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Personally, I stopped reading after this: > If the SARS family of coronaviruses had emerged just a decade earlier it's quite likely we'd be on the brink of civ

Personally, I stopped reading after this: > If the SARS family of coronaviruses had emerged just a decade earlier it's quite likely we'd be on the brink of civilizational, if not species-level, extinction by now—SARS1 has 20% mortality among patients, MERS (aka SARS2) is up around 35-40% fatal, SARS-NCoV19, aka SARS3, is down around the 1-4% fatality level. I It felt sensational to me to the point the I could no longer take the author's view seriously as something worth reading. We survived the bubonic plague and the author himself quotes these diseases as having far lower mortality rates than that, yet then extrapolates it to the extinction of humanity. Huh.

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woodruffw 5y ago
I think that's what they meant by "civilizational" extinction, which they specifically mention in your own quote instead of species extinction. Maybe a little dire, but a disease with a 20% fatality rate in 2021 would have very different transmission characteristics than the bubonic plague in the 14th century.
counters 5y ago
It might well be on the hyperbolic side, but I'm not sure your counter-example is really apples-to-apples. It isn't totally reasonable to compare the current pandemic to communicable disease outbreaks pre-globalization; in the 1300's, someone exposed to plague couldn't hop on a plane and be in a global transportation hub with millions of people passing through in just a dozen or so hours. Furthermore, the plague had a catastrophic impact on population - in just a few years it killed upwards of 50% of Europe's entire population! I wouldn't call that "extinction level" but it's really not something to shirk at so cavalierly. What would be the impact on civilization of losing half the world's population today over just a few years? Whether or not it would lead to a decline into extinction is kind of academic; undoubtedly, it would lead to a fundamental shift in society and civilization.
pja 5y ago
The bubonic plague killed a third of the population of Europe. I imagine that felt pretty apocalyptic at the time & it had a long term impact on the entire region. A plague that killed a third of those infected spread by modern international travel would be catastrophic. Medieval Europe got to spread the impact out over decades. Killing a third of the population in a year or two would be much worse.

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woodruffw 5y ago

I think that's what they meant by "civilizational" extinction, which they specifically mention in your own quote instead of species extinction. Maybe a little dire, but a disease with a 20% fatality rate in 2021 would have very different transmission characteristics than the bubonic plague in the 14th century.

counters 5y ago

It might well be on the hyperbolic side, but I'm not sure your counter-example is really apples-to-apples. It isn't totally reasonable to compare the current pandemic to communicable disease outbreaks pre-globalization; in the 1300's, someone exposed to plague couldn't hop on a plane and be in a global transportation hub with millions of people passing through in just a dozen or so hours. Furthermore, the plague had a catastrophic impact on population - in just a few years it killed upwards of 50% of Europe's entire population! I wouldn't call that "extinction level" but it's really not something to shirk at so cavalierly. What would be the impact on civilization of losing half the world's population today over just a few years? Whether or not it would lead to a decline into extinction is kind of academic; undoubtedly, it would lead to a fundamental shift in society and civilization.

pja 5y ago

The bubonic plague killed a third of the population of Europe. I imagine that felt pretty apocalyptic at the time & it had a long term impact on the entire region. A plague that killed a third of those infected spread by modern international travel would be catastrophic. Medieval Europe got to spread the impact out over decades. Killing a third of the population in a year or two would be much worse.