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Comment by bandyaboot | Hacker News Reader

I remember reading a tweet in December of 2019 that referenced an article about a spate of deadly respiratory infections in China. They jokingly said this sounds like it’s from the opening sequence of a pandemic/disaster movie. Reading this headline gave me a fleeting moment of “ptsd”.

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Same. There aren't many brief glances at my phone that are seared into my memory, but a notification from DW news on New Year's Day 2019 is one of them.

It's different this time. We have flu vaccines, and they are updated annually for the most likely dangerous strains. If this turns out to be such a strain, a flu vaccine against this could be produced (and approved) in no time.

Just to add to this, monkeypox was the last time there was a new infection panic. We fortunately nipped that in the bud because we had vaccines and were more understanding of the severity of the situation. It’s not a 1:1 situation but it’s similar enough to put me at ease.

That was also spread from direct contact, mostly through (male to male) sex. There was never any reason to panic, unless we were all planning on having post-COVID orgies.

How does it ever help to panic, but it's a pertinent fact that smallpox is highly contagious, with true airborne being one among its modes of transmission.

In my opinion there was real cause for concern, with modest probability but very high stakes, not because of the properties of that monkeypox strain in itself, but for what it might have turned into if it sustained transmission on scale in humans and the new-host-driven evolution happened to carry it through phenotype territory closer to smallpox with respect to life cycle and virulence. Virulence levels of a less benign monkeypox lineage would have been bad enough actually, if the virus could tap into properties for effective transmission.

We seem to have lucked out about the evolution (again) this time, and it probably helped that the current version had agonizing symptoms and its transmission was best targeted to a human subpopulation which overall has a lot of healthy respect for epidemics.

If we replayed COVID again our response would likely be worse and not better, we've largely regressed. You should be more worried, not less.

In particular - the anti-vaccination movement has gained significant social traction and, in some places, has been openly embraced or at least tolerated by the majority of politicians. Our ability to socially pressure good behavior is quite depleted.

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