Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by eloff on Friday April 23, 2021 @03:41PM
(#26918369)
Yes. Also evolution tends to favor making diseases better adapted to their hosts and note virulent, but less deadly.
We have a number of Coronaviruses endemic to humans that cause the common cold (among other viruses.) That's probably how covid19 would turn out, left to its own devices.
Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by estaseuropano on Friday April 23, 2021 @07:19PM
(#26920399)
That's not correct. The virus doesn't care whether you die or heal. It cares how long you are contagious, so generally the time until death after infection tends to stretch, not general deadliness.
Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by Someone on Friday April 23, 2021 @06:26PM
(#26919933)
I think the most likely outcome is that it will become like the flu: not that deadly in Western society, but mutating too rapidly for protection to last long, and still killing many elderly and people with chronic health conditions each year (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza, Influenza kills over half a million people each year)
(Both are RNA viruses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthornavirae)
Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by throwaway5752 on Friday April 23, 2021 @03:59PM
(#26918559)
That's a pretty fair amount of speculation about the future evolution of sars-covid-19, but you might be right. I hope you are. To be direct with you - I disliked the framing altogether, neither of them are sniffles, and it's unhelpful and barely meaningful to compare an acute respiratory transmitted virus with a mosquito borne parasite over such wildly different timeframes. This is wonderful news about the vaccine for the terrible disease malaria. Covid is also a terrible disease.
Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by amalcon on Friday April 23, 2021 @05:37PM
(#26919519)
It is as yet unclear how long effective immunity lasts after catching the disease, but pessimistic estimates put it at less than six months. While the pessimistic estimates are likely wrong (hence the term "pessimistic"), there certainly isn't confidence in the sort of lifelong immunity that one gets to some other contagions.
Part of what's so exciting about the vaccines is that the antibodies seem to decay at a slower rate, meaning that it could result in longer immunity (though we obviously don't know for sure yet).
Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by jefftk on Friday April 23, 2021 @08:17PM
(#26920838)
> pessimistic estimates put it at less than six months
If that were the case we would see large amounts of re-infection, since the pandemic started over a year ago
Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by soperj on Friday April 23, 2021 @07:20PM
(#26920411)
>I think that's probably wrong? The most likely outcome would be that after the initial pandemic subsided (with lots of deaths), most people would catch it when they were reasonably young and then be mostly protected.
Then why hasn't that happened with malaria?
Re:The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
by jefftk on Friday April 23, 2021 @08:17PM
(#26920829)
Malaria is a very different sort of disease? Among other things, covid is something that (a) doesn't seem to badly affect children and (b) seems to give some kind of immunity. Malaria does not have (a).
I think that's probably wrong? The most likely outcome would be that after the initial pandemic subsided (with lots of deaths), most people would catch it when they were reasonably young and then be mostly protected.
This is different from malaria, which is much more deadly.