When will the next major plague happen?

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Solution
Otterly
The News Crews said:
Ideally something with a mortality rate of higher than 5%. I considered covid to be a giant nothingburger
>what makes a plague to you
Killing at a large subset of the human population. I'll be generous and say at LEAST 1% of the human population dies
Click to expand...
Ok, well, there are multiple options.

1. A really spicy flu. This is the most likely, and it’ll come about from a shift type mutation. As always, most likely to come from china due to their terrible hygiene and waterfowl/pigs/humans living in close contact. It’ll kill off a few dozen millions, and we will have a vaccine for it in short order. The subsequent decade or so it’ll ping and echo around and kill people of but it’s not going to be a long term or significant...
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Otterly said:
ok and what’s your threshold for it being a genuine plague event? Like a really spicy 1917 style flu, or Black Death level? What makes it a plague to you?
Click to expand...
Ideally something with a mortality rate of higher than 5%. I considered covid to be a giant nothingburger
>what makes a plague to you
Killing at a large subset of the human population. I'll be generous and say at LEAST 1% of the human population dies
 
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The News Crews said:
Ideally something with a mortality rate of higher than 5%. I considered covid to be a giant nothingburger
>what makes a plague to you
Killing at a large subset of the human population. I'll be generous and say at LEAST 1% of the human population dies
Click to expand...
Ok, well, there are multiple options.

1. A really spicy flu. This is the most likely, and it’ll come about from a shift type mutation. As always, most likely to come from china due to their terrible hygiene and waterfowl/pigs/humans living in close contact. It’ll kill off a few dozen millions, and we will have a vaccine for it in short order. The subsequent decade or so it’ll ping and echo around and kill people of but it’s not going to be a long term or significant percentage of humans dead.

2. A novel zoonosis.
Some kind of spillover event. Plenty of novel stuff out there tha could spill over and kill us.
- Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever would be one such thing, especially with ongoing war round there. That’s one alternative explanation for the black death, and there’s reasonable cause to think it might have been.
Nipah, hendra, and whatever else is lurking out there are all an option.

3. A thing we already have mutates
Mildly controversial, because this then crosses into ‘lab tinkering’ territory but technically it’s possible naturally too. Measles getting much nastier, or Ebola going airborne, or something utterly nightmare ish like rabies becoming transmissible far more easily. A rabies that spreads like a cold would be the andromeda strain
Generally diseases become more transmissible and less severe as they co exist with humans but that’s a long term thing, and there can be ups and downs along the way.

But wait! There another category: RESISTANCE!
4. Multi drug resistant bacteria and TB, and HIV evolving around Prep
Our current crop of antibiotics are losing efficacy because the third world and china uses them in farming, so at some point, they’ll all be useless and at that point we go back to being unable to do safe surgery, and dying of consumption. HIV is already evolving round PreP, that’s not going to be ‘long term treatable’ for much longer.

This is my specialist subject, by the way. I love a bit of novel zoonotic plague.
 
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Solution
There’s also the possibility that something really, truly hideous is brewing in the stinkditch of a Troon, or rhe urethral stricture / kidneys of a pooner, and itll swap genetic material with something found on the festering interior of a fursuit, and we will all die
 
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Otterly said:
Mildly controversial, because this then crosses into ‘lab tinkering’ territory but technically it’s possible naturally too. Measles getting much nastier, or Ebola going airborne, or something utterly nightmare ish like rabies becoming transmissible far more easily. A rabies that spreads like a cold would be the andromeda strain
Generally diseases become more transmissible and less severe as they co exist with humans but that’s a long term thing, and there can be ups and downs along the way.
Click to expand...
eeee how about we study more immunology and microbiology and then prevent that from happening?
 
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Otterly said:
Ok, well, there are multiple options.

1. A really spicy flu. This is the most likely, and it’ll come about from a shift type mutation. As always, most likely to come from china due to their terrible hygiene and waterfowl/pigs/humans living in close contact. It’ll kill off a few dozen millions, and we will have a vaccine for it in short order. The subsequent decade or so it’ll ping and echo around and kill people of but it’s not going to be a long term or significant percentage of humans dead.

2. A novel zoonosis.
Some kind of spillover event. Plenty of novel stuff out there tha could spill over and kill us.
- Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever would be one such thing, especially with ongoing war round there. That’s one alternative explanation for the black death, and there’s reasonable cause to think it might have been.
Nipah, hendra, and whatever else is lurking out there are all an option.

3. A thing we already have mutates
Mildly controversial, because this then crosses into ‘lab tinkering’ territory but technically it’s possible naturally too. Measles getting much nastier, or Ebola going airborne, or something utterly nightmare ish like rabies becoming transmissible far more easily. A rabies that spreads like a cold would be the andromeda strain
Generally diseases become more transmissible and less severe as they co exist with humans but that’s a long term thing, and there can be ups and downs along the way.

But wait! There another category: RESISTANCE!
4. Multi drug resistant bacteria and TB, and HIV evolving around Prep
Our current crop of antibiotics are losing efficacy because the third world and china uses them in farming, so at some point, they’ll all be useless and at that point we go back to being unable to do safe surgery, and dying of consumption. HIV is already evolving round PreP, that’s not going to be ‘long term treatable’ for much longer.

This is my specialist subject, by the way. I love a bit of novel zoonotic plague.
Click to expand...
You forgot 5. ideology as a virus/social contagion.
 
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Tram Fan said:
eeee how about we study more immunology and microbiology and then prevent that from happening?
Click to expand...
No
billionsmustdie.png
 
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