Im talking worst case scenario, something like Station 11 or the movie Contagion
If the bird flu started spreading rapidly from human to human, and it devastated our population as it can in birds or marine life, how long would one have to hole up in seclusion before the virus burned through the population and it would probably be safe to come out.
Obviously, this is not the current situation, and this scenario is a long way from becoming any type of reality. This is just a hypothetical. If turds hit the fan, I dont want to waste time trying to figure this out in the moment while everyone’s ill, and can’t answer.
Move over B’s, I want first dibs on the tp!
Edit: I’m not thinking of a flu, as it behaves in the human population as we know it. I’m talking like zombie virus, without the worry of reanimation. Like, pretty much, everyone that catches it, dies, and it spreads fast and stealthily enough that the end result is a drastically lower population of survivors. How long would a person have to stay isolated to outlive the worst of it.
Well, you can’t know until it happens. And even then it will mutate like covid did, so it could keep changing. And what it does in other animals doesn’t map to what it will do in humans most likely. Worst case scenario would be a long incubation time, followed by a long symptom free contagious period, followed by a very short sick time before death. But death isn’t all that advantageous for the virus.
I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that we had an epidemic and a huge amount of people just straight up refused to believe it was real.
People wouldn’t quarantine and it would never actually go away.
It’s totally unfair to judge humanity on just one pandemic when people refuse to wear masks and quarantine. We should also look at the 1918 pandemic.
True, that’s two pandemics when people refused to wear masks and quarantine. Makes for much better data to include that. Thanks!
Wait…
We’re not talking about the 200o’s outbreak in Asia (which had human infections, though only sporadically)
No, definitely people wouldnt quarantine like that. But, H5N1 can have a really high mortality rate. From what I can tell, a near 100%. for birds and some marine mammals. I.e. every animal that catches it, dies.
Not to be macabre, but I don’t mean how long would people have to quarantine to beat back the virus. Im asking how long would an individual have to hide from everyone else, before everyone else, who refused to believe it was real, and whatnot, caught the virus and just…died.
As long as the public health officials in your area tell you to.
But in the situation in imagining, they would all be dead. I’d be stuck there indefinitely!
But you do have a point. Im sure the public health officials in my area would tell everyone that there’s nothing to worry about and to go get infected for fun. :/ guess I’d be the only one left, granted I stay inside long enough to outlive all the infected.
Vaccine development would probably be quicker than the ones made for Covid as we already have vaccines for other strains of flu. Maybe up to a year?
The R number of flu is much lower than Covid so the waves of cases would rise and fall slower, leading to longer isolation periods during wave peaks. Masking and lockdowns would be more effective against flu so the political reality of implementing that would be a large factor in how it plays out.
Safe is relative. Do you go out right now? Do you trust your (assumed) covid vaccination to protect you?
Ask yourself what level of risk you’re willing to accept. “I need a vaccine to be widely adopted” or “i need to be more likely to die/have complications from X other thing”. Better yet, “If i get infected i’m this likely to spread the disease further”. Your risk tolerance is never zero and neither is your risk to others.
