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Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

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Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#71

Post by giantg2 »

me_me_me wrote: post #50
giantg2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The moment we beat the covid..." I hope you're right, but I feel like that's overly optimistic.

With working vaccines its the matter of when not if. What makes you think otherwise?

What makes you think that a vaccine will eradicate this disease? We have vaccines for many diseases that still exist today - influenza, varicella, etc. Even polio has proved tricky to globally eradicate, and vaccines for this have been in existence for over 50 years. The diseases that have been essentially eradicated, such as smallpox, is something that does not require vaccination on a continual/annual basis.

Covid has been mutating and spreading to other species. It is also believed that immunity is short lived, about 1 year. The virus will be endemic (if not already) in global wildlife and agricultural animal populations indefinitely. This will mean that you can't eradicate it and what yearly vaccinations will be required. This also presents the potential that new mutations will continue to emerge and that one or more will not be protected against by the vaccine.

These concerns don't even address that parts of the population will refuse to get the vaccine. Or that the vaccine does not completely protect against infection/transmission, as seen in it's effectiveness being measured as preventing severe symptoms (which is part of why you still need to wear a mask after vaccination).

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#72

Post by faitswulff »

loveistheanswer wrote: post #63
faitswulff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of any coronavirus variants coming out of South Korea, China, or New Zealand? No. That’s because they don’t have uncontrolled spread there, which leads to mutations due to the virus’s exposure to heterogenous immunity in the population. So uncontrolled spread doesn’t necessarily shorten the duration of the pandemic. All of which is actually incidental to the point I was making, that the hygiene hypothe…

>Have you heard of any coronavirus variants coming out of South Korea, China, or New Zealand? No. That’s because they don’t have uncontrolled spread there, which leads to mutations due to the virus’s exposure to heterogenous immunity in the population. That's one hypothesis. Don't particular populations already have a degree of natural herd immunity to viruses which are commonly found in their proximity, compared to…

The term you’re looking for is cross-reactivity and it’s possible that populations have some cross reactivity to COVID. In fact, I’ve heard a hypothesis that the pandemic of 1890 was the predecessor of one of the common cold coronaviruses.

Regardless, New Zealand is clearly not an Asian country.

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#73

Post by clairity »

faitswulff wrote: post #67
clairity wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mutations happen not as a response to effective defenses as implied by 'heterogenous immunity', but because the replication process is chaotic, introducing a range of defects and accidental benefits. it's a random process as likely to prolong as it is to shorten the duration, so has no persuasive power in your direction. as for your second point, we're exposed to coronaviruses of all sorts already (viruses that have…

Immunity plus uncontrolled spread necessarily exposes the virus to selective pressures to mutate resistance to those immunities.

immunity plus spread necessarily exposes the virus to selective pressures. 'uncontrolled' isn't special in this regard.

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#74

Post by faitswulff »

spookthesunset wrote: post #70
faitswulff wrote: post #4

There's a difference between being exposed to dirt and being exposed to viral diseases, though. Playing outside in the leaves will likely trigger healthy immune responses. Contracting COVID-19 may lead to long term health issues.

Any respiratory virus can cause long term health issues in some people. Covid is absolutely not unique in that regard.

Then we should continue to wear masks!

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#75

Post by faitswulff »

clairity wrote: post #73
faitswulff wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immunity plus uncontrolled spread necessarily exposes the virus to selective pressures to mutate resistance to those immunities.

immunity plus spread necessarily exposes the virus to selective pressures. 'uncontrolled' isn't special in this regard.

Right, and in places where there is no spread or very limited spread, you will get far fewer successful mutations.

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#76

Post by spookthesunset »

curtis3389 wrote: post #62
9985479945_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is dangerous and problematic. Your ISP is hopefully monitoring this disinformation

Perhaps this comment is dangerous and problematic. The idea that your ISP should be monitoring the semantic content of their customers is disturbing, and you imply that they should do something about content that, what?, they don't like? That they think is illegal? That the government tells them to report on? This is constantly recurring debate on HN. What is the appropriate level of censorship? Who should be censori…

In some peoples mind even questioning or being skeptical of many of the more extreme covid claims and actions is extremely dangerous. According to some “experts” we shouldn’t be allowed to research covid, look at public covid data sets, or even think very hard about it. We should, instead, have almost complete blind faith in a handful of “experts” and just roll over and do whatever they recommend.

A ton of our actions in the last 11 months have been accepted based on nothing but appeals to authority. More disturbing is how many real life people I talk with whose arguments for all our restrictions boil down to raw appeals to authority.

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#77

Post by spookthesunset »

faitswulff wrote: post #74
spookthesunset wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any respiratory virus can cause long term health issues in some people. Covid is absolutely not unique in that regard.

Then we should continue to wear masks!

Forever, I assume.

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#79

Post by giantg2 »

6DM wrote: post #68
me_me_me wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With working vaccines its the matter of when not if. What makes you think otherwise?

Unfortunately people have to actually take those vaccines, there's a high percentage of people saying no and/or waiting to see how things play out.

And it's annually, not just once and done for eradicated diseases, like smallpox. The vast majority of the population would have to take the vaccine every year. That's going to be a challenge to keep the population vaccinated.

Re: Scientists fear pandemic's 'hyper hygiene' could have long-term health impacts

#80

Post by faitswulff »

spookthesunset wrote: post #77
faitswulff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we should continue to wear masks!

Forever, I assume.

Yeah, if you’re sick or near sick people, it’s probably a good idea. It’s standard practice in Asia.

Here’s a Taiwanese children’s show from three years ago encouraging mask wearing: https://youtu.be/qXaD871hXnc?t=18s

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