4 ms·
Only? 30% change is huge for potential pandemic. The lesson seems to be that moderate mortality rate pathogens can fly under the radar long time. > By charac
by nabla9 6y ago
Only? 30% change is huge for potential pandemic.
The lesson seems to be that moderate mortality rate pathogens can fly under the radar long time.
> By characterizing the likely dynamics of the virus before it was discovered, we show that over two-thirds of SARS-CoV-2-like zoonotic events would be self-limited, dying out without igniting a pandemic. Our findings highlight the shortcomings of zoonosis surveillance approaches for detecting highly contagious pathogens with moderate mortality rates. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/17/science.abf8003 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/03/17/scie...
- anaerobicover 6y agoWell, that's fair; for a catastrophic outcome 1 in 3 are not odds you'd want to take. I thought "only" because I have a sense, based on conversations with other people, that the perception is that this particular virus was inevitably going to lead to a pandemic once it evolved. Instead, as you say, this opportunity probably arises all the time, and the dice were against us on this one. Which seems like a useful bit of perspective.
- mapt 6y agoFor the generic category, "Bat-human coronavirus zoonosis", people living around the bats in question appear to be infected pretty regularly. Probably happens often enough that "two thirds of zoonotic viruses in this category self-limit" is a massive, massive underestimate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6178078/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6178078/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590053619300308 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259005361... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600275/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600275/