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Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus

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Zero999:

--- Quote from: coppice on June 30, 2020, 10:30:52 am ---
--- Quote from: tom66 on June 29, 2020, 12:37:04 pm ---That is worse than Spanish Flu.

--- End quote ---
People love comparing any new infection with Spanish flu, but most of those comparisons miss something important. In 1920 most people worked almost to the point of death. They were typically fit enough to work until some point where they went downhill rapidly and were gone. Most people didn't spend years in a weak and vulnerable state, perhaps in care home, at the end of their lives. Now, retirement and care homes are a huge industry. We don't need something as powerful as Spanish flu to rip through a substantial section of the population. Any half assed infection novel enough to become widespread is a huge risk to the elderly, and new infections are popping up all the time. Just a couple of days ago I read about a new form of swine flu, while we are still in the middle of the COVID-19 problem. The inevitability of new pathogens needs to be factored into how society functions. Remember that Beijing was a large city when the largest cites in Europe were much smaller, and limited by their infection related death rates. Beijing was big through a single innovation in Chinese culture - hygiene. They didn't clean up the place because of an understanding of biology. It was mostly a cultural thing, because the city folk had to be more refined than the plebs in the countryside, but it worked. Civil engineering has done more to make the modern world healthy than any medical care. We need to up our hygiene game once again.

--- End quote ---
I agree, we can't compare COVID-19 to the Spanish flu, because the health of the human population and level of medical care aren't equal.

The Spanish flu disproportionately affected younger people, whislt COVID-19 tends to kill the old, as most viruses do. This could be because conditions favoured more spread in sicker, young patients. Normally when people get flu, the sicker they become, the more likely they'll stay in and not go to work, thus transmitting it to fewer people, than those who have a milder illness, which tends to make it less deadly, over time. In the case of the Spanish flu, there are large outbreaks on the battlefield and the sickest people were transported to hospital, allowing the infection to be transmitted to medical personnel, who spreaded it further. As with COVID-19, lots of the damage is caused by the immune response, so younger people with strong immune systems were disproportionately affected. Unfortunately we don't know why the same isn't the case with COVID-19.

We now have better treatments and people are more well fed, than back in 1918, which would have made the Spanish flu more deadly, than if the same disease would occur today. One of the reasons why the Asian flu pandemic of 1958 wasn't as bad, was probably due to better diets, healthcare and a vaccine being developed.

Unfortunately if COVID-19 mutates, I suspect it will be to increase the length of the asymptomatic period, rathar than becomming less deadly, because we're quarantining people.

DrG:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on June 30, 2020, 11:15:46 am ---/--/
Unfortunately if COVID-19 mutates, I suspect it will be to increase the length of the asymptomatic period, rathar than becomming less deadly, because we're quarantining people.

--- End quote ---

The virus mutates with some regularity. Question becomes whether there are biologically significant mutations and do they become dominant. There is some compelling evidence that the D614G mutation is both https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/06/29/coronavirus-mutation-science/?arc404=true

It is speculative, but there is some evidence/belief that the mutation effect speeds transmission.

tom66:
One of the biggest reasons the Spanish Flu spread in younger populations was because men were on the front lines and were returning home.  Men of fighting age (18 ~ 30(?)) will have been most badly affected because of this.  The secondary issue is that governments of the time covered up the virus because it was so devastating to morale.  So people didn't take precautions as seriously as they should have. The name "Spanish Flu" comes from neutral Spain being the only country to regularly report on the virus so people believed it to be of Spanish origin. It was likely a mutated form of Russian Flu.  This could also indicate a third reason as many older individuals had the milder Russian Flu during the 1890 pandemic, and had effectively gained immunity to Spanish Flu being so similar.

maginnovision:
It's official. Here in LA you can protest but you can not celebrate Independence day since fireworks are outlawed, no exceptions. You are allowed to stay home though, I guess that's nice.

rsjsouza:
The idiocy of certain local governments astonishes me...

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