5 ms·

Maybe we were too callous just allowing the ordinary flu to run rampant, and we should consider in future doing things like masking up when a flu season is expe

Maybe we were too callous just allowing the ordinary flu to run rampant, and we should consider in future doing things like masking up when a flu season is expected, so as to stop the disease from killing thousands of old people. And also possibly consider going for full eradication rather than harm reduction. Can flu jabs be made more effective, and multi-strain, using mRNA vaccine technology? That's a genuinely new tool in the toolbox.

taeric 5y ago
My money is on schools being a more active vector than makes sense. And I don't see us closing them like we did on a regular basis.
- graeme 5y ago
  It would be sensible to improve school air quality: increase ventilation, install air purifiers, etc That would reduce the spread of infectious diseases even with schools open as normal.
  - taeric 5y ago
    I mean. Yes. But kids also touch things far more than adults. Combined with less developed immune systems, I suspect there is a floor to how well you can reduce transmission. More, it is almost certainly related to this densely populated the school is. Which, not surprisingly, will hit poor schools harder. Edit: furthering this idea, buses are not likely to keep the same protocols they have now.
    - graeme 5y ago
      For sure. But even, say, a 20% reduction would be super valuable for society as a whole. There should be cognition benefits to improving indoor air quality in schools too.
      - taeric 5y ago
        Agreed. I just wouldn't expect it to hit zero.
tomComb 5y ago
I think some minor measures - mainly just being more considerate when you think you might have the flu - could make a big difference. Before this year people would still go to work when sick, parents would still let their kids blow out the candles on a cake, everyone at the big event would kiss the same cheeks, etc.
trutannus 5y ago
Given the rather low mortality rate for the flu, I think implementing more regulations in our lives isn't a good idea. Bureaucratic creep is a serious issue, and this sort of thing could be a gateway to regulating more aspects of life down the road. Educating people and encouraging them to wear masks 100%, but let's not start mandating anything new, or levying new fines that we have already seen be disproportionately used against over policed groups. Studies show that education and awareness works just as well as state intervention.
- Splendor 5y ago
  The comment you're replying to never mentioned regulations or any governmental intervention.
  - NoSorryCannot 5y ago
    Ah, so, eliminating the flu with internet memes and a McDonald's ad campaign or whatever? There's no scenario where eradication is realistic without involving government.
    - Splendor 5y ago
      I never suggested there was. I understand this is an emotional topic but each reply in this thread seems to be assuming something about the person they're replying to and arguing against something that person never said.
  - JoshuaDavid 5y ago
    Out of curiosity, how do you envision going for full eradication without governmental intervention?
educaysean 5y ago
Masks during flu seasons is already the norm in various Asian countries: Korea, Japan, China, etc. I think their previous experiences dealing with SARS and MERS have taught a valuable lesson for the masses.
csomar 5y ago
> we should consider in future doing things like masking up when a flu season is expected, so as to stop the disease from killing thousands of old people Some societies in Asia have been doing that for quite sometime.
valarauko 5y ago
> Can flu jabs be made more effective, and multi-strain, using mRNA vaccine technology? That's a genuinely new tool in the toolbox. In theory, yes; in practice, I don't see this happening for some time (outside of a possible combined SARS-CoV-2 booster + flu combo). The mRNA vaccines are expensive to produce, and it's hard to justify a cost multiplier that's a magnitude higher & harder to produce. Flu vaccines are already multi-strain, and the current techniques already attempt to generate the recombinant strains that might be generated in the wild. Flu mutates faster than the current egg based vaccine production pipeline can handle, and the mRNA vaccine pipeline is orders of magnitude smaller in scale. This will change, of course.
- JulianMorrison 5y ago
  If I understand it right, mRNA isn't so much exactly hard, as bespoke. It's a new technology and not many places are fitted out to make it. It can eventually be expected to become much cheaper. And mRNA can keep up with flu. It can also target things in a more deliberate way, if I understand it. So a protein could be selected that is common to many variants and hard for the virus to do without.
anoncake 5y ago
During the last year, we have done more than enough to protect old people for the time being.
- FearlessNebula 5y ago
  The people who watched grandma die in the hospital through an iPad would beg to differ.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    I don't think so. Not only was grandma not protected after all (if it even was Covid that she died of), she wasn't even allowed to have her family with her. And really: Emotional arguments like that help no one. Yes, people suffer badly because of Covid. They also suffer badly because of lockdowns. At that level of detail, there's no difference. What we need are numbers, something we can meaningfully compare. Like, how many years of life did we actually safe? How many did we destroy by not allowing people to actually live their lives? What's the impact on children's development, everyone's mental health, etc.? But apparently we have collectively decided not to weigh the effects of our decisions and protect the elderly at any cost. Unless, of course, it would inconvenience them. You can't ask them to protect themselves, that would be discrimination.[1][2][3] Churches must be kept open, or grandma will be lonely. Hairdressers are very important for old people, so they're open.[4] Note that universities have been shut down for more than a year and schools have only partially reopened recently, as they're only important to irrelevant young people. And those are just the most obvious examples but. Maybe my attitude would be different if I wasn't governed by openly antisocial elderly people. [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tagesspiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fexit-strategien-fuer-das-coronavirus-warum-wir-risikogruppen-nicht-isolieren-duerfen%2F25713846.html https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https... [2] https://www.zeit.de/2020/17/corona-pandemie-risikogruppe-alter-vorerkrankungen-isolation-ansteckung/seite-3 https://www.zeit.de/2020/17/corona-pandemie-risikogruppe-alt... [3] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.is%2FJKbEp http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=... [4] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww1.wdr.de%2Fnachrichten%2Fthemen%2Fcoronavirus%2Fcorona-lockdown-friseure-ausnahme-wuerde-100.html http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=...
notriddle 5y ago
> And also possibly consider going for full eradication rather than harm reduction. That doesn’t seem possible, unless you can get birds and pigs to mask up.
bagacrap 5y ago
The flu doesn't just kill old folks, it kills children as well (unlike covid-19), yet we still never cared enough to take the same precautions.
- FearlessNebula 5y ago
  COVID-19 kills children too

taeric 5y ago

My money is on schools being a more active vector than makes sense. And I don't see us closing them like we did on a regular basis.

graeme 5y ago
It would be sensible to improve school air quality: increase ventilation, install air purifiers, etc That would reduce the spread of infectious diseases even with schools open as normal.
- taeric 5y ago
  I mean. Yes. But kids also touch things far more than adults. Combined with less developed immune systems, I suspect there is a floor to how well you can reduce transmission. More, it is almost certainly related to this densely populated the school is. Which, not surprisingly, will hit poor schools harder. Edit: furthering this idea, buses are not likely to keep the same protocols they have now.
  - graeme 5y ago
    For sure. But even, say, a 20% reduction would be super valuable for society as a whole. There should be cognition benefits to improving indoor air quality in schools too.
    - taeric 5y ago
      Agreed. I just wouldn't expect it to hit zero.

tomComb 5y ago

I think some minor measures - mainly just being more considerate when you think you might have the flu - could make a big difference. Before this year people would still go to work when sick, parents would still let their kids blow out the candles on a cake, everyone at the big event would kiss the same cheeks, etc.

trutannus 5y ago

Given the rather low mortality rate for the flu, I think implementing more regulations in our lives isn't a good idea. Bureaucratic creep is a serious issue, and this sort of thing could be a gateway to regulating more aspects of life down the road. Educating people and encouraging them to wear masks 100%, but let's not start mandating anything new, or levying new fines that we have already seen be disproportionately used against over policed groups. Studies show that education and awareness works just as well as state intervention.

Splendor 5y ago
The comment you're replying to never mentioned regulations or any governmental intervention.
- NoSorryCannot 5y ago
  Ah, so, eliminating the flu with internet memes and a McDonald's ad campaign or whatever? There's no scenario where eradication is realistic without involving government.
  - Splendor 5y ago
    I never suggested there was. I understand this is an emotional topic but each reply in this thread seems to be assuming something about the person they're replying to and arguing against something that person never said.
- JoshuaDavid 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, how do you envision going for full eradication without governmental intervention?

educaysean 5y ago

Masks during flu seasons is already the norm in various Asian countries: Korea, Japan, China, etc. I think their previous experiences dealing with SARS and MERS have taught a valuable lesson for the masses.

csomar 5y ago

> we should consider in future doing things like masking up when a flu season is expected, so as to stop the disease from killing thousands of old people Some societies in Asia have been doing that for quite sometime.

valarauko 5y ago

> Can flu jabs be made more effective, and multi-strain, using mRNA vaccine technology? That's a genuinely new tool in the toolbox. In theory, yes; in practice, I don't see this happening for some time (outside of a possible combined SARS-CoV-2 booster + flu combo). The mRNA vaccines are expensive to produce, and it's hard to justify a cost multiplier that's a magnitude higher & harder to produce. Flu vaccines are already multi-strain, and the current techniques already attempt to generate the recombinant strains that might be generated in the wild. Flu mutates faster than the current egg based vaccine production pipeline can handle, and the mRNA vaccine pipeline is orders of magnitude smaller in scale. This will change, of course.

JulianMorrison 5y ago
If I understand it right, mRNA isn't so much exactly hard, as bespoke. It's a new technology and not many places are fitted out to make it. It can eventually be expected to become much cheaper. And mRNA can keep up with flu. It can also target things in a more deliberate way, if I understand it. So a protein could be selected that is common to many variants and hard for the virus to do without.

anoncake 5y ago

During the last year, we have done more than enough to protect old people for the time being.

FearlessNebula 5y ago
The people who watched grandma die in the hospital through an iPad would beg to differ.
- anoncake 5y ago
  I don't think so. Not only was grandma not protected after all (if it even was Covid that she died of), she wasn't even allowed to have her family with her. And really: Emotional arguments like that help no one. Yes, people suffer badly because of Covid. They also suffer badly because of lockdowns. At that level of detail, there's no difference. What we need are numbers, something we can meaningfully compare. Like, how many years of life did we actually safe? How many did we destroy by not allowing people to actually live their lives? What's the impact on children's development, everyone's mental health, etc.? But apparently we have collectively decided not to weigh the effects of our decisions and protect the elderly at any cost. Unless, of course, it would inconvenience them. You can't ask them to protect themselves, that would be discrimination.[1][2][3] Churches must be kept open, or grandma will be lonely. Hairdressers are very important for old people, so they're open.[4] Note that universities have been shut down for more than a year and schools have only partially reopened recently, as they're only important to irrelevant young people. And those are just the most obvious examples but. Maybe my attitude would be different if I wasn't governed by openly antisocial elderly people. [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tagesspiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fexit-strategien-fuer-das-coronavirus-warum-wir-risikogruppen-nicht-isolieren-duerfen%2F25713846.html https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https... [2] https://www.zeit.de/2020/17/corona-pandemie-risikogruppe-alter-vorerkrankungen-isolation-ansteckung/seite-3 https://www.zeit.de/2020/17/corona-pandemie-risikogruppe-alt... [3] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.is%2FJKbEp http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=... [4] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww1.wdr.de%2Fnachrichten%2Fthemen%2Fcoronavirus%2Fcorona-lockdown-friseure-ausnahme-wuerde-100.html http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=...

notriddle 5y ago

> And also possibly consider going for full eradication rather than harm reduction. That doesn’t seem possible, unless you can get birds and pigs to mask up.

bagacrap 5y ago

The flu doesn't just kill old folks, it kills children as well (unlike covid-19), yet we still never cared enough to take the same precautions.

FearlessNebula 5y ago
COVID-19 kills children too