D&D and the rising pandemic

[Dannyalcatraz]

The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired.

The Texas doctor had six hours. Now that a vial of COVID-19 vaccine had been opened on this late December night, he had to find 10 eligible people for its remaining doses before the precious medicine expired. In six hours. Scrambling, the doctor made house calls and directed people to his home...

www.yahoo.com

 

[billd91]

The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired.

The Texas doctor had six hours. Now that a vial of COVID-19 vaccine had been opened on this late December night, he had to find 10 eligible people for its remaining doses before the precious medicine expired. In six hours. Scrambling, the doctor made house calls and directed people to his home...

www.yahoo.com

Hopefully, if convened, the grand jury will do the right thing and refuse to indict. Otherwise, this does smack of being racially motivated...

 

[Zardnaar]

Insofar as trends are not guarantees, that's true. And certainly, given that we are annoyed when pizza takes too long to show up, it won't happen "quickly" on our terms. But quickly, maybe even lightning speed, in evolutionary terms.

One can look at previous pandemics. They seem to hang around for around 3 years.

They generally seem to mutate into less deadly variants.

 

[Umbran]

One can look at previous pandemics. They seem to hang around for around 3 years.

The number of useful historical examples, though, is small, making the trend a bit difficult to be sure of. And (we can hope) this time around is different, as other pandemics did not have such successful vaccine development programs.

News this morning is that Pfizer and Moderna have both increased and stepped up their delivery schedules - it is expected they'll deliver enough vaccine for 300 million Americans by May

 

[Garthanos]

The number of useful historical examples, though, is small, making the trend a bit difficult to be sure of. And (we can hope) this time around is different, as other pandemics did not have such successful vaccine development programs.

News this morning is that Pfizer and Moderna have both increased and stepped up their delivery schedules - it is expected they'll deliver enough vaccine for 300 million Americans by May

around 2 months sooner than previously

 

[Umbran]

around 2 months sooner than previously

Yeah. They started with a July estimate, moved back to June, and now to May. So there's a good hope that everyone is vaccinated by mid-summer or so.

Oh, and a cite for this news: Biden Announces Deal For 200 Million More COVID-19 Vaccines

 

[Garthanos]

That's not how viral mutation works though; you'll get various strains with various traits, and the most successful are not necessarily the most problematic.

The more successful tend to be less deadly... they can still have horrible linger effects

 

[Umbran]

The more successful tend to be less deadly... they can still have horrible linger effects

Nobody is saying that the thing is going to become negligible. Merely that chances are over time it will get better for humans, rather than worse.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The more successful tend to be less deadly... they can still have horrible linger effects

To an extent; counterselection is usually for early mortality, but you can absolutely get something like AIDS which is successful and still lethal, it just takes a while (barring modern drug treatments). But that still, in practice, tends select out a fair number of really bad infections over time; its just not a certainty that, as you say, it'll avoid long-term effects.

Or, a long-winded way of saying what Umbran says above.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The number of useful historical examples, though, is small, making the trend a bit difficult to be sure of. And (we can hope) this time around is different, as other pandemics did not have such successful vaccine development programs.

News this morning is that Pfizer and Moderna have both increased and stepped up their delivery schedules - it is expected they'll deliver enough vaccine for 300 million Americans by May

There’s also a few notable counterexamples, like smallpox and bubonic plague. Neither evolved into less deadly forms. One, we used vaccination to eradicate in the wild, and the other we changed our behavior in order to minimize its impact on us (PLUS developed treatments to survive it).

See also anthrax, SARS, MERS, ebola, Marburg, Lhasa, and Hantavirus.

 

[Umbran]

One, we used vaccination to eradicate in the wild, and the other we changed our behavior in order to minimize its impact on us (PLUS developed treatments to survive it).

See also anthrax, SARS, MERS, ebola, Marburg, Lhasa, and Hantavirus.

Yep. Humans can, if they have their heads screwed on straight, adapt behavior and/or technology much more quickly than viruses change. That's kind of the point of having the big brain.

 

[Zardnaar]

There’s also a few notable counterexamples, like smallpox and bubonic plague. Neither evolved into less deadly forms. One, we used vaccination to eradicate in the wild, and the other we changed our behavior in order to minimize its impact on us (PLUS developed treatments to survive it).

See also anthrax, SARS, MERS, ebola, Marburg, Lhasa, and Hantavirus.

Modern bubonic plague is a lot less deadly than the black death to the point that they're wondering if it's the same thing.

Doesn't quite match up as we only have descriptions of its effects. It doesn't spread as rapidly either that might be partly because of modern hygiene.

But it still lingers on in parts of the world lacking those facilities.

There were further outbreaks of plague after the black death but it didn't kill one in three. Accounts of the plague in Roman times also indicate it was worse.

And it's not like hygiene really improved much until the late 19th centy.

But we'll still be dealing with Covid until 2022 minimum.

 

[Umbran]

But we'll still be dealing with Covid until 2022 minimum.

I think you need to define who you mean by "we" and "dealing with" for that to be a meaningful statement.

If "we" is "the world", then yes. There will be places the vaccines haven't reached yet. If "we" is "your town", then covid-19 may be a practical non-issue before summer's end.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think you need to define who you mean by "we" and "dealing with" for that to be a meaningful statement.

If "we" is "the world", then yes. There will be places the vaccines haven't reached yet. If "we" is "your town", then covid-19 may be a practical non-issue before summer's end.

We I meant at the government level. Going to take years for tourism for example to recover.

Probably have to ask some hard questions here and there about a lot if things.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Modern bubonic plague is a lot less deadly than the black death to the point that they're wondering if it's the same thing.

Doesn't quite match up as we only have descriptions of its effects. It doesn't spread as rapidly either that might be partly because of modern hygiene.

But it still lingers on in parts of the world lacking those facilities.

There were further outbreaks of plague after the black death but it didn't kill one in three. Accounts of the plague in Roman times also indicate it was worse.

And it's not like hygiene really improved much until the late 19th centy.

But we'll still be dealing with Covid until 2022 minimum.

While we actually have effective treatments for it now, public health is the real key. PH in general has saved more lives than medicine ever will. With the plague, differences in public health measures- better hygiene, better rat control, anti-flea measures, contact tracing, etc.- are significant barriers to rapid spread.

Hell, every outbreak in the USA- about 7 per year- gets significant local news coverage, usually including all kinds of warnings about how to avoid getting or spreading it.

 

[Zardnaar]

While we actually have effective treatments for it now, public health is the real key. PH in general has saved more lives than medicine ever will. With the plague, differences in public health measures- better hygiene, better rat control, anti-flea measures, contact tracing, etc.- are significant barriers to rapid spread.

Hell, every outbreak in the USA gets significant local news coverage, usually including all kinds of warnings about how to avoid getting or spreading it.

More outside USA. The common belief is it's less deadly than it used to be because it's never been repeated and the records indicate slightly different symptoms.

I think it originated in Myanmar/NE India. May have been that perfect storm as well conditions, mutations maybe more than one pathogen.

Common flu may be the remnants of Spanish Flu from 100 years ago.

3 years seems to be the longer lasting pandemics anyway. Obviously long term effects extend beyond that.

 

[Garthanos]

To an extent; counterselection is usually for early mortality, but you can absolutely get something like AIDS which is successful and still lethal, it just takes a while (barring modern drug treatments). But that still, in practice, tends select out a fair number of really bad infections over time; its just not a certainty that, as you say, it'll avoid long-term effects.

yeh one could say aids is a horrible long term effect of the less lethal direct effects of the virus.

 

[Janx]

Yep. Humans can, if they have their heads screwed on straight, adapt behavior and/or technology much more quickly than viruses change. That's kind of the point of having the big brain.

Mmmm, brainzzzz

 

[Thomas Shey]

yeh one could say aids is a horrible long term effect of the less lethal direct effects of the virus.

That's the gig here. Mutation, essentially, rolls the dice for new traits, and then selection picks the versions of an organism that does best, reproductively speaking out of them. Virii and other microorganisms have rapid life cycles, so you get to see the process in realtime in a way that a lot of other organisms do that too slowly to do.

All other things being equal, host mortality increases are counterselected for. That's true even of things like AIDS; a host that lived out its whole life as a virus generating factory would be more beneficial to reproduction of the organism than one that doesn't. But once the survival time is long enough relative to the virus life-cycle, that selection pressure is minor, whereas other elements may be stronger.

That's why really quick-kill diseases are rare; they can take down the host before it even gets a chance to spread the disease, and the counter-selection there is stronger the shorter the time frame is. The longer it takes, the more other reproductively benign traits start to weigh in more than that.

But this still tells you why "super deadly and super quick diseases" aren't really common; its a poor reproduction strategy, and that quickly selects away from it, and the selection away from deadly diseases never really stops. Its just the effect on slower-killing diseases can be kind of weak.

 

[Zardnaar]

Beaking news. Three cases out of qurantine.

Recap: Auckland moves to Covid-19 Level 3, rest of NZ to Level 2

Auckland has now entered Covid-19 alert level 3, and the rest of NZ level 2, after three members of a family who travelled widely tested positive. Authorities say they are yet to "put a ring around" the cases.

i.stuff.co.nz

One of the family connected to airport. See how will contact tracing works.