6 ms·

We also haven’t gotten the “uncontrollable plague killing upwards of 200 million people.”

kzrdude 4y ago
The "catch on like wildfire" part was true though. One moment you hear about it on the news, the next (the next weeks) half your family gets it - talking about Omicron in this case. Thankfully very low lethality.
monkeybutton 4y ago
Seeing 200M as an upper bound and that the current excess deaths are around 21M from COVID, the prediction is "only" off by 1 order of magnitude. At most.
- naniwaduni 4y ago
  The thing is, "upward of" denotes a lower bound, not an upper bound.
  - monkeybutton 4y ago
    Cool, "upward of" means "in excess of" rather than "up to". Thanks for the correction.
  - kilovoltaire 4y ago
    Haha I always interpreted it as the opposite of that, but this makes much more sense!
- amelius 4y ago
  There is a plague like this every so many years, so not difficult to predict.
- ianai 4y ago
  We’re not entirely done with this last one yet, either.
- labster 4y ago
  Having read Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague in the 1990s, a pandemic was the most obvious prediction possible. Only timing is the hard part. We got rather lucky that our research on SARS-CoV-1 was available in advance, along with the new development of lipids for mRNA vaccines. Without that, 1% death rate was certainly possible with COVID, if not the 2.5% predicted in the article. Which is still much better than historical pandemics like plague and smallpox in the New World. Though, uh, maybe all that research made pandemic possible in the first place. Anyway a miss by one order of magnitude on a virus that does exponential growth is really good but obvious prediction. Public policy should definitely plan to deal with outbreaks on this scale of death.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    We were lucky SARS-CoV-1 was not as contagious as SARS-CoV-2.
    - labster 4y ago
      Or unlucky that the lab leak happened. I don’t think the virus origin is knowable either way, though.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        We can't disprove that it was planted by space aliens, either. That doesn't mean it's useful, absent of evidence, to entertain that hypothesis.
        labster 4y ago
        Which is why I only brought up the hypotheses with a lot of evidence behind them.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        I dispute that there's a lot of evidence for the "lab leak" theory.
krapp 4y ago
Not for a lack of trying. If monkeypox really flares up I suspect people will literally hold superspreader parties just to spite the system.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Not trolling, genuine question: I saw something that said that they had found the first case of human-to-human infection of monkeypox. If it doesn't normally spread that way, how is it spreading? Or was that just the first confirmed case of what everybody knew was going on?
  - steanne 4y ago
    probably sex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak#Outbreak_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak#Outbre...
  - krapp 4y ago
    I don't know. I'm not a doctor I'm just another dog on the internet.
  - goodcanadian 4y ago
    Quoting wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Causes) Most human cases of monkeypox are acquired from an infected animal, though the route of transmission remains unknown. The virus is thought to enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, or mouth. Once a human is infected, transmission to other humans is common, with family members and hospital staff at particularly high risk of infection.
    - dehrmann 4y ago
      > Most human cases of monkeypox are acquired from an infected animal My money is on this no longer being true, though to the best of our knowledge, it was 6 months ago.
- 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

The "catch on like wildfire" part was true though. One moment you hear about it on the news, the next (the next weeks) half your family gets it - talking about Omicron in this case. Thankfully very low lethality.

monkeybutton 4y ago

Seeing 200M as an upper bound and that the current excess deaths are around 21M from COVID, the prediction is "only" off by 1 order of magnitude. At most.

naniwaduni 4y ago
The thing is, "upward of" denotes a lower bound, not an upper bound.
- monkeybutton 4y ago
  Cool, "upward of" means "in excess of" rather than "up to". Thanks for the correction.
- kilovoltaire 4y ago
  Haha I always interpreted it as the opposite of that, but this makes much more sense!
amelius 4y ago
There is a plague like this every so many years, so not difficult to predict.
ianai 4y ago
We’re not entirely done with this last one yet, either.
labster 4y ago
Having read Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague in the 1990s, a pandemic was the most obvious prediction possible. Only timing is the hard part. We got rather lucky that our research on SARS-CoV-1 was available in advance, along with the new development of lipids for mRNA vaccines. Without that, 1% death rate was certainly possible with COVID, if not the 2.5% predicted in the article. Which is still much better than historical pandemics like plague and smallpox in the New World. Though, uh, maybe all that research made pandemic possible in the first place. Anyway a miss by one order of magnitude on a virus that does exponential growth is really good but obvious prediction. Public policy should definitely plan to deal with outbreaks on this scale of death.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  We were lucky SARS-CoV-1 was not as contagious as SARS-CoV-2.
  - labster 4y ago
    Or unlucky that the lab leak happened. I don’t think the virus origin is knowable either way, though.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      We can't disprove that it was planted by space aliens, either. That doesn't mean it's useful, absent of evidence, to entertain that hypothesis.
      - labster 4y ago
        Which is why I only brought up the hypotheses with a lot of evidence behind them.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        I dispute that there's a lot of evidence for the "lab leak" theory.

krapp 4y ago

Not for a lack of trying. If monkeypox really flares up I suspect people will literally hold superspreader parties just to spite the system.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Not trolling, genuine question: I saw something that said that they had found the first case of human-to-human infection of monkeypox. If it doesn't normally spread that way, how is it spreading? Or was that just the first confirmed case of what everybody knew was going on?
- steanne 4y ago
  probably sex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak#Outbreak_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak#Outbre...
- krapp 4y ago
  I don't know. I'm not a doctor I'm just another dog on the internet.
- goodcanadian 4y ago
  Quoting wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Causes) Most human cases of monkeypox are acquired from an infected animal, though the route of transmission remains unknown. The virus is thought to enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, or mouth. Once a human is infected, transmission to other humans is common, with family members and hospital staff at particularly high risk of infection.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    > Most human cases of monkeypox are acquired from an infected animal My money is on this no longer being true, though to the best of our knowledge, it was 6 months ago.
4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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