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Comment by collyw | Hacker News Reader

Realistically the could eliminate influenza by staying isolated from the rest of the world, just like they did with covid. Would it be worth it?

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Unfortunately influenza has animal reservoirs that COVID-19 does not seem to. It is unlikely we could permanently eliminate it. Maybe a few seasons of reduced numbers, but that's probably the best you could expect.

Possibly dumb question: since SARS-CoV-2 came from bats originally, are bats not an animal reservoir for it?

They are, they are also a reservoir of many other unknown diseases yet to come. But people don't get into close contact with bats as often (unfortunately this time it probably happened from the unsanitary Chinese wet markets).

It did not come directly from bats to humans, there was another intermediate host species. We don't know which, pangolins possibly, or minks or some other species, probably in closer contact to humans than bats.

Right. The other thing is that (as far as I know) there are no species in which sars-cov-2 is endemic. It may be that (besides humans) there had only ever been one other carrier of this particular virus. There are probably close relatives of sars-cov-2 that are common in bat species, but not necessarily the exact same strain.

Flu jumps from animals (birds and pigs) frequently so you will have to do that all the time. Not worth it

Isolated from the rest of the world forever? Probably not worth it

Have you met the rest of the world? I'd rather spend an age in Lothlórien than deal with Trump. I mean, at least Sauron actually had Infrastructure Week.

We can come and go.

If the alternative is a high risk of death then yes, I guess.

It seems unlikely such isolation is going to be needed to eradicate influenza. A universal flu vaccine ("FLU-v") passed phase 1 and 2 clinical trials earlier this year [1] [2], and is moving on to phase 3 trials.

[1] https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-universal-flu-vaccine...

[2] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=FLU-v&cntr...

I mean, they could just mandate flu vaccine for everyone in or entering the country. I can see that being sufficient, without continuing the cumbersome isolation policies post-COVID.

Flu vaccines are probably not effective enough, even if 100% of the population was vaccinated.

Flu vaccines work, they just don't work perfectly. Many years you'd still get sick, the severity is just attenuated by the flu vaccine.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm

> recent studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine.

There's not one single "flu" - when you get a flu vaccination it's good for some particular strains which are (iirc) prevalent or particularly virulent at a given point when they're administered.

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