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305 - A Terrible Idea

El Cid

on March 22, 2020

Hey everybody! Hope you're all doing okay! (unless you're the one hoarding all the toilet paper, in which case I hope you catch the worst case of explosive diarrhea in history)

Have you ever wondered why so many of these outbreaks have been coming out of China recently? Here's an interesting video on why that may be (and no, it's not a bioweapon!)



Unfortunately, it's not likely that the SARS-CoV2 virus is going away; it will likely become endemic, like the flu or common colds. There's a possibility that it will sort of let up a bit with the onset of summer in the Northern hemisphere, becoming more of a problem in the Southern hemisphere as winter sets in there. But then it would come back to us next winter.



The good news is that, though we'll likely have to live with it for good, we'll adapt to it. They're already looking at medicines which may help you recover faster, and vaccines should hopefully be available by next year. Also, the virus should eventually lose its potency due to a number of mechanisms. Over time and with repeated exposures, herd immunity sets in. As more people are exposed and become immune, it's more difficult for the disease to spread, because less people are able to get infected and spread it to others. Also, selection pressure tends to weaken the virus itself, as the more virulent strains which produce worse symptoms faster, tend not to be as readily transmissible as less virulent variants and are eventually bred out of the viral genome. So within a few years, this will be just another annoying sickness like the flu which most of us don't even bother getting vaccinated for.

Of course, that doesn't help much right now.