Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 86 posts

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#31

Post by davidhyde »

> Ebola virus is a microscopic parasite that replicates inside the cells of a host

A lot of the terminology used in this article is confusing. My understanding is that you get viruses (dead and tiny), bacteria (alive but small) and parasites (alive and usually bigger than bacteria). The author also talks about particles a lot as if the Ebola virus was only the rna and the particle was its trogan horse. I thought that a virus was the whole thing.

The summary was as follows: Once the Ebola virus jumps from bats to humans it mutates differently to what it would in bats. This can’t be studied because we can’t experiment on humans so the scary thing is that we have to just wait and see when there is an outbreak and every outbreak is different.

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#32

Post by coldtea »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #18
coldcode wrote: post #10

Wait until it gets into the US in a marginal part of society. Given we have no universal health care, it's likely to spread and evolve faster than we can stop it. The person in Dallas could have infected the homeless person in the same ambulance who subsequently wandered off. Imagine an illegal person catching it and fearing discovery tries to avoid a hospital, only to infect those they are sharing a tiny room with.

We didn't have universal healthcare when we stamped out polio, smallpox, or yellow fever. I don't know why you'd think it would stop us now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diseases_eliminated_fr...

>We didn't have universal healthcare when we stamped out polio, smallpox, or yellow fever.

And they affected millions before they were stamped out (by universal vaccinations). So there's that...

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#33

Post by ziddoap »

alfromspace wrote: post #29
phs318u wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because at that time people didn’t distrust medical authorities like they do now (anti-vaxxers among others), and didn’t fear (as much) the other consequences of coming into contact with government agencies (incarceration/deportation).

Oh goodness. Citation needed. And I'm curious whether you happen to be independently against deportation and incarceration. I suppose we'd better open the borders and prisons just to prevent disease, right? Or maybe there's a broader ideology at play here.

>"I suppose we'd better open the borders and prisons just to prevent disease, right?"

That's one way to take something that no one is arguing for and turn it up to 11. At least try to argue in good faith.

Edit: Found a source for you regarding trust in healthcare, for what it's worth.

>A 2015 Pew study [...] We as a country have less faith in the medical system than we once did — trust was at 80 percent in 1973, and in 2016 it is 39 percent."[1]

[1]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-dont-trust-th...

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#34

Post by onychomys »

etiam wrote: post #4

I'm tempted to flag this for sensationalist, overly dumbed down presentation of ordinary biology of viruses, but okay evidently some people found it valuable. As I remember it, the author's novel "The Hot Zone" (1994) was better writing and far better science around Ebola and other filoviruses.

Better writing, maybe, but the actual science in that book was a little sketchy.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-the-hot-zone-created-the-worst-m...

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#35

Post by alfromspace »

ziddoap wrote: post #33
alfromspace wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh goodness. Citation needed. And I'm curious whether you happen to be independently against deportation and incarceration. I suppose we'd better open the borders and prisons just to prevent disease, right? Or maybe there's a broader ideology at play here.

> "I suppose we'd better open the borders and prisons just to prevent disease, right?" That's one way to take something that no one is arguing for and turn it up to 11. At least try to argue in good faith. Edit: Found a source for you regarding trust in healthcare, for what it's worth. > A 2015 Pew study [...] We as a country have less faith in the medical system than we once did — trust was at 80 percent in 1973, an…

There's a tricky game being played. For instance, everyone is "against open borders", but they're for decriminalizing border crossing, against deporting anyone, and want free healthcare, housing, and education for everyone irrespective of legal presence. Then people cook up these theories about various forms of law enforcement supposedly promoting crime and disease by making people fearful of taking preventative actions, and we're expected to consider these arguments in isolation and believe you when you say "no one is arguing for" the thing every word you say argues for.

Maybe you two should try arguing in good faith.

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#37

Post by ziddoap »

alfromspace wrote: post #35
ziddoap wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I suppose we'd better open the borders and prisons just to prevent disease, right?" That's one way to take something that no one is arguing for and turn it up to 11. At least try to argue in good faith. Edit: Found a source for you regarding trust in healthcare, for what it's worth. > A 2015 Pew study [...] We as a country have less faith in the medical system than we once did — trust was at 80 percent in 1973, an…

There's a tricky game being played. For instance, everyone is "against open borders", but they're for decriminalizing border crossing, against deporting anyone, and want free healthcare, housing, and education for everyone irrespective of legal presence. Then people cook up these theories about various forms of law enforcement supposedly promoting crime and disease by making people fearful of taking preventative acti…

You asked for, and I supplied, a citation about trust in healthcare. What is bad faith about that?

I don't know what any of the other border stuff or law enforcement theories your talking about has to do with trust in the healthcare system, but feel free to continue making noise about it.

No one has said that open borders and no prisons prevents diseases.

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#38

Post by 5040 »

phs318u wrote: post #21
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't have universal healthcare when we stamped out polio, smallpox, or yellow fever. I don't know why you'd think it would stop us now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diseases_eliminated_fr...

Because at that time people didn’t distrust medical authorities like they do now (anti-vaxxers among others), and didn’t fear (as much) the other consequences of coming into contact with government agencies (incarceration/deportation).

>Because at that time people didn’t distrust medical authorities like they do now (anti-vaxxers among others)

I recommend taking a look at 'The State as an Immoral Factor' by Maria Louise Ramé--pseudonymously written in the late 1800's. Distrusting medical authorities is not a new phenomenon. Here's a small excerpt:

A few years ago nobody thought it a matter of the slightest consequence to be bitten by a healthy dog; as a veterinary surgeon has justly said, a scratch from a rusty nail or the jagged tin of a sardine-box is much more truly dangerous than a dog's tooth. Yet in the last five years the physiologists and the state, which in all countries protects them, have succeeded in so inoculating the public mind with senseless terrors that even the accidental touch of a puppy's lips or the kindly lick of his tongue throws thousands of people into an insanity of fear. Dr Bell has justly said: 'Pasteur does not cure rabies; he creates it' In like manner the state does not cure either folly or fear: it creates both.

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#39

Post by alfromspace »

ziddoap wrote: post #37
alfromspace wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a tricky game being played. For instance, everyone is "against open borders", but they're for decriminalizing border crossing, against deporting anyone, and want free healthcare, housing, and education for everyone irrespective of legal presence. Then people cook up these theories about various forms of law enforcement supposedly promoting crime and disease by making people fearful of taking preventative acti…

You asked for, and I supplied, a citation about trust in healthcare. What is bad faith about that? I don't know what any of the other border stuff or law enforcement theories your talking about has to do with trust in the healthcare system, but feel free to continue making noise about it. No one has said that open borders and no prisons prevents diseases.

Why don't you tell us what your positions on those topics are? I'm trying to look below the surface here.

I didn't see the citation when you first posted. I don't doubt it's valid, but the issue I had up the comment thread was with the theory that lowered faith in medical institutions is because of anti-vaxxers and fear of incarceration and deportation. Your source says nothing of the sort.

Re: Is Ebola Evolving into a Deadlier Virus?

#40

Post by wahern »

faitswulff wrote: post #6

Tangential, but if a virus's contagion is regulated by its virulence (that is, very deadly viruses are less contagious because they kill their hosts) does that mean widespread access to modern medicine could remove the upper bound on virulence by keeping the hosts alive? I could probably formulate this question better, but the basic question is, "could virus's symptoms be getting worse in general?"

> The problem with leaky vaccines, Read says, is that they enable pathogens to replicate unchecked while also protecting hosts from illness and death, thereby removing the costs associated with increased virulence.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-vaccines-can-drive-pathog...

NB: I thought I stumbled upon the above article--or one like it--through HN within the past few days, but I can't find the post. Maybe I found it following some other article link. shrug

Post reply on HN