totally eradicate these strains of coronavirus from earth, like we have never ever in history managed, is lockdown forever right - the end of free

If we fail to totally eradicate these strains of coronavirus from earth, like we have never ever in history managed, is lockdown forever right - the end of free life? Or was it just something required in 2020 for some reason?

iso1631 6y ago
Lockdown is required when there is a risk of more paitents from an infectious disease than there are beds. Lockdown isn't the purpose, the purpose is to stop the number of new paitents requiring hospital from outnumbering the number of paitents leaving hospital (either walking or in a bodybag) When was the last last time we had a disease that spread this quickly and caused this many hospitalisations, on a global scale?
chasd00 6y ago
even CA is lifting their stay at home order. I think the political costs of these hobby authoritarian regimes are finally getting too expensive.
- jeofken 6y ago
  The lockdowns are created by states and are political. If their goal has been archived, they can be lifted.
  - bufferout 6y ago
    If you ignore places like Australia that locked down hard and early. Melbourne experienced a near total 3 month lockdown for example. The result? Pretty much zero local cases now and life back to normal, sans international travel.
jerf 6y ago
Coronavirus will naturally evolve into the attraction basin for viruses of its type, which is the common cold: https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article248455480.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article248455480.htm... It's already well on its way, from what I can gather. One frustrating aspect of the reporting for me is people talking about "more infectious" variants without describing whether or not they are more or less dangerous. In general, the virus putting more work into being infectious is good news; it generally comes at the cost of being less dangerous in other ways as it hyper-optimizes into replication rather than anything else. We should expect and want to hear about "more infectious" variants, which double as natural vaccines to some extent against other less infectious, more dangerous strains still using the same external protiens.
- watt 6y ago
  There is some talk that it also _is_ deadly. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/new-uk-covid-variant-may-be-more-deadly-says-boris-johnson https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/new-uk-covid-v...
  - jerf 6y ago
    It may be, but that article is also hedging quite a bit. People have a hard time with this intuitively, because we probably live under the weakest selection pressure in the history of planet Earth, but it's vicious down there. Viruses are to a large extent playing a zero-sum game. If they get better at one thing, it almost has to come at the cost of something else, because they've already got all the knobs cranked up as high as they will go just to survive and they don't have a spare energy budget just lying around to put into other things without taking away from something else. It's not impossible that some mutation was made that made it more infectious and more deadly... but it's a long enough shot that I'd consider the likelihood of incomplete early information and incentives that some parties have to amp up the danger in the presence of such uncertainty higher. Viruses do not routinely become more infectious and more deadly. If they did, we'd all be long dead. The evolution gradient tilts strongly away from that.
    - thehappypm 6y ago
      Very true, especially when you consider that a more deadly variant is highly likely to be associated with things like higher viral load, worse symptoms, and faster symptom onset. A virus that kills twice as many people will likely be harmful for twice as many people -- giving the virus fewer asymptomatic hosts that go around spreading without even knowing it. It's more likely to go the other way; some derpy mutation that reduces viral load, slows incubation, reduces symptoms, makes more super-spreaders.
    - sjg007 6y ago
      The virus exists in multiple species. It may be perfectly fine in bats and reproduce without killing the bat. In humans, however, it kills.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> like we have never ever in history managed Smallpox would like a word. Polio, too, for the most part.
- paganel 6y ago
  Those two took decades to eradicate, we won't be able to keep the Earth's population on lockdown/no-lockdown cycles for that long.
  - organsnyder 6y ago
    We didn't keep the Earth's population on lockdown for the centuries/millenia before those diseases were brought under control.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    That’s a goalpost move, and a matter of logistics, not outright impossibility.
- mlindner 6y ago
  SARS and MERS as well, which is notably more relevant. These don't exist anymore.
  - nradov 6y ago
    MERS hasn't been eradicated. There are animal hosts, mainly camels, and people occasionally still get infected.
- lostapathy 6y ago
  COVID is different in that it appears to have numerous animals it can live in. It's one thing to lock down people, but another entirely to lockdown animals.
- jeofken 6y ago
  Sorry if I could have worded it more clearly - I meant that we have never successfully eradicated a member of the coronavirus family. If we have, I appreciate a correction, preferably with a source. Reread my comment and I think this will be clear
maxerickson 6y ago
A big change is that there is vaccine production capacity now, and the new vaccines can go through an approval process like is used for annual flu shots, meaning a new vaccine can start mass production in a few months vs the (very quick) year that it took this time. A year ago there wasn't much more than experimental capacity to make mRNA vaccines. Now we are at tens of millions of doses a month and scaling up.
- mlindner 6y ago
  Actually much faster than months. MRNA-based vaccines can be brewed up in days to weeks.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The approval of the update adds some time. I guess you can be manufacturing at the start of that.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      Updates are likely to be fairly streamlined, though; we already do this for the annual flu shot.

iso1631 6y ago

Lockdown is required when there is a risk of more paitents from an infectious disease than there are beds. Lockdown isn't the purpose, the purpose is to stop the number of new paitents requiring hospital from outnumbering the number of paitents leaving hospital (either walking or in a bodybag) When was the last last time we had a disease that spread this quickly and caused this many hospitalisations, on a global scale?

chasd00 6y ago

even CA is lifting their stay at home order. I think the political costs of these hobby authoritarian regimes are finally getting too expensive.

jeofken 6y ago
The lockdowns are created by states and are political. If their goal has been archived, they can be lifted.
- bufferout 6y ago
  If you ignore places like Australia that locked down hard and early. Melbourne experienced a near total 3 month lockdown for example. The result? Pretty much zero local cases now and life back to normal, sans international travel.

jerf 6y ago

Coronavirus will naturally evolve into the attraction basin for viruses of its type, which is the common cold: https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article248455480.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article248455480.htm... It's already well on its way, from what I can gather. One frustrating aspect of the reporting for me is people talking about "more infectious" variants without describing whether or not they are more or less dangerous. In general, the virus putting more work into being infectious is good news; it generally comes at the cost of being less dangerous in other ways as it hyper-optimizes into replication rather than anything else. We should expect and want to hear about "more infectious" variants, which double as natural vaccines to some extent against other less infectious, more dangerous strains still using the same external protiens.

watt 6y ago
There is some talk that it also _is_ deadly. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/new-uk-covid-variant-may-be-more-deadly-says-boris-johnson https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/new-uk-covid-v...
- jerf 6y ago
  It may be, but that article is also hedging quite a bit. People have a hard time with this intuitively, because we probably live under the weakest selection pressure in the history of planet Earth, but it's vicious down there. Viruses are to a large extent playing a zero-sum game. If they get better at one thing, it almost has to come at the cost of something else, because they've already got all the knobs cranked up as high as they will go just to survive and they don't have a spare energy budget just lying around to put into other things without taking away from something else. It's not impossible that some mutation was made that made it more infectious and more deadly... but it's a long enough shot that I'd consider the likelihood of incomplete early information and incentives that some parties have to amp up the danger in the presence of such uncertainty higher. Viruses do not routinely become more infectious and more deadly. If they did, we'd all be long dead. The evolution gradient tilts strongly away from that.
  - thehappypm 6y ago
    Very true, especially when you consider that a more deadly variant is highly likely to be associated with things like higher viral load, worse symptoms, and faster symptom onset. A virus that kills twice as many people will likely be harmful for twice as many people -- giving the virus fewer asymptomatic hosts that go around spreading without even knowing it. It's more likely to go the other way; some derpy mutation that reduces viral load, slows incubation, reduces symptoms, makes more super-spreaders.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    The virus exists in multiple species. It may be perfectly fine in bats and reproduce without killing the bat. In humans, however, it kills.

ceejayoz 6y ago

> like we have never ever in history managed Smallpox would like a word. Polio, too, for the most part.

paganel 6y ago
Those two took decades to eradicate, we won't be able to keep the Earth's population on lockdown/no-lockdown cycles for that long.
- organsnyder 6y ago
  We didn't keep the Earth's population on lockdown for the centuries/millenia before those diseases were brought under control.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  That’s a goalpost move, and a matter of logistics, not outright impossibility.
mlindner 6y ago
SARS and MERS as well, which is notably more relevant. These don't exist anymore.
- nradov 6y ago
  MERS hasn't been eradicated. There are animal hosts, mainly camels, and people occasionally still get infected.
lostapathy 6y ago
COVID is different in that it appears to have numerous animals it can live in. It's one thing to lock down people, but another entirely to lockdown animals.
jeofken 6y ago
Sorry if I could have worded it more clearly - I meant that we have never successfully eradicated a member of the coronavirus family. If we have, I appreciate a correction, preferably with a source. Reread my comment and I think this will be clear

maxerickson 6y ago

A big change is that there is vaccine production capacity now, and the new vaccines can go through an approval process like is used for annual flu shots, meaning a new vaccine can start mass production in a few months vs the (very quick) year that it took this time. A year ago there wasn't much more than experimental capacity to make mRNA vaccines. Now we are at tens of millions of doses a month and scaling up.

mlindner 6y ago
Actually much faster than months. MRNA-based vaccines can be brewed up in days to weeks.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The approval of the update adds some time. I guess you can be manufacturing at the start of that.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Updates are likely to be fairly streamlined, though; we already do this for the annual flu shot.