71–80 of 146 posts
My girlfriend died from human metapneumovirus at 30 years young. She had a weakened immune system from lymphangiomatosis, so something like metapneumovirus, which is a mild illness for most people, was a death sentence for her. I hope this fund is successful so nobody else ever has to go through what she did.
It's sad we're resorting to philanthropy to solve problems like this. $500M is chump change. NASA spent something like $300B in today's money on the Apollo program, and Artemis has exceeded $90B already. I'm much more keen on never getting sick than prepping for Mars.
We think the most promising category of products that accomplish these goals are those that remove pathogens from the air, particularly in high-density environments like offices, schools, and public transit. We’ll call these air cleaning technologies (ACTs) like air filtration and far-UVC antimicrobial light.
Sounds like a pretty big challenge to me... Ok, during Covid I read that airplane-style air conditioning with nozzles above each seat and used air pumped out at ground level was pretty good in making sure "your" air didn't get mixed up with your neighbor's (masks were still mandatory however on the few flights I took during that period). But how are you going to do the same in a packed subway train in, let's say, Tokyo or New York, at rush hour? That air conditioning unit would probably have to be as heavy as the train itself, and to the passengers it would feel like a hairdryer (on cold setting) blasting at them permanently from above...
> Healthy people spend roughly 15-25 days each year—about 5% of their lives—sick with respiratory infections like the common cold and influenza This seems completely unbelievable to me. Totally outside of my personal, professional, and family experience.
> Healthy people spend roughly 15-25 days each year—about 5% of their lives—sick with respiratory infections like the common cold and influenza This seems completely unbelievable to me. Totally outside of my personal, professional, and family experience.
No kids eh? My oldest starting preschool was one of the worst times in my life. We were sick from august to december, then january to may. Dreadful. It got better. My youngest is 3 now and is ahead of where my oldest was due to having 2 older siblings importing illnesses for several years, and this year we finally were mostly not sick all school year. Which is to say, we were probably closer to the 15 days "materiall…
It's sad we're resorting to philanthropy to solve problems like this. $500M is chump change. NASA spent something like $300B in today's money on the Apollo program, and Artemis has exceeded $90B already. I'm much more keen on never getting sick than prepping for Mars.
It’s 500m spend without guaranteed success.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s 500m spend without guaranteed success.
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything should be voluntary philantrhopy! It seems like the ideal state if people are willing to do the pro-social thing by their own volition. Is it better if your child does their homework because they freely choose to, or is it better that they do it because you will beat them with a belt?
I'm sure if we just cut taxes a little more, our modern-day robber barons will choose to use their money to fix things on their own instead of building doomsday bunkers and buying superyachts.
Maybe they can send some of this money to the Wuhan Institive of Virology to research respiratory viruses in bats and some to Raph Baric at UNC for vaccine development. What could go wrong?