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Comment by nexuist | Hacker News Reader

I suppose it is possible, but is it really likely that you'll get bitten by a bat who draws blood and not wake up to the pain of such a bite? Is it likely you'll even get bitten by a bat at all? I thought you have to really fuck with them and be in like a cave or something to be exposed to that kind of risk. I mean, they hang upside down from high vantage points right? Unless you're sleeping in a tree and also flailing around your hands to try to beat the shit out of a bat in your sleep, I don't think any bat would come near you let alone attempt to bite your skin, let alone when you're just laying down and not moving around much.

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Apparently the current risk calculus is that if you know you were sleeping in an enclosed area with bats, the vaccine will be recommended, because they can indeed occasionally bite relatively painlessly. (Source: I had two friends who slept in a barn and discovered the next day that there were bats living in the barn; they were then given the vaccine even though they didn't feel anything.)

It's a weird case of very large numbers being multiplied by very small numbers. Like, you're very unlikely to be bitten by a bat even if you're near one, a given bat is very unlikely to have rabies, if you did somehow get bitten by a rabid bat you're almost certain to die unless you get the vaccine (but the vaccine is almost certain to save you if so), and the vaccine is very expensive (and, in its older formulation, very unpleasant, though much less so more recently). So that's a lot of things that point in all different directions in terms of the decision.

When I was bit by a bat, I didn't feel it and only noticed the bite until I saw the tiniest amount of blood. I was awake too... Not saying it's a common occurrence, but rabies is such a terrible way to go.

Vampire bats specialized in drawing blood from sleeping victims without waking them. It is rare for them to find human targets, but it happens sometimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_bat#Human_health

My understanding is that a bat trapped in a building with humans can get dehydrated, and they try to get moisture from people's mouths when they're sleeping.

Not every one is super informed and insured. Millions of people would wait it out a while before seeking care.

Not commenting on the likelihood of rabies, but bats hang out at around human-height well away from caves all the time (at dusk/night, anyway). Not uncommon at all. Aside from hearing and seeing them flying low fairly often (which one does), it's not unusual for them to hit things like barbed wire fences and get killed, which means they must have been flying at that height.

Sure, I'm not arguing that it's impossible to get bitten by bat, but you'd have to be extremely unlikely to get bitten by one in your sleep, unless you sleep standing up and a bat flies straight into you somehow.

Ordinarily, yeah. Dunno whether bats do the same thing other mammals (including humans) do when they're symptomatic with rabies, though. Might get paranoid and aggressive like the rest of us. Still, agreed that being bitten in one's sleep doesn't seem super likely. Regardless, I'd bet the knowledge that we (effectively) cannot cure rabies once it's symptomatic and that it's (more or less) a slow, horrifying death sentence isn't as widespread as one might hope. I'd expect there's a greater risk of someone being bitten and not knowing they absolutely need to go get treated ASAP, than of someone getting bitten and not realizing it.

No. Wrong. Incorrect on all accounts. A rabid bat absolutely will bite a human, will fly into a home seeking water, will be down at a human level because they no longer fly well, and most bats are so small that the bite won’t be noticed if it happens while sleeping.

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