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hyporational comments on Open thread, Oct. 13 - Oct. 19, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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ETA: CellBioGuy gave an excellent response here.
Not meaning to start fear mongering, but since we're talking about highly improbable events, I wonder how probable a mutation is that makes it spread much more effectively via aerosol.
A Finnish official covered this question on the news and her answer was that such a mutation has never been observed, and Ebola is already transmitted effectively enough so that there's no selection pressure for more infectivity.
I'm not worrying about aerosol. That's low probability.
I think it's high probability that ebola will become endemic, at least in Africa. I don't think it's crazy to believe that America doesn't have the institutional conscientiousness to stop it here.
The mildly good news is that I expect a vaccine to be developed.
And just as a side issue, I'm none too pleased to have a disease that's more likely to hit helpful people.
Can you expand on that?
I wonder how this should impact the decision of being helpful under a consequentialist moral system, if at all.
There was enough sloppiness at that hospital in Texas that I'm worried ebola will spread through incompetence. The knowledge and resources might be theoretically available, but they aren't being used adequately.
I suppose this is plausible since even the western medicine is ridden with certain very problematic hospital bugs that spread and are created at least in part through incompetence.
I've seen some terrible hygiene by even some highly regarded professionals. Disinfection is often seen as a nuisance unless you're doing a procedure.
I can personally attest to that you really have to remind yourself that it's important since you have to do it so often.
The first part of her answer is true, the second part is nonsense.
I think it's more likely for a disease that spreads through aerosol to mutate to become as deadly as Ebola. Like with SARS.
Um, diseases are generally under selection pressure to become less deadly, not more.
That just means that the mutant strain won't be as virulent as it otherwise would. It won't keep the mutation from happening.
Yes, and SARS was quite easily contained, a less virulent strain would be even easier.
You're probably right. I think if we're interested in the risk of superbugs we should be interested in the aggregate, not individual pathogens.
Seconded.
CellBioGuy gave an excellent response here.
The fourth point seems ok but the study I linked makes me slightly doubtful about the other three. I didn't do any searching for other such studies, I simply found that one in the NIH report. Here's another relevant article.