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This is almost backward, from my understanding. If it was much more deadly, it wouldn't have spread. I'm sure there is an inflection point on the "deadly" nat
by taeric 4y ago
This is almost backward, from my understanding. If it was much more deadly, it wouldn't have spread.
I'm sure there is an inflection point on the "deadly" nature versus the "spreads" factor.
That said, I fully endorse your closing question. I'm not at all sure what we learned. Other than folks get heavily invested in their narratives and don't back down. Pretty much ever. (Though, I think we already knew that?)
- Pxtl 4y agoWould a virus with a lethality of, say, 10% really have its infectiousness damaged that badly by 1 in 10 sufferers dying? I appreciate that once you get up to a more substantial fraction, people die before they can spread the disease... but "too deadly to spread" is a much higher number than "deadly-enough to literally decimate its carriers".
- taeric 4y agoAgreed, I was assuming too high of a value being discussed.
- throwaway4aday 4y agoErm, the article is about influenza. It hit a pretty good sweet spot of deadly and contagious a little over a hundred years ago.
- taeric 4y agoSorta. Comparisons to any disease/outbreak from before antibiotics are doomed to use for comparisons. They are not useless, to be sure. But they will be very dirty in the stats.
- throwaway4aday 4y agoWut? Influenza is viral.
- taeric 4y agoNot wrong, but it is credibly cited as a reason for high fatality. Mostly from onset of bacterial pneumonia, I think. Though I cede it may as well be wishful thinking on why we have never seen one like it, since.
- celeritascelery 4y ago> This is almost backward, from my understanding. If it was much more deadly, it wouldn't have spread. You should read up on smallpox. 30% death rate and extremely transmissible.
- taeric 4y agoAh, I assumed "much more" to be higher than that. So, apologies on missing the magnitudes we are duscussing.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> If it was much more deadly, it wouldn't have spread. That depends fairly heavily on how much more, and how long before symptoms and death you're infectious. Measles, for example, is insidious in part because it's infectious days before the rash appears.
- Naga 4y agoEvidence shows that there is a negative correlation between transmission and virulence, where the more virulent a virus is the less it spreads. I believe this is at least partially due to the fact that if it kills the host, it can't spread as far as if the host lives and keeps spreading. However, I believe that correlation is over the long run, and that there is plenty of evidence towards diseases that both spread easily and are deadly in the short run (smallpox, cholera, etc). Selection pressures seem to push viruses to be less deadly over time, but that's just it: over time. Cholera is an interesting example of this because it relied on the fecal transmission route, where it would easily spread through tainted water. It didn't matter all that much if the hosts died, as long as it got into the water supply.