4 ms·
This is my thought. I think it is hard to do a Bayesian analysis here and come up with priors everyone can agree on but it always seemed to me it would be like
by handmodel 5y ago
This is my thought. I think it is hard to do a Bayesian analysis here and come up with priors everyone can agree on but it always seemed to me it would be like if a new Mad Cow disease started near Cambridge, Mass. If a new cow disease arose naturally it would probably be in a cattle farm with tons of animals being slaughtered - not next to a lab that studies prions.
- actually_a_dog 5y agoThe problem with that is there are way more pathogenic viruses originating in animals than prion diseases, and (probably?) way more virology labs than labs studying prion diseases. That makes both factors in the equation much larger in the case of viruses than prion diseases. Just off the cuff, I'd guess that would make the overall probability of a zoonotic virus emerging near a city with a virology lab at least an order of magnitude greater than your prion disease scenario.