Just had drinks with a neighbor who knows Anthony Fauci quite well.

[LAS14]

Last edited Sun Jun 7, 2020, 09:56 PM - Edit history (1)

He is a virologist who used to work with him. (Drinks out on a deck, 10 ft apart.)

Tidbit:

The 1918 flu just went away. It disappeared and no one knows why. No one born after 1919 has antibodies that show infection from that flu.

A week or so ago I posted a question about why it went away. It seems that responding to an old post (not sure how old) does not bring it to the top, so I'm making a new post.

Can anyone tell me what the rule is for when a reply bumps a post to the top?

TIA
LAS

Edit P.S. - He also said that antibody studies show that only 25% of the population was infected, so herd immunity didn't do it.

[pnwest]

1. i think it's when you hit milestones like 25 replies, 50 replies.....

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Swine flu was also a version of H1N1,

apparently it was a variant of it that mutated and lived on in pigs until 2009. But it was different enough from the original 1918 version of H1N1 that even if there were a few people who had antibodies from it, they wouldn't have been immune to swine flu. It's hard to draw conclusions from the patterns of seasonal flu, which is caused by variants of an orthomyxovirus, and the coronavirus. They are very different critters, and the only successful vaccines that exist so far for any coronavirus are for animals.

[AntiFascist]

17. I would add that this variant of the Spanish flu has killed 72,000 people over the past 10 years n/t

[Blue_true]

3. It killed 20-50 million people.

My guess is it killed so efficiently that it burned out the most vulnerable populations.

[Wounded Bear]

8. Which is basically what "herd immunity" looks like...

for all those urging us to go that route. Basically, it is just sacrificing all the most vulnerable to the disease so that the others can soldier on. Sweden did a modified version by not agressively implementing SIP and their death rate is a bit higher than most of the rest of Europe.

[Blue_true]

9. Good point.

Once everyone that gets infected are asymptomatic, the virus likely mutates until it vanishes.

What was not me tuned in the OP is that after the second wave devasted the world, large numbers of people started seriously wearing face masks, that likely had the effect of making it statically more difficult for any given person to get infected to begin with. That, along with people dying likely caused the virus to burn itself out.

[Disaffected]

12. That's not what

"herd immunity" refers to. We need herd immunity to protect, not sacrifice, the most vulnerable to the disease (and we accomplish that primarily by immunization).

[Wounded Bear]

24. Not sure what you are referring to...

but I was referring to the 1918-19 flu pandemic, not what happened for this one.

[LAS14]

18. See my edit to the OP. nt

[Hekate]

4. Interesting. As far as old posts go, just post a link inside your new post: seems easiest. nt

[uppityperson]

5. If the op has dropped beyond that forums page 30, it won't be bumped

It is still there, but won't come to top of the forum.

[nitpicker]

6. Actually, the 1918 strain may not have finished its disappearing act until 1925 (2008 story)

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93675590

Antibodies To 1918 Flu Found In Elderly Survivors

August 17, 2008·1:28 PM ET

Joanne Silberner

In 1918, a devastating influenza virus swept the world, killing tens of millions of people. Researchers have just discovered a relic of that pandemic: antibodies in some of the now elderly survivors. The antibodies are helping scientists understand what it might take to battle a modern flu pandemic.
(snip)

The cells that make antibodies weren't thought to circulate in the blood for 90 years, at least not at a high enough concentration to be found. But Altschuler was persistent. He found 32 people who had been 3, 4 or 5 years old in 1918 and sent their blood samples to Crowe and the other immunologists and virologists.

"We actually had to find the cells floating around in the blood as if they were sentinels looking for a new infection," Crowe said.

And using some sophisticated new techniques, they found antibodies to the 1918 flu in every one of the 32 people they tested who were alive in 1918, and few if any antibodies in anyone born after 1925.
(snip)

((Two of my grandmother's cousins died of the flu in early 1920 in the western IA/MO border. I don't doubt there were isolated pockets of creeping chains of infection, much like the cases popping up in Australia now, for a few years after that.))

[cwydro]

7. So what did the virologist have to say to your question?

Asking DU seems not nearly as interesting as asking a virologist. What was his answer?

[LAS14]

14. He said they don't know. It's a lingering mystery and he wonders why...

... it hasn't been talked about (written about) more in these COVID times.

[backscatter712]

10. Odd. I don't know how a virus just disappears.

I have heard mumblings (so I don't know if they're true or not) that some scientists are theorizing that bugs like Captain Trumps evolve over time. First, viruses may be getting evolutionary pressure to not kill their hosts - that also kills the virus. Also, viruses evolve to have less severe symptoms - easier to fly under the pandemic radar that way if all people are seeing is mild cold symptoms, not cytokine storms and destroyed lungs. But it may take a few years for that to happen.

Isn't H1N1 a direct descendant of Spanish Flu?

[Ms. Toad]

20. They are both strains of the H1N1 influenza

I don't know about it being a direct descendant.

[crickets]

11. K&R for the post and the discussion.

[safeinOhio]

13. Went away with first radio phone.

Just waited for 5G now.

[LAS14]

16. Edited my OP with this.

Edit P.S. - He also said that antibody studies show that only 25% of the population was infected, so herd immunity didn't do it.

[Ms. Toad]

19. It is the nature of influenza to cycle.

Ther are several main strains of influenza. The seasonal flu (including the 1918) are variations on one of these themes (strains) - it just happened to be more contagious and more deadly than average. The same variation of a strain of influenza does not come back year after year. That's why the vaccines are generally less than 50% effective - the vaccine makers are trying to hit a moving target. It's not really a mystery that it vanished - it is just the nature of any particular strain of influenza.

COVID 19 is caused by the coronavirus, not an influenza virus. Different beast.

[Igel]

21. You like pondering that one, try the Russian flu (old style)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_flu_pandemic


This kind of epidemic or pandemic were a fact of life before about 1970. They happened. They came, they went. They influenced things, but being background they barely surfaced. Because they happened. It was hard to pick a specific person responsible in any sort of a reasonable way.

SEELangs had a recent thread on this particular flu, it seemed to appear, vanish, and barely shows up in the prolific Russian literature of the time. But around 1890, Russian Symbolism and its cousins took a turn to the dark side. Cause and effect? Fin de siecle?


Another thread discussed the Spanish flu in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917. It had to have an effect, but it was buried in the economic data. Again, what's background isn't the main topic.


When they did occur, two responses typically followed. The low-life locals blamed the usual scapegoats. The educated class merely recognized that it happened and while results may vary from place to place, because the overwhelming truth was that this kind of thing happened. You can corral it slightly, but only slightly--in the end a lot of what happened wasn't subject to strict control.

[Initech]

22. Coronaviruses have been around since the 1960s.

COVID is the first one that's ever done really significant damage. And I've seen multiple reports from some verified sources that what happened in 1918 could easily happen with COVID.

Even my brother who is an ER doctor with a masters in public health - someone who has personally treated and intubated patients during the worst of it - has changed his tune from what he said 2 months ago. 2 months ago, he said that COVID could be with us for the next decade and that this is "the new normal" and that we'd better get used to it. Now he's saying what others have been saying is that it's entirely possible that COVID could burn out the same way that the Spanish flu did.

The thing with pandemics though is that each one is unique and you do not know where it could end up. It could end up really horribly like AIDS and last for decades or it could just burn itself out like SARS and MERS did.

[roamer65]

23. The 1918 pandemic virus mutated to milder forms.

The nastier strains of it killed their hosts too fast. Selection was for the milder forms to exist longer.

That’s the way it worked back then and how it will work now.

[LAS14]

25. I mentioned this theory to my friend and he said that was not the case. It just disappeared. nt

Last edited Mon Jun 8, 2020, 10:14 AM - Edit history (1)

[LisaL]

27. I don't know who your friend is, or why should I believe whatever he says.

[LAS14]

30. For a significant part of his life he ran the aids section of the NIH. nt

[roamer65]

29. It didn't just disappear.

The pandemic ran from January 1918 to December 1920.

[LAS14]

31. How does that mean it didn't disappear? nt

[roamer65]

32. 3 years isn't just disappearing.

Also people caught it in 1920. It wasn’t done in 1919.

Old viruses don’t die, they just mutate.

[LAS14]

33. After 3 years it just disappeared. That's the puzzle. Viruses don't usually do that.

The mutate or just become less prevalent.

[ecstatic]

26. So Sylvia Browne might have been right?

[LisaL]

28. Well, she was a psychic after all.

[Azathoth]

34. People were not as geographically mobile 100 years ago

Not just international travel but even interstate travel was far less common back then. The vast majority of people didn't even own a car.

Today a single contagious person on a routine business trip can travel hundreds of miles through several states, or set foot on three separate continents, all in less than 24 hours.