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How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

quantamagazine.org

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Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#71

Post by smegsicle »

roywashere wrote: post #6
swayvil wrote: post #4

There is also bodily vigor to consider. When you are strong you are resistant. When you are weak you are susceptible. The difference can be huge. It's a good argument for clean living, regular exercise etc.

When I was sixteen I sailed a lot on the lakes in my neighborhood. I was strong and healthy and thought: what could microbes do against 1 meter 90 of me? So I drank the water from the lake to see what would happen. I became rather sick to my stomach :-) and I considered defeat

about how much lakewater are we talking

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#72

Post by southernplaces7 »

dorfsmay wrote: post #44
vikramkr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep that's called vaccination! No need to get a full blown infection it's how we eradicated smallpox

Vaccination is using deactivated viruses. My question is can we get the same effect from exposure to small doses of live viruses. The articles says exposure to tiny amount can "boost" immunity, which I assume means an immunity acquired earlier from a full blown infection (or vaccination).

As with many things in medicine, it depends on specifics and context. With some viruses, this might work, and with others it could kill you. Vaccination itself is tricky partly for this very reason as far as I know (not a doctor or epidemiologist).

Variolation for example, the predecessor to the world's first practice of vaccination (against smallpox) involved taking tiny amounts of live smallpox from scabs or pustules and giving them to people intentionally for a much lighter infection course that made them immune without the usually killing or horrifically disfiguring blow of a full smallpox infection. (look up photos of smallpox scars in survivors, warning, it gets graphic. Even many famous figures like Stalin were completely pockmarked by the scars of the virus for the rest of their lives, as you can see in unedited photos of the dictator)

It usually worked, but sometimes the patients got really sick anyhow and died. By the standards of the time, when fully a third of the population could expect to die from some epidemic disease or another, this was considered wonderful. Today it wouldn't be and thus the complexities of carefully calibrating vaccines.

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#73

Post by AnthonBerg »

stopping wrote: post #55
AnthonBerg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The surgeon is wearing it because of an old, old misinterpretation of reality. This article is factually accurate: https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...

Your assessment is a non-sequitur to the article. Surgeons wear masks to protect the patient, because masks are very effective at trapping both droplets and aerosols that are emitted from the wearer. They are not designed to protect the user from lingering aerosols as masks are too loose to form a good seal, so most air breathed in simply enters from around the sides of the mask.

Surgical masks defined as the ones that gape at the sides are comparatively ineffective at stopping aerosolized particles.

The idea that ballistic droplets are the primary means of infection is the old, old misunderstanding.

If we compare the objective of preventing transmission of pathogens from surgeon to patient to the objective of covering nudity, surgical masks are as effective as shorts.

Seeing as the objective is the objective, the ends should define the means. Therefore it is clear that any use of surgical masks is a fundamental and entrenched misunderstanding.

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#74

Post by AnthonBerg »

sfblah wrote: post #63
AnthonBerg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The un-cited Cochrane review in question does not say that. From Cochrane.org: Statement on 'Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce ... - Cochrane Mar 10, 2023 Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that 'masks don't work', which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation. It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearin…

I would encourage readers to read the “Main results” section of the review for themselves. It takes under 5 minutes. Don’t trust a commenter on any online forum on this topic (myself included), as it’s completely politicized.

Also read the studies themselves.

And the criticism of the Cochrane-method review.

And the studies not cited.

As well as the studies on the mechanics of transmission.

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#75

Post by ABCLAW »

dorfsmay wrote: post #44
vikramkr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep that's called vaccination! No need to get a full blown infection it's how we eradicated smallpox

Vaccination is using deactivated viruses. My question is can we get the same effect from exposure to small doses of live viruses. The articles says exposure to tiny amount can "boost" immunity, which I assume means an immunity acquired earlier from a full blown infection (or vaccination).

Vaccination generally uses an adjuvant to increase immune response to the target antigen in order to provoke a response strong enough to produce lasting immunogenic memory. Antigens alone in small numbers aren't enough.

Taking random adjuvants consistently after minimal exposure to environmental antigens is more likely to give you deleterious allergies or issues associated with chronic inflammation.

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#76

Post by AnthonBerg »

sokoloff wrote: post #57
AnthonBerg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The un-cited Cochrane review in question does not say that. From Cochrane.org: Statement on 'Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce ... - Cochrane Mar 10, 2023 Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that 'masks don't work', which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation. It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearin…

It looks like FFP3 are analogous to N99 masks. A mask mandate that permits "wrap a piece of T-shirt over your mouth, some of the time, sometimes even covering your nose" (which is not far from what I saw for much of 2020) is, unsurprisingly, going to be more effective at ensuring grudging compliance with a mandate than it is to reduce the spread of an airborne virus.

Precisely.

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#77

Post by AnthonBerg »

sfblah wrote: post #62
sokoloff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like FFP3 are analogous to N99 masks. A mask mandate that permits "wrap a piece of T-shirt over your mouth, some of the time, sometimes even covering your nose" (which is not far from what I saw for much of 2020) is, unsurprisingly, going to be more effective at ensuring grudging compliance with a mandate than it is to reduce the spread of an airborne virus.

This is the problem with mask absolutists. They take data from masks that are super effective (hospital setting, correct usage, basically gluing the mask to your face) and extrapolate it to some guy on the subway with a cloth mask. It’s a bad way to make public policy, and I don’t really understand the motivation behind it.

I am not a mask absolutist.

Close family is at risk of severe illness or death from COVID. We provide for a small child. We do not have much margin.

I’d like to ask you to imagine the social repercussions of masking. It’s hard. I do not want to be weird. I do not want to be an outcast, practically speaking. I don’t want to wear a mask.

I just don’t have any margin in the other direction.

Also:

What is it about a hospital setting that makes a given type of mask more effective?

Answer: Nothing.

Hospitals are places where it’s easier to run a trial, and where it’s harder to avoid infection.

Face-fitting masks do not require glue. Fitting a mask isn’t that hard.

Cloth masks don’t work and never did.

The objective is to not die or be maimed by a virulent pathogen, or rather: to have the option. Clarity on effective means for those who want it. I want effective means because I need them. The objective is not social classification of mask wearers or categorization of discussion types or labeling people as cartoons.

The objective is clear information as input into serious personal decision-making. The guy on the subway is not in scope.

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#78

Post by sokoloff »

AnthonBerg wrote: post #77
sfblah wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem with mask absolutists. They take data from masks that are super effective (hospital setting, correct usage, basically gluing the mask to your face) and extrapolate it to some guy on the subway with a cloth mask. It’s a bad way to make public policy, and I don’t really understand the motivation behind it.

I am not a mask absolutist. Close family is at risk of severe illness or death from COVID. We provide for a small child. We do not have much margin. I’d like to ask you to imagine the social repercussions of masking. It’s hard . I do not want to be weird. I do not want to be an outcast, practically speaking. I don’t want to wear a mask. I just don’t have any margin in the other direction. Also: What is it about a hos…

I think hospital workers experience with wearing masks (and the resulting "they have chosen a mask size and from experience have adjusted the mask to make it comfortable and effective") and the ability for the hospital to prohibit facial hair in their workers that's incompatible with effective mask use are key differences between hospital staff and Joe/Jane Public on the streets.

In terms of being weird: there are enough people wearing masks and most people literally care more about what they're going to have for dinner than whether or not you're wearing a mask. If a mask helps your family, don't worry about the epsilon weird aspect (as I'm sure you have already calculated).

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#79

Post by kbutler »

dorfsmay wrote: post #65
jameshart wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you are suggesting the basic mechanism of inoculation, which has been known for centuries and is the fundamental mechanism behind vaccination, as if it’s a novel hypothesis. Have I misunderstood what you’re getting at?

Dosage. Vaccines use deactivated viruses, but I don't think they use "tiny amount".

https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html

To test his theory, Dr. Jenner took material from a cowpox sore on milkmaid Sarah Nelmes’ hand and inoculated it into the arm of James Phipps, the 9-year-old son of Jenner’s gardener. Months later, Jenner exposed Phipps several times to variola virus, but Phipps never developed smallpox. More experiments followed, and, in 1801, Jenner published his treatise “On the Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation.” ... Vaccination became widely accepted and gradually replaced the practice of variolation. At some point in the 1800s, the virus used to make the smallpox vaccine changed from cowpox to vaccinia virus.

Re: How many microbes does it take to make you sick?

#80

Post by jeffbee »

sfblah wrote: post #66
maxerickson wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say that, you are saying that the policy was put in place in bad faith in order to inconvenience the people that didn't like it. The argument is more ridiculous than the policy. Here there was never an outdoor mask policy, so I didn't ever have a chance to evaluate my reaction to such a thing. There was apparently a policy banning stores like Walmart from selling seeds (which I interpreted as bureaucratic fr…

There’s a fine line between a policy being intended to harm and just being stupid. Regardless of the rationale, I was just trying to demonstrate how such policies were in fact weaponized. You can do some reading about the Bay Area and debates over whether government policies are in bad faith. I think it’s at least arguable that some are in fact in bad faith (meaning, no one really thinks they’ll serve any public purp…

Nothing was "weaponized" by this order, which 100% of people ignored.
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