[ExI] thoughts on omicron

[spike at rainier66.com]

…> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] thoughts on omicron

 

On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 5:09 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

 We don’t have enough data yet to know if this is THE ONE which will end the covid nightmare.  We can hope.

 

>...that it exterminates the human race, thus exterminating itself by running out of hosts?  I'd rather not hope for that outcome. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adrian we have strong counterindications of that outcome already.  None of these covid variants kill most of their hosts.  If we have one evolve that kills half its victims and spreads so wildly nothing can stop it, the world goes on, but with a population about the same as it was in the 1970s.

 

There is good evidence that if a covid variant slew all of humanity, it still wouldn’t go extinct: white-tailed deer can host it.

 

There is another counterindicator:  virus extinction has only been seen once: disease is thought to have caused extinction of rats on Christmas Island.  I would take that as evidence that just doesn’t happen.  If we want to do what ifs, one I would entertain is what if… a virus did take out half of humanity (apparently something like this is kinda theoretically possible.)

 

spike

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