Im talking worst case scenario, something like Station 11 or the movie Contagion

If the bird flu started spreading rapidly from human to human, and it devastated our population as it can in birds or marine life, how long would one have to hole up in seclusion before the virus burned through the population and it would probably be safe to come out.

Obviously, this is not the current situation, and this scenario is a long way from becoming any type of reality. This is just a hypothetical. If turds hit the fan, I dont want to waste time trying to figure this out in the moment while everyone’s ill, and can’t answer.

Move over B’s, I want first dibs on the tp!

Edit: I’m not thinking of a flu, as it behaves in the human population as we know it. I’m talking like zombie virus, without the worry of reanimation. Like, pretty much, everyone that catches it, dies, and it spreads fast and stealthily enough that the end result is a drastically lower population of survivors. How long would a person have to stay isolated to outlive the worst of it.

  • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
    92·
    8 months ago

    We killed off one strain of flu by our less-than-perfect quarantining for COVID. If we mask up for Texas Moo Flu, we’d stop spreading COVID around so much and might slow down its mutation too. At least with flu we know how it’s transmitted, and have related vaccines to tweak. Maybe we’ll be able to call off the Return To Workplace bullshit, too.

        • Atemu
          11·
          8 months ago

          That article is interesting and important but it does not show any causal links between lockdowns and the disappearance.

          It is, for example, also possible that it was merely displaced by SARS-CoV2.

            • Atemu
              1·
              8 months ago

              No, they’ve got the same information as us. That’s why they explicitly say:

              when Covid pandemic lockdowns and social distancing appeared to have halted circulation

              It is still speculation, not data.

              I’d tend to agree with the speculation but it’s still speculation.

              • Izzgo@kbin.social
                2·
                8 months ago

                To be honest, I agree with you that it is speculation, and also that I tend to agree with the speculation. It’s important to note when something is speculative.

          • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            8 months ago

            It wasn’t the lockdown as much as the masking and hand washing, and especially having sick people self-isolate while they had symptoms.

            • Atemu
              1·
              8 months ago

              I consider those measures to be included in “lockdown” but it’s besides the point: The paper contains no evidence that those measures made it disappear, just that it disappeared.

              • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
                11·
                8 months ago

                Well the only way to do a study about it now would be to go back and trace all the final known cases, which would probably be impossible since people were avoiding going to the doctor’s office for fear of catching something worse. You have another idea of where it went?

            • Atemu
              1·
              8 months ago

              I have no expertise on virology.

              What I do know however is that older strands of the same virus typically get displaced by newer strands. In SARS-Cov2 for instance, the strand which infected patient 0 basically died out when the delta variant wave hit in 2021. This is quite obviously regardless of quarantine measures as I’m sure India can attest to.

              Again, I am not a virologist but it stands to reason that “healthy humans to infect” is a quite limited supply for other viruses during a pandemic of a virus affecting the same body parts simply due to the fact that so many of them are already infected by the pandemic virus.

    • FarFarAway@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      That’s pretty cool! I knew we didn’t really have a flu season, but I didn’t realize we actually killed off a while strain. Not for nothing, I guess.

      You do have a point though, we have an existing vaccine and we are more knowledgeable about the flu in general. Maybe there would be more surviviors than one would anticipate. As long as the scientists didn’t dont get infected and die before they could get the vaccine out.

      When birds catch the bird flu, there can be up to 100% mortality rate. So, I suppose I’m more refering to a catastrophic, civilization altering illness. More akin the what a zombie virus would do, without the added potential of reanimation.