AIDS is considered to be an epidemic, not a pandemic, but can a sexually-transmitted disease similar to AIDS lead to a pandemic? I doubt it, because pandemics are dangerous (in part) due to rapid spread, a feature which a sexually-transmitted disease will never possess. I’d be a slightly more worried only if everyone was a lot more promiscuous.
Yes, respiratory diseases are far and away the most likely causes of GCBRs, but even there there is risk from other types of disease. But we’re discussing pandemics, and there you seem a bit misinformed.
First, the WHO has recently classified AIDS as an endemic disease, changing from its earlier classification as a pandemic. (Just like we’ll do with COVID-19 in a couple years.) But that didn’t make it not a pandemic until that point. And not only has AIDS killed 35m+ people—easily twice the total for COVID-19, but somewhere between 500k-1m more people were killed this year. And absent AI or a biotech solution to AIDS, that is likely to continue for several more decades. Making this even worse, unlike COVID-19, which skews towards killing people in poor health and the elderly, they were almost all people who would otherwise have lived far longer and healthy lives. If AIDS is not they type of thing we want to stop when we say we’re hoping to end pandemics, I don’t know what is.
Second, in the past, in addition to AIDS being a clear example of a STD pandemic, fecal-oral spread diseases have caused pandemics, as have vector borne diseases. (And not only that, but many weren’t viruses—and antibiotic resistance should worry us on that front. And outside of viruses and bacteria, Plasmodium kills millions a year.) So again, the general point was that it’s simply not the case that airborne transmission of viruses is the only way for pandemics to arise.
This discussion is about preventing and mitigating pandemics that could potentially end civilization, and stuff similar to AIDS (regardless of how you want to categorize it) is off topic because transmission would not be rapid enough to end civilization.
I don’t think accusations of off-topic-ness at this point are very helpful.
Youhave been making strong claims about “pandemics” in general, which others have responded to by pointing out examples of pandemics that don’t fit your claims. If by “pandemics” you meant “civilisation-ending pandemics” only, I think it was on you to make that clear.
In the context of this discussion (the post is about GCBRs), it should have been clear what I meant by that term.
Also, it can be claimed that a lot of things are “pandemics” like TB and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but what is usually meant by the term is rapid, global spread (within weeks to a few months at most) of a deadly pathogen.
But obviously, there are transmission modes other than airborne and sexual, so I think you are missing my point about too-narrow thinking.
Because your claim is, effectively, a near-certainty that only airborne transmission could be threatening. And my response was, in effect, that this isn’t correct, and that even eliminating airborne disease transmission completely wouldn’t sufficiently address risks of future bioengineered pandemics, even if it would greatly reduce the number of viable such cases.
I think you’re once again focusing far too narrowly—foodborne illness, waterborne disease, intermediate animal hosts and parasites, vector borne diseases, fomites, and sexual transmission are all mechanisms that currently spread disease, and it seems very strange to say that we should only ever look at aerosol transmission. Yes, it’s the most worrying, but it’s not enough on its own to address all threats.
Unless you have a reason to think otherwise, those methods of transmission (except for aerosol transmission) don’t seem capable of spreading a contagion rapidly enough to end civilization. This has been discussed in other comments.
I think he was explicitly addressing your question of sexually-transmitted diseases being capable of triggering pandemics, not if they can end civilization.
Discussing the latter in detail would quickly get into infohazards—but I think we should spend some of our efforts (10%) on defending against non-respiratory viruses. But I haven’t thought about this in detail.
The AIDs epidemic is widely considered a pandemic (pandemics are a subset of epidemics). And one of the deadliest pandemics of the 20th century, at that.
In the 19th century, cholera, a faecal-oral pathogen, caused several pandemics, killing very many people. It doesn’t do that any more thanks to sanitation in rich countries, but it’s certainly not impossible for non-respiratory pathogens to achieve rapid global spread.
Everyone agrees with you that respiratory viruses are the biggest concern, and you’ve provided some good resources in this thread that I appreciate. But I do think you are being undernuanced and overconfident here.
AIDS is considered to be an epidemic, not a pandemic, but can a sexually-transmitted disease similar to AIDS lead to a pandemic? I doubt it, because pandemics are dangerous (in part) due to rapid spread, a feature which a sexually-transmitted disease will never possess. I’d be a slightly more worried only if everyone was a lot more promiscuous.
Yes, respiratory diseases are far and away the most likely causes of GCBRs, but even there there is risk from other types of disease. But we’re discussing pandemics, and there you seem a bit misinformed.
First, the WHO has recently classified AIDS as an endemic disease, changing from its earlier classification as a pandemic. (Just like we’ll do with COVID-19 in a couple years.) But that didn’t make it not a pandemic until that point. And not only has AIDS killed 35m+ people—easily twice the total for COVID-19, but somewhere between 500k-1m more people were killed this year. And absent AI or a biotech solution to AIDS, that is likely to continue for several more decades. Making this even worse, unlike COVID-19, which skews towards killing people in poor health and the elderly, they were almost all people who would otherwise have lived far longer and healthy lives. If AIDS is not they type of thing we want to stop when we say we’re hoping to end pandemics, I don’t know what is.
Second, in the past, in addition to AIDS being a clear example of a STD pandemic, fecal-oral spread diseases have caused pandemics, as have vector borne diseases. (And not only that, but many weren’t viruses—and antibiotic resistance should worry us on that front. And outside of viruses and bacteria, Plasmodium kills millions a year.) So again, the general point was that it’s simply not the case that airborne transmission of viruses is the only way for pandemics to arise.
This discussion is about preventing and mitigating pandemics that could potentially end civilization, and stuff similar to AIDS (regardless of how you want to categorize it) is off topic because transmission would not be rapid enough to end civilization.
I don’t think accusations of off-topic-ness at this point are very helpful.
You have been making strong claims about “pandemics” in general, which others have responded to by pointing out examples of pandemics that don’t fit your claims. If by “pandemics” you meant “civilisation-ending pandemics” only, I think it was on you to make that clear.
In the context of this discussion (the post is about GCBRs), it should have been clear what I meant by that term.
Also, it can be claimed that a lot of things are “pandemics” like TB and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but what is usually meant by the term is rapid, global spread (within weeks to a few months at most) of a deadly pathogen.
It wasn’t obvious to me, and apparently also not to others, that your statements about “pandemics” were not meant to apply to pandemics in general.
In general, when you realise you have been communicating unclearly, it’s a bad idea to blame the people you confused.
I don’t think you’re being reasonable here. So, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
But obviously, there are transmission modes other than airborne and sexual, so I think you are missing my point about too-narrow thinking.
Because your claim is, effectively, a near-certainty that only airborne transmission could be threatening. And my response was, in effect, that this isn’t correct, and that even eliminating airborne disease transmission completely wouldn’t sufficiently address risks of future bioengineered pandemics, even if it would greatly reduce the number of viable such cases.
Why do you think fomite transmission is still worth considering?
I think you’re once again focusing far too narrowly—foodborne illness, waterborne disease, intermediate animal hosts and parasites, vector borne diseases, fomites, and sexual transmission are all mechanisms that currently spread disease, and it seems very strange to say that we should only ever look at aerosol transmission. Yes, it’s the most worrying, but it’s not enough on its own to address all threats.
Unless you have a reason to think otherwise, those methods of transmission (except for aerosol transmission) don’t seem capable of spreading a contagion rapidly enough to end civilization. This has been discussed in other comments.
I don’t necessarily agree but don’t want to say more.
I would say the same.
I think he was explicitly addressing your question of sexually-transmitted diseases being capable of triggering pandemics, not if they can end civilization.
Discussing the latter in detail would quickly get into infohazards—but I think we should spend some of our efforts (10%) on defending against non-respiratory viruses. But I haven’t thought about this in detail.
The AIDs epidemic is widely considered a pandemic (pandemics are a subset of epidemics). And one of the deadliest pandemics of the 20th century, at that.
In the 19th century, cholera, a faecal-oral pathogen, caused several pandemics, killing very many people. It doesn’t do that any more thanks to sanitation in rich countries, but it’s certainly not impossible for non-respiratory pathogens to achieve rapid global spread.
Everyone agrees with you that respiratory viruses are the biggest concern, and you’ve provided some good resources in this thread that I appreciate. But I do think you are being undernuanced and overconfident here.
I can’t think of a plausible, non-science fictional way in which this would not be impossible.
If you can but prefer not the mention it publically due to infohazard concerns, please send me a PM.