Worse Cases - Printable Version
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Worse Cases - Genuine Realist - 04-11-2020
During the lull, I have been going over a Great Courses presentation I bought some time ago, The Economic History of the World since 1400, which I have linked, since the material is terrific, even though the lecturer is maybe the dullest public speaker I have ever heard. He begins with a summary of the 14th Century (1300-1400), easily the worst century in recorded history in Eurasia.
It featured war - the Hundred Year's War was fought largely in that century - and famine. Abrupt climate change (!) at the beginning of the century resulted in rainier, longer winters in Europe and failed harvests. (The new conditions held sway for the next few centuries.) Five to ten percent of the English population died of hunger in the first quarter of the century. But on the other end of the land mass, drier conditions forced ground rodents into areas they had not frequented, there was some flea hopping, and that brought with it the Black Death.
It began in China, and maybe even the Wuhan province - the speaker mentions in passing that the city of Hubei lost 90% of its population. In any case, it devastated China, then came west with the Mongol invaders along the Silk Road. Its introduction to Europe came at the seige of Kaffa in the Crimea in 1343-1356. Eastern rats met Western rats, then came West to Genoa on with Genoese merchants. The plague first appeared in 1347. Then all hell broke loose.
Between 1350 and 1370 - in just, twenty years - the continent of Europe lost 50% of its population. Wow. For example, in Italy the population of the city of Florence, 110 to 120,000 in 1338 was reduced to 38,000 in 1356. London lost half its citizens, Paris 80%. The population of Europe did not recover to pre-plague levels for more than 200 years, to 1600.
I'm writing this because one can envision a virus that is far more devastating than C-19. We have in fact experienced that, as noted. Of course, health standards and medical knowledge are infinitely greater than what was known in 1340. You read about medieval hygiene and you wonder how anyone lived to be ten. Also, an outbreak that has a mortality rate of even 10%, let alone the horrific rate of the Black Death, would have caused world wide panic within days of identification. There would be an instant reaction, not the comparatively slow awakening here.
But even so, we are dealing with a virus that in some respects is much milder than it might have been. Something to keep in mind, as the world shrinks. Before the Black Death, the last major disease wave to sweep through Europe was during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, nearly 800 years before. Now we see new flus seasonally, and pandemics every decade. We certainly have not seen the last, and quite possibly not even the most serious.
RE: Worse Cases - BostonCard - 04-11-2020
Ironically the black death (bubonic plague) is a bacterial infection and on the few times it rears its head up, is fairly easily treatable with antibiotics as commonplace as cipro or doxycycline. However, even with antibiotics it carries a mortality of about 1%.
BC
RE: Worse Cases - Genuine Realist - 04-11-2020
(04-11-2020, 07:39 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Ironically the black death (bubonic plague) is a bacterial infection and on the few times it rears its head up, is fairly easily treatable with antibiotics as commonplace as cipro or doxycycline. However, even with antibiotics it carries a mortality of about 1%.
BC
I'm aware it's bacterial, but the point is we can easily envision a virus with a much higher mortality rate than C-19. We may have gotten off lucky. There may be waves coming in which we are not so lucky.
RE: Worse Cases - Snorlax94 - 04-11-2020
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(04-11-2020, 07:19 PM)Genuine Realist Wrote: But even so, we are dealing with a virus that in some respects is much milder than it might have been. Something to keep in mind, as the world shrinks. Before the Black Death, the last major disease wave to sweep through Europe was during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, nearly 800 years before. Now we see new flus seasonally, and pandemics every decade. We certainly have not seen the last, and quite possibly not even the most serious.I share your concern, though I consider a different root cause. I have been struck how many assume this will be a once-in-a-century experience, after SARS, AIDS, MERS, Ebola, Zika, West Nile, H1N1.
My impression from some news stories (one on CNN with Sanjay Gupta) is that animals like bats already have many diseases that could be devastating to humans. They could have been around for many years. It’s just that now, as developers go deeper into the jungles in China, deeper into the jungles of Brazil and Africa, we are rubbing up against more and more animals who could already be dying of diseases that would be lethal to us.
I don’t see what the solution will be. Maybe China will finally close its wet markets, but countries — China, Brazil, the US, African nations — will keep developing available undeveloped land, and I fear it could continue to unleash diseases from the animals and insects living there.
Even in CA, near Coalinga, in recent years we’ve unleashed “Valley Fever” that has killed some Californians and does not yet have a surefire cure, and the hypothesis is that we unearthed these spores by digging up the lands in that region. Luckily, it’s not contagious, and few get sick, but what if it was contagious?
I don’t say this with some kind of “don’t touch undeveloped lands” ego-agenda. I view this as an underlying cause of these diseases that actually may not be “new”, and why I worry we will encounter new ones over and over in the years ahead. For one, hopefully the US and the world will get better at containing pandemics. And thankfully, not all of them are contagious, or they aren’t asymptomatic. Also, countries clearly should develop more capacity to domestically produce certain critical medical (or essential supplies). Maybe we shouldn’t run our supply chains quite so tightly. But also, maybe the world needs to adopt new guidelines about developing new lands, that will helps reduce the risk of run-ins with new diseases. I also don’t think it’d be too intrusive to start checking peoples’ temperatures at every airport, permanently (I’ve seen videos of the Chinese using scans that don’t require you to walk up to every person).
RE: Worse Cases - BostonCard - 04-11-2020
Ironically, part of what has allowed the virus to spread so fast is that not everyone gets sick. With SARS and Ebola, it’s easy to identify and quarantine the exposed, because almost no one is spreading the virus undetected. With COVID-19, not only do you have folks who are asymptomatic, you have a large group of folks (particularly young ones) whose symptoms are so nondescript as to be camouflaged. That makes it worse, in many ways, than diseases that cause more severe symptoms and have a higher mortality.
BC
RE: Worse Cases - 82lsju - 04-12-2020
(04-11-2020, 09:46 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: My impression from some news stories (one on CNN with Sanjay Gupta) is that animals like bats already have many diseases that could be devastating to humans. They could have been around for many years. It’s just that now, as developers go deeper into the jungles in China, deeper into the jungles of Brazil and Africa, we are rubbing up against more and more animals who could already be dying of diseases that would be lethal to us.
Quote:Viruses that jump from animals to people, like the one responsible for COVID-19, will likely become more common as people continue to transform natural habitats into agricultural land, according to a new Stanford study.
https://news.stanford.edu/2020/04/08/understanding-spread-disease-animals-human/
RE: Worse Cases - oldalum - 04-12-2020
(04-11-2020, 09:46 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote: Even in CA, near Coalinga, in recent years we’ve unleashed “Valley Fever” that has killed some Californians and does not yet have a surefire cure, and the hypothesis is that we unearthed these spores by digging up the lands in that region.I think it's well-accepted and proven at this point. There was an interesting study after one of the big earthquakes in L.A. that traced a bunch of new cases of it downwind from landslides and aftershocks from the earthquake.
here's the study:
JAMA. 1997 Mar 19;277(11):904-8.
A coccidioidomycosis outbreak following the Northridge, Calif, earthquake.
Schneider E1, Hajjeh RA, Spiegel RA, Jibson RW, Harp EL, Marshall GA, Gunn RA, McNeil MM, Pinner RW, Baron RC, Burger RC, Hutwagner LC, Crump C, Kaufman L, Reef SE, Feldman GM, Pappagianis D, Werner SB.
Author information
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
To describe a coccidioidomycosis outbreak in Ventura County following the January 1994 earthquake, centered in Northridge, Calif, and to identify factors that increased the risk for acquiring acute coccidioidomycosis infection.
DESIGN:
Epidemic investigation, population-based skin test survey, and case-control study.
SETTING:
Ventura County, California.
RESULTS:
In Ventura County, between January 24 and March 15, 1994, 203 outbreak-associated coccidioidomycosis cases, including 3 fatalities, were identified (attack rate [AR], 30 cases per 100,000 population). The majority of cases (56%) and the highest AR (114 per 100,000 population) occurred in the town of Simi Valley, a community located at the base of a mountain range that experienced numerous landslides associated with the earthquake. Disease onset for cases peaked 2 weeks after the earthquake. The AR was 2.8 times greater for persons 40 years of age and older than for younger persons (relative risk, 2.8; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.1-3.7; P<.001). Environmental data indicated that large dust clouds, generated by landslides following the earthquake and strong aftershocks in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Simi Valley, were dispersed into nearby valleys by northeast winds. Simi Valley case-control study data indicated that physically being in a dust cloud (odds ratio, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.6-5.4; P<.001) and time spent in a dust cloud (P<.001) significantly increased the risk for being diagnosed with acute coccidioidomycosis.
CONCLUSIONS:
Both the location and timing of cases strongly suggest that the coccidioidomycosis outbreak in Ventura County was caused when arthrospores were spread in dust clouds generated by the earthquake. This is the first report of a coccidioidomycosis outbreak following an earthquake. Public and physician awareness, especially in endemic areas following similar dust cloud-generating events, may result in prevention and early recognition of acute coccidioidomycosis.
RE: Worse Cases - fullmetal - 04-12-2020
Thankfully the coronavirus family is not prone to drastic mutations in the way the flu virus is capable of performing on a near-annual basis. I heard there was a hantavirus outbreak in China recently...and bird flu is striking chicken flocks in South Carolina.
There was a pandemic exercise hosted by Johns Hopkins University in October of 2019 modeling a coronavirus pandemic with lower R0 and higher mortality than SARS-CoV-2 (iirc)...this was not an unforeseen event. That, and the neglect of the pandemic playbook along with the crippling actions that blinded our public health institutions, makes this more of a tragedy rather than an unforeseen black swan event.
Google "Event 201" and "Johns Hopkins University."