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Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#21

Post by babesh »

Buttons840 wrote: post #16
jawns wrote: post #4

Whenever I see a paper from this long ago, I immediately check to see how often it's been referenced in the literature. Google Scholar says this study has been cited by a measly 16 papers since it was published in 1973: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1453678737796934715... Without any other context, I would assume that the relative lack of studies that reference this paper suggests that there might be issue…

"There have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on--with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from wherever he started them off. No. The rat…

Also the one that probably more people know about:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel

Mendel’s work was not appreciated for 30 years. Ignoring ignored works is following the herd.

Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#23

Post by nelaboras »

avar wrote: post #10

It's interesting that the "Environment" section mentions this in passing: > Food comes mainly from packets or tins [...] There is a daily bread bake, and special occasions merit the thawing of a small amount of meat from a -20 C. freezer or from an ice cave in the nearby glacier. Then in the "Discussion" section: > The occurrence of a common cold during isolation, when the chances of introduction of new infection fro…

Viruses also can stay inactive in the body for years, see herpes as an obvious example. No idea if that can also be true for flu viruses though.

Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#24

Post by ceejayoz »

nazca wrote: post #18

I wonder if after 17 weeks of isolation their immune systems atrophied due to limited exposure to pathogens, making them more susceptible to relatively a 'small' initial exposure? Are there implications for the millions of folks isolating and reducing their daily exposure to pathogens?

> I wonder if after 17 weeks of isolation their immune systems atrophied due to limited exposure to pathogens...

I keep seeing this idea floated around.

Our entire concept of vaccinations would fail if a few weeks of isolation could collapse your immune system. We retain immunity for decades against diseases like measles that our bodies may not see at all during that time period.

None of us has a living environment approaching anything like a clean room, either, no matter how fastidious the housekeeping.

Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#25

Post by dharma1 »

ck2 wrote: post #9

Viruses can linger in the body and "hide" waiting for immune system to weaken. This is how people get shingles many decades later after chicken-pox, it's the same virus, just hid in nerve cells and spinal cord.

Some can stay latent for a long time - herpes viruses, retroviruses like HIV, Epstein-Barr, shingles like you said - but most viruses don't, as far as we know

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_latency

Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#26

Post by scottishcow »

jawns wrote: post #4

Whenever I see a paper from this long ago, I immediately check to see how often it's been referenced in the literature. Google Scholar says this study has been cited by a measly 16 papers since it was published in 1973: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1453678737796934715... Without any other context, I would assume that the relative lack of studies that reference this paper suggests that there might be issue…

Granted 16 isn't a lot, but that's actually a higher citation count than the vast majority of academic papers. Anyways, thinking of citations as a reliable proxy for paper quality is like ranking artists by how many followers they have on Twitter.

Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#27

Post by throw_away »

sjg007 wrote: post #20

I noticed this in my own family of four. We've been in isolation for 2 months and we've all had colds for a week. You'd expect after 4 weeks for it to stop but nope. We've been social distancing and only one person goes out to pick up groceries curb side. We've been wiping stuff down too. I think this is one reason they say sars-cov-2 aka covid-19 is inevitable..

I heard a recent podcast (which, I cannot remember) where a family went through a similar scenario. They consulted with an expert, who, after eliminating common forgotten vectors, said that this can happen with bacterial infections dormant in the body which are then activated due to stress-induced lowered immune function. Theirs did not seem to transmit to others in the family, however.

Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#28

Post by michrassena »

Buttons840 wrote: post #16
jawns wrote: post #4

Whenever I see a paper from this long ago, I immediately check to see how often it's been referenced in the literature. Google Scholar says this study has been cited by a measly 16 papers since it was published in 1973: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1453678737796934715... Without any other context, I would assume that the relative lack of studies that reference this paper suggests that there might be issue…

"There have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on--with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from wherever he started them off. No. The rat…

I've tried to find this paper, but I can't. There's a Paul Thomas Young, who did study rats in that timeframe. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421573?seq=1

Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)

#30

Post by marktangotango »

sjg007 wrote: post #20

I noticed this in my own family of four. We've been in isolation for 2 months and we've all had colds for a week. You'd expect after 4 weeks for it to stop but nope. We've been social distancing and only one person goes out to pick up groceries curb side. We've been wiping stuff down too. I think this is one reason they say sars-cov-2 aka covid-19 is inevitable..

Same here, two weeks in 3 of 4 in our family had mild fevers (99I also discovered my temp is generally 96-97, rarely goes up to "normal".
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