Re:Pfizer and BioNTech launch trial of Omicron-targeted Covi...
by ethbr0 on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @10:00PM
(#30081135)
My point was that the spillover of a significantly more lethal but highly transmissible virus is unlikely, but becoming more likely with each tick of population growth.
SARS-CoV-2, as terrible as it was, wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been: a better-adapted, more transmissible, and more lethal first wave.
And if that scenario were playing out, a human-engineered firebreak, even at the cost of many lives, isn't an obvious ethical wrong. Difficult decisions.
Procedure? When not doing the procedure will (to continue using my totally made up hypothetical numbers) cost 5 million more lives? That’s much less clear to me.
(Reality is more likely to be “we reckon it might save 5 million lives net, but then again it might combine with the original to make something both virulent and highly transmissive”, but the joy of hypotheticals is I can ignore that).