Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too • Hacker News Board

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#211

Post by nickthemagicman » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #110

andreygrehov wrote: post #94

Randall Munroe did a small section on eradicating the common cold in his What-if book, the basic idea is if that all of humanity stayed away from each other for a week or two then the common cold would die out as it can't survive outside of the human body for more than a week and normally survives by continuously hopping from host to host.

Do we know for sure that it* doesn't have an animal reservoir? [*] The common cold is a half dozen distinct viruses.

True. Maybe something like chickens or pigs could be an animal vector. Then a very minor mutation could make it infectious to humans.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#212

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

dlivingston wrote: post #126

Exmoor wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..And suicides will likely go way up. Probably a lot of other issues as well that may be more difficult to track. Mental health crisis, domestic violence, etc.

As you hint at, unemployment numbers are directly proportional to suicide rates. The effects of shutting down the world are much higher than just missed paychecks and business bankruptcies. You list a few of them. There must be a cost-benefit analysis done where we find the breakeven point between lives saved by quarantine vs. lives damaged by quarantine side effects.

The entire world is going on with it this time because the cost-benefit analysis is quite trivial. The entire world also doesn't go with it every few years to stop the flu because the cost-benefit analysis is quite trivial.

There has got to be something in between, but on the land of exponential growth and slow-down, that line is very thin. This one pandemic will cross the line at some point, but I bet we will resume business as usual even before that.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#213

Post by saalweachter » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #161

saalweachter wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This current situation had me wondering how hard it would be to coordinate a regular -- maybe not yearly -- global self-isolation for say 2-3 weeks at a time. Aside from the difficulties of getting everyone in the world to agree that the first three weeks of February during a leap year are observed through social distance, it doesn't seem like it would be as bad on a recurring basis as it is during an emergency like…

The difficulty of getting compliance even in the face of a scary new threat should give a good deal of indication of how hard it'd be. And the speed with which it spreads in a population that has little immunity against the current strain should be a good indication of how little you'd save.

Eh, there may be a certain amount of truth to that, but personally I think it's one of the many fears that sci-fi has overplayed.

Part of the problem we have in our war against infectious diseases is that they mutate in endless variety. The cold you catch tomorrow is slightly different than the cold you had last week; the variety of the seasonal flu spreading this year is different than the variety of last year.

But these endless varieties are generated at a rate proportional to the available hosts. If we can successfully reduce the number of hosts available, we would also reduce the number varieties of colds and flu we have to contend with, and the rate at which new ones appear. Everyone not getting a little sick all the time might conceptually weaken our immune systems, but it would also weaken the diseases against we're fighting, and we would still have our other tools we use to fight them.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#214

Post by nullc » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #211

nullc wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know for sure that it* doesn't have an animal reservoir? [*] The common cold is a half dozen distinct viruses.

True. Maybe something like chickens or pigs could be an animal vector. Then a very minor mutation could make it infectious to humans.

Doesn't even need the mutation. It may be that it is infectious with R0>1 to some other animals as is, but with few health effects so we don't notice it.

If so, it'll just immediately get reintroduced to humans even if we distance it out of our population successfully.

No mutations required.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#215

Post by cycomanic » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

o-__-o wrote: post #209

ceejayoz wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The testers wear PPE - gloves, gowns - that gets changed between tests.

I don’t believe that when we have a shortage. The guidelines even state don’t come to a testing site if you are not showing symptoms as you may catch the covid. I mean why are you not even considering my viewpoint? Look at China, is it testing that’s working there or the lockdown?

Another example is to look at South Korea, which got a handle on things with lots of testing (and tracing) . I think this is actually a better example than china, considering that it is a democracy. Lots of testing is btw also the WHO recommendation.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#216

Post by belenos46 » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

ggm wrote: post #137

I expect norovirus and rotovirus D&V will decline but salmonella will rise. Maybe even accidental mushroom poisoning, ptomaine? (Foraging, tinned meat) and bad salami caused an outbreak of life threatening kidney and other problems in South Australia some years back, so people going into cured meats be warned. Alcohol poisoning from home stills is a constant.

I'm not too worried about alcohol poisoning RE: home stills. It's people who don't toss the heads and tails that have a bad time: methanol poisoning sucks, and is the cause of most home distilling dangers (blindness, kidney failure, etc).

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#217

Post by rossdavidh » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #112

rossdavidh wrote: post #91

Hypothesis: people who are stuck at home have more time and inclination to check their temperatures, even when they don't feel sick.

That wouldn't generate an unusual number of 'fever' readings, and then a pretty simple model would do some accounting for repeated use of each thermometer (so 'extra' normal readings shouldn't be reducing the expected number of 'fever' readings).

Agreed, but it could easily generate an unusual number of "not a fever" readings, which would make it look as if there were a smaller than normal number of people getting sick with the flu. Or, maybe it doesn't do that. I don't see how you can say for certain which way it would shift, but I find it implausible that it would stay the same.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#218

Post by frank2 » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:16 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #177

frank2 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you support forbidding cars in neighborhoods designed around the car, e.g., most American suburbs planned after 1950, or would you limit the ban to neighborhoods planned after the start of the ban?

Is my opinion on the exact details of the implementation of a non-existant car ban really that relevant?

I just wanted to see if you have thought through the implications of what you advocated.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#219

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #217

maxerickson wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't generate an unusual number of 'fever' readings, and then a pretty simple model would do some accounting for repeated use of each thermometer (so 'extra' normal readings shouldn't be reducing the expected number of 'fever' readings).

Agreed, but it could easily generate an unusual number of "not a fever" readings, which would make it look as if there were a smaller than normal number of people getting sick with the flu. Or, maybe it doesn't do that. I don't see how you can say for certain which way it would shift, but I find it implausible that it would stay the same.

That's what I mean by a simple model.

Like a dead stupid one would be to compare to historical data for fevers/week per thermometer.

That is barely a model at all and it manages to ignore how many readings are done and accounts for multiple readings during a period of illness and readings for multiple sick members of a household and so on.

Re: Social distancing slowing not only Covid-19, but other diseases too

#220

Post by DanBC » Thu, Mar 26, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #196

DanBC wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tests can tell you if you have covid-19. What they can't do, because they have such a high false negative rate, is tell you that you don't have it.

That’s fine. Get a preliminary test, rule it out if you can, and if it comes back positive then take other tests or self-isolate, or both. Beats the heck out of everyone hiding under their bed for months.

You can't "rule it out", because when the test says "you don't have it" you may well have it.

Some of the tests have a 20% to 40% false negative rate.