I have a coworker who's son just got this diagnosis. This stuff is scary. They caught it fast and were able to treat it but he still lost most control of his left arm. Long road to recovery but it seems some kids aren't as lucky.
It's extremely rare, just barely at the level where epidemiology can inform decisions, which is the point of the linked article. Reporting is spotty and they're trying to get doctors educated.
Including several degrees of separation allows one to find matches much more readily.
Perhaps you've played six degrees of Kevin Bacon?
So you've got less than 30 people in this thread accounting for let's call it 60,000 second degree connections in a world with 7,700,000,000 people and less than 300 people world-wide with the illness.
I don't know, even with birthday paradox stuff it still seems pretty unlikely to me. Even if we say half the population are losers with no friends and should be excluded from the calculation and therefore bump that 45 figure to 90, 90^2*30 is still a mere 243,000. If you knock it up to three degrees of separation with 90 first degree connections per person, then for 30 people you're passed 21 million which is getting somewhere I guess.
The numbers in the Kevin Bacon game grow very fast, but they still start out relatively small. And two degrees is relatively small.
45 is probably much too low.
Your model there doesn't take into account any clustering which is really important.
You want to think of a higher number of first degree connections (higher average node degree), but where there's a large overlap in the second degree connections each first degree connection provides (so you can't just do N^6).
I have basically no power to protect against things like this. But I have tremendous power to protect against far more likely causes of harm like diabetes and heart disease and obesity.
So any time I'm having a moment of worry about their well being I find an extra hour to carve out of my day and take them to the park. It's therapeutic and makes me feel less helpless and feels like I'm gradually equipping them with the life trait of being an active person.
Not to mention cars, guns, and drowning.
I’m worried about medical malpractice. Quality stats are hard to come by, but it’s estimated to be up a top 3 killer after cancer and heart disease in the US!
By the way, we've found viruses that cause heart disease and obesity. There are no vaccines for these. Many viruses also cause cancer, not just the ones we have vaccines for.
Protecting against this is all about your day-by-day personal choices. Do you choose the restaurant with reusable metal forks, or the one that provides plastic ones in individual plastic bags? Do you choose the fruit salad and the veggie sandwich, or do you choose the applesauce and the hot soup? Do you touch your chair and then eat pizza with your hands, or do you push the chair with your foot and then still avoid eating any food that has been touched? Do you ride a crowded subway or drive your own car? Do you go to a movie theater or watch something at home?