This excellent comic (click to see full image) reminds me of a remark @raelifin made to me a few months ago—before this whole thing—something like "if everybody didn't interact for a couple of weeks, basically all colds & flus would die off"
8 tweets · April 2020 · 8 likes · 1 retweets · read on Twitter
This excellent comic (click to see full image) reminds me of a remark @raelifin made to me a few months ago—before this whole thing—something like "if everybody didn't interact for a couple of weeks, basically all colds & flus would die off"
obviously it's a bit more complex than that, including: - if people were in small groups, pathogens could jump around the group during that time long enough to survive to the other side 👩👩👧👦 - ...bats and other animals 🦇
...but at any rate, this is still kinda cool. I saw a tweet somewhere (couldn't find again now) with a chart showing how the flu season has been shortened due to all of the social distancing measures. Obvious short-term impact... could there be a longer-term one?
According to this article healthline.com/health/flu-inc… Flu incubation ~1-4days Flu contagious ~5-7 days after start of symptoms Those both just seem weaker than #COVID19, suggesting that social distancing at the level we're doing it could incidentally wipe out the flu too 😯
Similarly, colds have ~1-3 days incubation, ~7-10 days recovery. With people self-isolating, wearing masks, and also treating cold-like symptoms with WAY more precautions than usual... same possibility here. (probably less so due to longer lifespan & slower symptom onset)
Probably this won't happen, for various reasons, some of which I could guess at, but it's a fascinating notion. If social distancing measures were to continue into warmer months when R0 for flus/colds drops a lot anyway, it seems like that could *really* knock them out.
Based on thinking this through right now, I find myself with the impression that probably a couple of strains of something will die out, though we may not be able to tell given that there are lots of strains. Not a very bold prediction I realize 😂
Main reason this probably won't happen is that there are a lot of different places in the world with a lot of different factors, and like if Singapore is doing adequate contact tracing etc for #COVID19, then they'll still be hanging out & incubating flu for the rest of the world.
