
List of Epidemics - kashgoudarzi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
======
brownbat
So many recent ones from mosquitoes, dengue or chikungunya.

More than almost any other near future technology, I hope for humanity's sake
we quickly perfect a way to eradicate that demon insect.

~~~
reactspa
Mosquitoes don't pollinate, but they're food for a bunch of other animals up
the food chain, no? (e.g. frogs?).

So if we did eliminate mosquitoes, it's probably not going to be a clear win.

~~~
Consultant32452
There's over 3000 species of mosquitoes. Only 3 of those species are the
primary carriers of these diseases. Only 1 species carries malaria. So we only
gotta get rid of a small portion of mosquitoes.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/gro...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/group/mosquitoes/)

~~~
kikoreis
I know there is some science backing the general approach, but doesn't
evolution tend to pressure the virus developing different vectors, when faced
with eradication? There is probably a good subset of the 2997 other species
that could serve the purpose.

~~~
lotsofpulp
> but doesn't evolution tend to pressure the virus developing different
> vectors, when faced with eradication?

What does evolution “pressuring” mean? Either the organism (or virus) has
sufficient chances to randomly mutate a a trait that enables it to survive, or
it goes extinct.

~~~
kikoreis
Well, I meant
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_pressure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_pressure)

Think of a population as holding at any given time a number of individuals
carrying mutations. The fringe mutations, such as being able to be hosted by a
different type of mosquito (say, better survivability in the host) don't
provide much of a benefit to survival. But if the default host population goes
away, those mutations become super valuable and will be selected.

See [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/transgenic-
mosqui...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/transgenic-mosquitoes/)
for a discussion on this topic.

------
njharman
I find it hard to get perspective on how devastating and society affecting the
Spanish Flu was. Fifty to a hundred million. Dead. 3-5% of the world's humans
gone. More from the prime of life than typical for disease. This on tail end
of World War One which also killed many more young men.

History we should remember.

~~~
throwaway5752
We should also remember that there is nothing about the Wuhan coronavirus that
is anything like H1N1 influenza virus.

Wuhan is causing respiratory infection that leads to pneumonia. H1N1 caused
inflammatory immune reactions
([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/)).

So far this virus seems closer to a bad seasonal influenza. 2% mortality rate
concentrated in populations over 65 years old. The 2019 Li paper in Lancet had
similar numbers in China for the flu. Similar reproduction rate.

I'm not an expert, but some people are are panicking and buying surgical masks
(borderline useless) and food supplies. Mass panic reactions are deadly and
avoidable.

~~~
allovernow
>I'm not an expert, but some people are are panicking and buying surgical
masks (borderline useless)

N95 masks are effective in filtering out viruses. Also your conclusions put a
lot of implicit faith into numbers reported by the Chinese Communist Party,
which has a strong incentive to minimize the problem and probably one of the
most facilitating authoritarian cultures to do so.

------
krilly
Doesn't mention the mysterious sleeping sickness epidemic of the early 20th
century [0]. I learned of it through Oliver Sacks' writings. Survivors were
afflicted by a permanent neurological change:

> They would be conscious and aware – yet not fully awake; they would sit
> motionless and speechless all day in their chairs, totally lacking energy,
> impetus, initiative, motive, appetite, affect or desire; they registered
> what went on about them without active attention, and with profound
> indifference.

I can't help but be reminded of the current wave of chronic fatigue. I feel
that modern doctors are too... hubristic? to find novel treatments for this
like L-dopa.

[0]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica)

~~~
maxerickson
Why do you think that about modern doctors?

Modern doctors certainly aren't going to find a bunch of amino acids that a
patient may be deficient in, because that work is already done (the finding of
the amino acids, not the finding of potential deficiencies).

~~~
krilly
Perhaps hubristic is an unfair description.

As far as I know Sacks was treating patients with L-DOPA on a hunch, based on
the surface similarities if their symptoms with Parkinson's. Positive results
for L-DOPA with Parkinson's had only been published the year previously.

Doctors like Sacks were happy to really explore with their patients. You can
see from his books just how many things he tries to get through to them, and
into their heads.

Nowadays it seems that psychiatry treats depression etc. like a solved
problem, and continue to use tools and medications that work marginally better
than placebo. Promising experimental therapies like ketamine and psilocybin
have been stuck in the pipeline for decades.

I know Sacks is an exceptional doctor, and that there were downsides to this
'see what sticks' approach, but I highly recommend his books if you want to
get depressed about the state of modern medicine.

~~~
sfkdjf9j3j
There are a lot of good ethical and statistical reasons that drug research is
done within a more formal framework today. And there are some avenues for
patients with poor outlooks to try "hail mary" drugs.

------
zeristor
No mention of the Tudor Sweating Sickness, as mentioned in Wolf Hall a
dramatisation if Thomas Cromwell:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness)

I would of thought some bodies could be exhumed an analysed as to what it
might have been.

This was in the thousands, is there a reason why it’s not on the list?

~~~
ani-ani
Looks like someone just added it.

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ekianjo
The yearly typical flu is not included while it easily kills a lot more than
every other one in that list... So this is heavily biased.

~~~
fsh
Probably the rise above the baseline is not large enough in most years. But
yes, Influenza and Malaria would easily top the list every year with hundreds
of thousands of casualties.

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mmhsieh
if you were a particularly sinister CCP official, might you consider releasing
a virus on purpose to quell the riots in HK? i have no evidence for this but
from a cui bono perspective, it would be a diabolically efficient plan with
some plausible deniability.

~~~
ipnon
The fact is that the virus originated in a bat in a wet market. Bats are known
carriers of coronavirus in China.

The virus originated in Wuhan. Residents of Wuhan have to cross a controlled
border to enter Hong Kong. Hong Kong has 2 orders of magnitude less infections
than Hubei province.

Biological weapons are typically highly deadly and not transmissible between
humans. You want to be able to target specific populations with a biological
weapon. The virus isn't affecting young protestors in Hong Kong, it is mainly
affecting people with already compromised immune systems throughout central
China.

I hope that we can take the unreasonable accusations of conspiracy by the CCP
as an opportunity to examine our own biases and preconceptions regarding
China. The CCP is often incentivized to misinform and censor. We have seen
this at the regional level with the Hubei governments slow response to this
outbreak. I can find no indication, nor think of any reason why, the CCP is
not working diligently with international cooperation to contain this virus.

