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I'm not seeing any evidence that eradication of a virus like this would have been at all likely, even with extreme measures.

by jsight 6y ago

tialaramex 6y ago
If the virus has a viable non-human reservoir then eradication becomes very difficult and in some cases impossible. We likely cannot get rid of Influenza because viruses from that family thrive in a huge number of other mammals. So you'd be chasing it down in pigs, and in chickens, and it becomes an insurmountable challenge. But although this virus presumably originated in another mammal species (it is assumed to have once been a bat virus) it's not clear to me whether there's a real reservoir in other species today, the vast bulk of the world's infected seem to be humans. In a virus that lacks a viable animal reservoir you can achieve eradication by "just" eliminating the virus in humans in each place and ensuring infected humans don't spread it into places where it was eliminated, a strategy that costs money but is final. That's where the previous SARS virus went - we eliminated it and it didn't come back, and of course it's why Smallpox is gone. And eliminating SARS-CoV-2 is possible, because New Zealand did it. They had outbreaks in elderly care a year ago, and they locked down, tracked down every case, isolated every infected person, and eliminated the virus. All subsequent outbreaks have been connected to their border, if everybody had done likewise the virus would be gone. Of course that wasn't entirely realistic (other large islands like Great Britain could definitely have at least attempted this but they did not, but it's difficult to imagine North America or Russia achieving elimination without a vaccine) but with better tools now I think it could be attempted if the political existed, which I argue it does not. The trickiest part about this virus for elimination from 2022 onward is maybe it's viable as a virus that doesn't cause much disease, especially in a vaccinated population. If it's infecting otherwise healthy adults and just causing sniffles for a week, once the pandemic headlines stop nobody will isolate and prevent onward spread. In much of the world (including the US) they'll even keep going to work and give it to colleagues as well as those they live with. Lots of coronaviruses thrive this way in humans.

I'm not seeing any evidence that eradication of a virus like this would have been at all likely, even with extreme measures.

by jsight 6y ago

I'm not seeing any evidence that eradication of a virus like this would have been at all likely, even with extreme measures.

tialaramex 6y ago

If the virus has a viable non-human reservoir then eradication becomes very difficult and in some cases impossible. We likely cannot get rid of Influenza because viruses from that family thrive in a huge number of other mammals. So you'd be chasing it down in pigs, and in chickens, and it becomes an insurmountable challenge. But although this virus presumably originated in another mammal species (it is assumed to have once been a bat virus) it's not clear to me whether there's a real reservoir in other species today, the vast bulk of the world's infected seem to be humans. In a virus that lacks a viable animal reservoir you can achieve eradication by "just" eliminating the virus in humans in each place and ensuring infected humans don't spread it into places where it was eliminated, a strategy that costs money but is final. That's where the previous SARS virus went - we eliminated it and it didn't come back, and of course it's why Smallpox is gone. And eliminating SARS-CoV-2 is possible, because New Zealand did it. They had outbreaks in elderly care a year ago, and they locked down, tracked down every case, isolated every infected person, and eliminated the virus. All subsequent outbreaks have been connected to their border, if everybody had done likewise the virus would be gone. Of course that wasn't entirely realistic (other large islands like Great Britain could definitely have at least attempted this but they did not, but it's difficult to imagine North America or Russia achieving elimination without a vaccine) but with better tools now I think it could be attempted if the political existed, which I argue it does not. The trickiest part about this virus for elimination from 2022 onward is maybe it's viable as a virus that doesn't cause much disease, especially in a vaccinated population. If it's infecting otherwise healthy adults and just causing sniffles for a week, once the pandemic headlines stop nobody will isolate and prevent onward spread. In much of the world (including the US) they'll even keep going to work and give it to colleagues as well as those they live with. Lots of coronaviruses thrive this way in humans.