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Once the lethality data started to accumulate, I had the same thought. Even though it's still definitely not something you want to get, especially if you have c

by ethbr0 5y ago

Once the lethality data started to accumulate, I had the same thought. Even though it's still definitely not something you want to get, especially if you have comorbidities. It's insane to think about, but as our biological engineering skills mature, it's worth having a discussion about whether (1) mass vaccination + (2) release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. There are no sure things in biology, but a hypothetical reality where Delta (or god forbid something like MERS-CoV) is circulating with Omicron-rates of transmissibility... start to beg questions about what the least bad approach is.

chasd00 5y ago
> (2) release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. political and ethical suicide
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  > release of highly contagious Yet when China does it (accidentally or not) it’s considered unthinkable for our political class. If you think people in Washington couldn’t be less worried about their electorates. If anything COVID has been a boon to hide their massive incompetence diverting discussions around mandates, vaccinations and other woke virtue signaling.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Political suicide, certainly. Ethically — assuming such engineering is even possible without unexpected consequences — it sounds like a trolley problem, only instead of 6 on the default track and 1 on the alternate it might be 6 million by default and 1 million with the airborne cowpox analogy. (Numbers completely made up, of course).
  - chasd00 5y ago
    performing a medical experiment/procedure on someone against their will is unethical.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Experiment? Certainly. Procedure? When not doing the procedure will (to continue using my totally made up hypothetical numbers) cost 5 million more lives? That’s much less clear to me. (Reality is more likely to be “we reckon it might save 5 million lives net, but then again it might combine with the original to make something both virulent and highly transmissive”, but the joy of hypotheticals is I can ignore that).
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        My point was that the spillover of a significantly more lethal but highly transmissible virus is unlikely, but becoming more likely with each tick of population growth. SARS-CoV-2, as terrible as it was, wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been: a better-adapted, more transmissible, and more lethal first wave. And if that scenario were playing out, a human-engineered firebreak, even at the cost of many lives, isn't an obvious ethical wrong. Difficult decisions.
jaywalk 5y ago
There are theories floating around that omicron is actually what you're describing. The number and types of mutations it has versus other variants definitely stands out. Of course, nobody would ever admit it if that's true. So it's just a curious thing to think about.
yucky 5y ago
>release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. We could even blame it on wet markets ;)

by ethbr0 5y ago

chasd00 5y ago

> (2) release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. political and ethical suicide

mercy_dude 5y ago
> release of highly contagious Yet when China does it (accidentally or not) it’s considered unthinkable for our political class. If you think people in Washington couldn’t be less worried about their electorates. If anything COVID has been a boon to hide their massive incompetence diverting discussions around mandates, vaccinations and other woke virtue signaling.
ben_w 5y ago
Political suicide, certainly. Ethically — assuming such engineering is even possible without unexpected consequences — it sounds like a trolley problem, only instead of 6 on the default track and 1 on the alternate it might be 6 million by default and 1 million with the airborne cowpox analogy. (Numbers completely made up, of course).
- chasd00 5y ago
  performing a medical experiment/procedure on someone against their will is unethical.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Experiment? Certainly. Procedure? When not doing the procedure will (to continue using my totally made up hypothetical numbers) cost 5 million more lives? That’s much less clear to me. (Reality is more likely to be “we reckon it might save 5 million lives net, but then again it might combine with the original to make something both virulent and highly transmissive”, but the joy of hypotheticals is I can ignore that).
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      My point was that the spillover of a significantly more lethal but highly transmissible virus is unlikely, but becoming more likely with each tick of population growth. SARS-CoV-2, as terrible as it was, wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been: a better-adapted, more transmissible, and more lethal first wave. And if that scenario were playing out, a human-engineered firebreak, even at the cost of many lives, isn't an obvious ethical wrong. Difficult decisions.

jaywalk 5y ago

There are theories floating around that omicron is actually what you're describing. The number and types of mutations it has versus other variants definitely stands out. Of course, nobody would ever admit it if that's true. So it's just a curious thing to think about.

yucky 5y ago

>release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. We could even blame it on wet markets ;)