'We are screwed': Virologists warn about disease they say could become the next pandemic

  • Thread starter Thread starter evrheel
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 107
  • Views: 3K
  • Politics 
evrheel said:
Measles Polio Ebola: Malaria:

Hepatitis B: A potentially life-threatening liver infection that can cause chronic infection and liver cancer

Marburg virus disease: A disease with no available treatment or vaccine

Monkeypox: A rare viral disease that occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas of central and west Africa
Click to expand...
Right....how many of those are both extremely deadly and extremely contagious?
 
you're trying to bait about h5n1. it isn't going to work, not with me. even you can't be that stupid.

ebola is about as contagious as covid. r0 of 2 to 2.5. it is also incredibly deadly. gee, who could have predicted that you would not know this? malaria is also incredibly dangerous and highly contagious. and of course diseases like smallpox were incredibly contagious and deadly.

you are confusing the fact that people take precautions against the most dangerous diseases with their contagiousness. it's a fundamental mistake. smallpox isn't a thing of the past because it died out. it was eradicated.
 
ZenMode said:
Yet he deleted half of it in his response. The half which contained the crux of my position/point. :unsure: :rolleyes:

@superrific
Click to expand...
i sometimes delete parts of a quoted post to focus the readers' attention on the parts I am specifically responding to. if people want to read the crux of your position, your post still remains. i didn't delete that.

it's your fault if you put the crux of your position at the end of your post. if you want people to understand what you are saying, you put your main point first and then expound.
 
superrific said:
you're trying to bait about h5n1. it isn't going to work, not with me. even you can't be that stupid.

ebola is about as contagious as covid. r0 of 2 to 2.5. it is also incredibly deadly. gee, who could have predicted that you would not know this? malaria is also incredibly dangerous and highly contagious. and of course diseases like smallpox were incredibly contagious and deadly.

you are confusing the fact that people take precautions against the most dangerous diseases with their contagiousness. it's a fundamental mistake. smallpox isn't a thing of the past because it died out. it was eradicated.
Click to expand...
I'm not baiting. There's a reason ebola is taken seriously when a case is discovered in the US and we implement contact tracing and forced quarantining. It's fairly contagious AND very deadly. COVID, by comparison, is not. A 1% mortality rate isn't going to be a threat to social order. It's not even going to move the needle in the "we're screwed" category.

Measles, at its high point, was around a 10% mortality rate, I believe. It was also extremely contagious by viral standards. The r0 was around 15. Imagine a virus that had an r0 of 20 or 25 or 30 and a mortality rate of 50% or higher. That's simply has not existed in nature. However, that can exist as a result of gain of function research. Something like that would be a legitimate threat to social order. Something like that would actually be a "we're screwed" situation.
 
Last edited:
ZenMode said:
I'm not baiting. There's a reason ebola is taken seriously when a case is discovered in the US and we implement contact tracing and forced quarantining. It's fairly contagious AND very deadly. COVID, by comparison, is not. A 1% mortality rate isn't going to be a threat to social order. It's not even going to move the needle in the "we're screwed" category.

Measles, at its high point, was around a 10% mortality rate, I believe. It was also extremely contagious by viral standards. The r0 was around 15. Imagine a virus that had an r0 of 20 or 25 or 30 and a mortality rate of 50% or higher. That's simply has not existed in nature. However, that can exist as a result of gain of function research. Something like that would be a legitimate threat to social order. Something like that would actually be a "we're screwed" situation.
Click to expand...
A 1% fatality rate can absolutely move the needle when a virus is super contagious, as COVID is. Keep in mind that the 1% fatality rate also meant about 5-10% were severely ill enough to be hospitalized. 1% of 300 million people is 3 million fatalities. 10% is 30 million people in need of hospitalization. I worked at a major hospital during the Delta and Omicron waves. People suffered and died frequently from all of the other emergencies that didn't stop during COVID because all of the ICU beds and equipment were tied up with COVID patients. We were a level 1 trauma center and were sending out gunshot wound patients to smaller hospitals because we couldn't treat them. Someone needs a vent or ECMO? Good luck. They're just going to die. And that is what happened, over and over and over and over again.

Even during the height of the pandemic, a lot of complete morons never understood how bad things really were. They were very, very bad.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
A 1% fatality rate can absolutely move the needle when a virus is super contagious, as COVID is. Keep in mind that the 1% fatality rate also meant about 5-10% were severely ill enough to be hospitalized. 1% of 300 million people is 3 million fatalities. 10% is 30 million people in need of hospitalization. I worked at a major hospital during the Delta and Omicron waves. People suffered and died frequently from all of the other emergencies that didn't stop during COVID because all of the ICU beds and equipment were tied up with COVID patients. We were a level 1 trauma center and were sending out gunshot wound patients to smaller hospitals because we couldn't treat them. Someone needs a vent or ECMO? Good luck. They're just going to die. And that is what happened, over and over and over and over again.

Even during the height of the pandemic, a lot of complete morons never understood how bad things really were. They were very, very bad.
Click to expand...
As bad as things were for some hospitals (my mom worked as a medical coder in the Phoenix area, so I heard horror stories), and as annoying as it was to not be able to find toilet paper and ground beef, what I'm talking about is different. If a virus were to exist that, for example, spread like the measles (R0 as high as 18) and killed like ebola (50%+), things are going to deteriorate well beyond overcrowded hospitals and using napkins to wipe your butt. In a short amount of time, most of the population will be infected. We aren't going to ease into her immunity, like we did with Covid. We are going to slam into herd immunity like a semi hitting a brick wall. If things were to get bad enough, then you start to worry about the supply chain and whether or not grocery store employees are even going to come to work. Do police come to work? What about the people who run the power grid? Things could deteriorate very, very quickly.

As I mentioned, to our knowledge there hasn't been such a virus occurs naturally. At least not one that infects humans. But with advancements in synthetic biology, combined with incredibly dangerous gain of function research, that possibility is real.
 
ZenMode said:
As bad as things were for some hospitals (my mom worked as a medical coder in the Phoenix area, so I heard horror stories), and as annoying as it was to not be able to find toilet paper and ground beef, what I'm talking about is different. If a virus were to exist that, for example, spread like the measles (R0 as high as 18) and killed like ebola (50%+), things are going to deteriorate well beyond overcrowded hospitals and using napkins to wipe your butt. In a short amount of time, most of the population will be infected. We aren't going to ease into her immunity, like we did with Covid. We are going to crash into herd immunity. If things were to get bad enough, then you start to worry about the supply chain and whether or not grocery store employees are even going to come to work. Do police come to work? What about the people who run the power grid? Things could deteriorate very, very quickly.

As I mentioned, to our knowledge there hasn't been such a virus occurs naturally. At least not one that infects humans. But with advancements in synthetic biology, combined with incredibly dangerous gain of function research, that possibility is real.
Click to expand...
Covid caused all those things, sans R18 and death rate of 50%. You’re describing I Am Legend, ie apocalypse, not a “threat to social order”.
 
HeelingAg said:
Covid caused all those things, sans R18 and death rate of 50%. You’re describing I Am Legend, ie apocalypse, not a “threat to social order”.
Click to expand...
Right. However you want to describe it, a virus that was 20 times more transmissible and 50 times more deadly then Covid would cause a significant breakdown in social order. You can call it apocalyptic or whatever, but the end result is the same.
 
ZenMode said:
Right. However you want to describe it, a virus that was 20 times more transmissible and 50 times more deadly then Covid would cause a significant breakdown in social order. You can call it apocalyptic or whatever, but the end result is the same.
Click to expand...
And if my grandma had wheels she'd be a bicycle.

Thanks so much for your valuable contributions.
 
ZenMode said:
Right....how many of those are both extremely deadly and extremely contagious?
Click to expand...
When making your arguments, how do you choose the percentages that are important?

I'm reading this thread, and you downplay a 1% death rate, but for other topics you are very concerned about a .01% rate of occurrence of something that will not kill anyone and isn't contagious.

I really believe you simply enjoy arguing.
 
UNCatTech said:
When making your arguments, how do you choose the percentages that are important?

I'm reading this thread, and you downplay a 1% death rate, but for other topics you are very concerned about a .01% rate of occurrence of something that will not kill anyone and isn't contagious.

I really believe you simply enjoy arguing.
Click to expand...
“I really believe you simply enjoy arguing.”

Ya think?!
 
Zoo_View said:
“I really believe you simply enjoy arguing.”

Ya think?!
Click to expand...
Well, I'll give you credit for being open and honest about it.

Actually, I was about to delete my post. After reading more and thinking about it, the percentages across different arguments cannot so simply be compared.
 
UNCatTech said:
I'm reading this thread, and you downplay a 1% death rate, but for other topics you are very concerned about a .01% rate of occurrence of something that will not kill anyone and isn't contagious.

I really believe you simply enjoy arguing.
Click to expand...
What is this in reference to?
 
ZZLPHeels said:
A 1% fatality rate can absolutely move the needle when a virus is super contagious, as COVID is. Keep in mind that the 1% fatality rate also meant about 5-10% were severely ill enough to be hospitalized. 1% of 300 million people is 3 million fatalities. 10% is 30 million people in need of hospitalization. I worked at a major hospital during the Delta and Omicron waves. People suffered and died frequently from all of the other emergencies that didn't stop during COVID because all of the ICU beds and equipment were tied up with COVID patients. We were a level 1 trauma center and were sending out gunshot wound patients to smaller hospitals because we couldn't treat them. Someone needs a vent or ECMO? Good luck. They're just going to die. And that is what happened, over and over and over and over again.

Even during the height of the pandemic, a lot of complete morons never understood how bad things really were. They were very, very bad.
Click to expand...
Meme Reaction GIF by Robert E Blackmon
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top