4 ms·

Well I will get the vaccine as soon as I can get it (which is not very soon, sadly). I'm not anti-vax, but the last few weeks the news has been all about "Don't

Well I will get the vaccine as soon as I can get it (which is not very soon, sadly). I'm not anti-vax, but the last few weeks the news has been all about "Don't be surprised if people still get COVID after being vaccinated". Like here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26522853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26522853 With that in mind I don't think eradication will be achievable. It only takes one person with a resistant mutation. I think we can hope to bring it under control. But not eradicate it.

maxerickson 6y ago
What does 'control' mean? In humans, if a small number of people are sick and you know who they are, you can eradicate the infection with isolation (it would only take a couple months). That it infects various animals may make that unworkable, and the difficulty in vaccinating a large percentage of people globally is another problem. But the effectiveness of the vaccines against the current variants does not appear to be a problem, high levels of vaccination will slow the spread of the virus dramatically in those populations, to the point where it barely exists (compare to polio, which is still endemic in some places around the world).
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  As far as zoonosis (animal-transmitted human diseases) go... Rabies infects a lot of animals, but many places of the world are now effectively rabies-free thanks to smart inoculation of foxes etc. with baits. We had last proven rabies case in the wild in 2002. (The Czech Republic, a landlocked continental country, not an isolated island.) You can still fall to rabies contracted from bats if extremely unlucky, but compared to countries like India where the disease still runs rampant, rabies is a solved problem in most of Europe. Maybe there will be a similar way to inoculate the wild mustelids against Covid one day. To be honest, human antivaxxers strike me as a bigger problem than random mink. I don't meet many mink on a regular day, but people with their masks halfway down are all too common.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Yeah, I would describe myself as optimistic that we can achieve a good outcome and concerned that we'll collectively make choices that delay it. Convincing other people to stay optimistic can be part of improving the choices we make.

maxerickson 6y ago

What does 'control' mean? In humans, if a small number of people are sick and you know who they are, you can eradicate the infection with isolation (it would only take a couple months). That it infects various animals may make that unworkable, and the difficulty in vaccinating a large percentage of people globally is another problem. But the effectiveness of the vaccines against the current variants does not appear to be a problem, high levels of vaccination will slow the spread of the virus dramatically in those populations, to the point where it barely exists (compare to polio, which is still endemic in some places around the world).

inglor_cz 6y ago
As far as zoonosis (animal-transmitted human diseases) go... Rabies infects a lot of animals, but many places of the world are now effectively rabies-free thanks to smart inoculation of foxes etc. with baits. We had last proven rabies case in the wild in 2002. (The Czech Republic, a landlocked continental country, not an isolated island.) You can still fall to rabies contracted from bats if extremely unlucky, but compared to countries like India where the disease still runs rampant, rabies is a solved problem in most of Europe. Maybe there will be a similar way to inoculate the wild mustelids against Covid one day. To be honest, human antivaxxers strike me as a bigger problem than random mink. I don't meet many mink on a regular day, but people with their masks halfway down are all too common.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Yeah, I would describe myself as optimistic that we can achieve a good outcome and concerned that we'll collectively make choices that delay it. Convincing other people to stay optimistic can be part of improving the choices we make.