This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
As an aside, the UK continues to have open borders wrt no tests for travellers flying in from abroad.
Idiocy. We're an island - if we'd closed the borders with strict quarantine for any citizens returning from elsewhere this time last year we'd never have even got the virus here in the first place.
Point of order: we're actually a great many islands and part of another.
The point is it would be easy for us to reduce movement into the country to virtually zero if we wanted. As opposed to, say, Austria which has mile after mile of open land borders and therefore has very little control over who comes and goes.
This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
With adequate PPE and quarantining corpse disposal isn't a problem. Sucks for the ones doing it, perhaps, but at least everyone else isn't suffering as well.
The point is it would be easy for us to reduce movement into the country to virtually zero if we wanted. As opposed to, say, Austria which has mile after mile of open land borders and therefore has very little control over who comes and goes.
And it's not all or nothing either, even rolling out basic tests several months in would have made an impact, AIUI the government is now looking into the possibility but it'll have come very late in the day.
This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
With adequate PPE and quarantining corpse disposal isn't a problem. Sucks for the ones doing it, perhaps, but at least everyone else isn't suffering as well.
If that’s how you’d feel then you’d get the job.
But the UK is nowhere near self sufficient in anything, so shutting the borders is impossible.
With adequate PPE and quarantining corpse disposal isn't a problem. Sucks for the ones doing it, perhaps, but at least everyone else isn't suffering as well.
If that’s how you’d feel then you’d get the job.
Not how it works
But the UK is nowhere near self sufficient in anything, so shutting the borders is impossible.
NZ managed it.
Goods are much easier to quarantine for the required time than people anyway. People have this tendency to wander around and need feeding and so forth. With freight you can just direct the lorry to a big depot near the port, drop off the container, pick up an empty container if necessary and get right back on the next ferry out of the country without the driver ever getting out of the cab. Lock up the depot and come back in a fortnight with a local (i.e. uninfected) lorry and driver to pick the stuff up and take it to its destination. Job done, and if you manage it properly there's only two weeks disruption to supplies.
This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
I thought this limits Ebola, as it doesn't spread as easily, as you die, before you can transmit. Covid has hit the sweet spot, spreads easily and doesn't kill many.
This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
I thought this limits Ebola, as it doesn't spread as easily, as you die, before you can transmit.
Plus, if you've got it you're not likely to go traipsing round the shops spreading it to everyone else before you finally pop your clogs.
Covid has hit the sweet spot, spreads easily and doesn't kill many.
Its real success has been in the number of completely asymptomatic carriers it can recruit to spread it around.
This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
I thought this limits Ebola, as it doesn't spread as easily, as you die, before you can transmit. Covid has hit the sweet spot, spreads easily and doesn't kill many.
Ebola spreads by contact with contaminated body fluids (principally blood) and the virus persists in these fluids after death - so soiled clothing etc also presents a transmission risk. Ebola is not contagious until after symptoms develop, which is the main reason it doesn't spread rapidly, but anyone living with someone who is sick is at very high risk. Because of the risks of infection from soiled clothing, anyone dealing with someone who is sick (including clearing out the house after someone has died, disposing of the corpse etc) needs to wear serious PPE and for this to be washed thoroughly.
Ebola is very contagious, but because a person needs to develop symptoms first it doesn't transmit rapidly through a community. Previous strains of coronavirus over the last few decades were also not very contagious until after symptoms developed, which also limited community transmission. The spread of the current strain of coronavirus, and the multiple variants thereof, is because it's contagious in assymptomatic and pre-symptomatic carriers who infect others without knowing they have the disease. That presents challenges to controlling the spread that are not present when someone needs to be symptomatic before becoming infectious.
This viral pandemic isn't even The Coming BIG One ...
As the human population continues to grow and disrupts ecosystems globally on an ever greater scale and pace, there will likely be emerging new diseases that are far more deadly than COVID19 and perhaps more contagious ...
Imagine a hemorrhagic disease like Ebola transmitted by respiration ...
Quite. I understand the reason we're not having the full-blown Hammer Horror of that kind of viral disease is simply down to the fact of Ebola being that bit more difficult to contract, easier to track and trace, and because it generates iron rings of protective and truly prohibitive international legal restrictions when it does surface.
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
I thought this limits Ebola, as it doesn't spread as easily, as you die, before you can transmit. Covid has hit the sweet spot, spreads easily and doesn't kill many.
Ebola spreads by contact with contaminated body fluids (principally blood) and the virus persists in these fluids after death - so soiled clothing etc also presents a transmission risk. Ebola is not contagious until after symptoms develop, which is the main reason it doesn't spread rapidly, but anyone living with someone who is sick is at very high risk. Because of the risks of infection from soiled clothing, anyone dealing with someone who is sick (including clearing out the house after someone has died, disposing of the corpse etc) needs to wear serious PPE and for this to be washed thoroughly.
Ebola is very contagious, but because a person needs to develop symptoms first it doesn't transmit rapidly through a community. Previous strains of coronavirus over the last few decades were also not very contagious until after symptoms developed, which also limited community transmission. The spread of the current strain of coronavirus, and the multiple variants thereof, is because it's contagious in asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic carriers who infect others without knowing they have the disease. That presents challenges to controlling the spread that are not present when someone needs to be symptomatic before becoming infectious.
This is the key. SARS-CoV2 is very much in that 'sweet-spot' of highly infections when asymptomatic and hence has the opportunity to spread VERY rapidly. Most Ebola victims are not going very far with their virus. Ebola is an interesting counter-point for lots of reasons. The bodies of Ebola victims are highly, highly infectious. They shed virus in massive amounts after death. One of the biggest means of spread is the various post-death rituals that exist in West African cultures that mean that a victim dies and then goes on to infect everyone else. Ebola was first identified in 1976 but it's almost certainly been around for thousands of years. Pre-urbanised Africa was never at risk of an epidemic because it would wipe out a village and then have nowhere to spread to. Intriguingly, until the big outbreaks in the last decade the total Ebola deaths that were recorded in outbreaks was only about 1500 in over 30 years (pre 2013: 1583 confirmed ebola deaths / since 2013: 11,398). The socio-economic changes in West Africa made Ebola a much greater threat. I had the opportunity to talk to one of the doctors who worked at the centre of Ebola in Sierra Leone. It's actually very easy to contain, if you act fast enough. Contact tracing is one part the other is specialist burial squads, trained in the use of PPE.
There is one other counterpoint of Ebola that should be considered here. Ebola is a zoonotic infection and SARS-CoV2 isn't. (Probably and probably - neither of these points is confirmed but I think they will be).
Ebola burns out in human populations very quickly, there are not chronically infected people who can pass it on. Thus the virus would have died out if it did not have an animal reservoir. The data on this is very clear cut but never quite been proven because the animal host has never been found. This makes eradication of the virus very challenging. Even if we had a vaccine to give to humans, we'd have to keep vaccinating everyone to keep the virus at bay. If you look at Smallpox, Polio, Measles, to name 3 off the top of my head, we have either eradicated the virus completely (Smallpox) or got very close (Polio / Measles). The lack of animal reservoir of the virus means that if you get sufficient human coverage with a vaccine to achieve herd immunity, then the virus disappears completely and you don't need to vaccinate anymore. Smallpox is the great success - no one born in the last 50 years is at risk, despite not being vaccinated because we have eradicated it. Polio is a partial success (and the failure is political rather than technical) but in much of the world, Polio has disappeared and if the geopolitics worked better, we would have managed to get rid of Polio two decades ago! (2001 was the original target). Measles is more tricky because it is so highly infectious and hence you need incredibly high coverage to stop it spreading. Wakefield and MMR nonsense are of course responsible for the recent resurgence but it was a virus that was only ever well controlled in rich countries. But, theoretically it could be eradicated if we had sufficient coverage.
Coming back to SARS-CoV2, whilst it is a new virus that has arisen due to a species jump (we think), and there are some reported cases in animals, it doesn't (on current data) appear to be a truly zoonotic infection. (Influenza A really is, for example, being ubiquitous in poultry and frequently being transferred to humans). Hence if we vaccinate enough of the world, the virus will disappear and in a generation, we won't need to vaccinate people. (This is provisional, but I think it remains the most likely outcome - once we actually control this virus, we will be safe until the next pandemic. Remember that from a proper historical perspective, epidemics are a recurring feature of human history.
I think this is important for lots of reasons but also for my next post (to follow shortly). We are not doomed to have to live with this virus forever. We can get back to 'normal.' The problem is that the sooner you act, the easier it is. The past 12 months is (in the UK and US in particular) a serious of missed opportunities whereby short-term gain creates a much bigger long-term cost.
It's also notable that the infection rates are substantially and consistently lower in Scotland than in England.
There may not be an easy answer, but any idea why that is, please?
According to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, comedian Janie Godley is helping. Godley does voice-overs of the daily Covid briefings. They are very funny, widely shared on social media and reinforce the message. Here's a recent one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U7etG7Z4Ds
Hilarious! I've enjoyed several of these now. Thank you.
AIUI, in the case of SARS-Cov2 the virus originated in wild animals, but a chance combination of a mutation and particular circumstances with human-animal contact was needed to allow it to cross into the human population. I'm not even entirely sure it's been established that this virus evolved in animals, rather than a much less harmful virus crossed over into humans and then evolved into the nasty little bugger we've come to know. Unlike ebola, there isn't a large viral reservoir in wild animals such that the virus regularly crosses the species barrier. So, we can irradiate it in the human population, and while vigilance is warranted we can be fairly certain that this particular virus won't make the jump again (the next time it'll be a different virus that crosses over from an animal).
I think this is important for lots of reasons but also for my next post (to follow shortly). We are not doomed to have to live with this virus forever. We can get back to 'normal.' The problem is that the sooner you act, the easier it is. The past 12 months is (in the UK and US in particular) a serious of missed opportunities whereby short-term gain creates a much bigger long-term cost.
AFZ
@Marvin the Martian has been articulating very well that the costs of Lockdown are greater (from his perspective) than the costs of the virus. In social, psychological, emotional and spiritual terms, not just economic. (Please forgive and correct me if I have misrepresented you here). I wanted to write about how Marvin is right in the sense that the costs of Lockdown (or whatever intervention) have not been talked about enough or properly (except in purely economic terms). I also want to talk about why Marvin is wrong. Why? Because all of those costs will be higher if we don't lockdown.
Firstly, to agree with Marvin; the argument that it is a trade-off between economic well-being and public health is nonsense. There are real public health costs from interventions (especially the effect on mental health of the lockdown restrictions but others as well). There are real costs to a lockdown for all of us. Some more than others and pretending otherwise is not actually helpful.
Firstly, the economic cost of a lockdown has significant health impacts. There is plenty of empirical data that any sort of economic shock (which lockdown clearly is in a BIG way) has a measurable effect on health outcomes across the board. The mechanisms here are the increased stress of economic insecurity, the effect of poorer housing, poorer diet etc. etc. It's essentially a simple relationship - when GDP goes down, so does public health. Hence it is potentially disingenuous to argue that there should be no opposition to Lockdown because people matter more than money - the health before wealth argument. I have no doubt that it is true of some lockdown critics who are simply trying to protect their (possibly excessive) wealth. Conversely, however, many of those in society who are struggling the most face a huge dent to their health and wellbeing from lockdown. It is not surprising that some feel that lockdown is too high a price to pay for preventing the virus. It is worth noting that this effect is greatest on the poorest in society. That is not inevitable nor just but is still true.
Secondly, if we look at the wider social costs of lockdown they are not small. I shared before that the advent of all this prompted me to go on antidepressants for the first time in 20 years. I know of several people who are struggling with their mental health. The impact on children's education and emotional wellbeing is huge. It's obvious that my two year old suffered from the lack of interaction with other toddlers back in the spring.
So, having agreed with MtM so far, why do I think he's wrong? Well, let's game this out. Let's assume that the government does not act to prevent the spread of Covid-19; what happens?
So again, there's good data to model this out with. If a disease like this spreads unchecked in the population then hospitals are swamped. That means that many people with Covid-19 do not receive care who really need it and die. (Some would have died anyway but the mortality rate climbs rapidly). Hospitals stop being able to function due to this massive influx. The normal provision of healthcare falls apart and many people do not receive treatment or receive inadequate treatment for all the other conditions. Healthcare staff get sick and absentee numbers compromise all aspects of care. There is a spike in non-Covid mortality as a consequence. (To return to Ebola for a moment, at the peak of the outbreaks, some hospitals simply stopped because all the staff were either dead or ill or too scared to come to work!). The same would happen with Covid. PPE supplies would not get close to meeting demand and even the most dedicated staff would struggle. This pattern is also seen in many other areas of society with people scared to go shopping or interact in any way so most businesses find they've lost their customers. Worryingly, it probably takes a few weeks for the fear levels in the community to get high enough for this to happen spontaneously but it would get there. Why is that worrying? All I am implying is that you get effectively a voluntary lockdown in the end. Well, simply because that time window just supports even greater community spread. Whilst many people won't get too sick, enough people do so that behaviour of the populations changes dramatically.
What I am postulating here is that ultimately, the economic costs of not-locking down will be very close to the costs of locking down (ignoring the human cost, for the moment). This is especially true as if you mitigate the pandemic successfully (i.e. act EARLY enough) then the bounce-back of the economy compensates for the loses and hence the long-term costs are minimal. This is true economically but not necessarily in terms of the personal, emotional wellbeing.
By delaying lockdown, but not doing it properly, then you don't avoid these costs; they end up higher ultimately.
By the way, respect to Chris Whitty for working on respiratory wards over the holiday. He has a lot of armchairs critics, who, oh, sharpen their pencils very nicely.
@Marvin the Martian has been articulating very well that the costs of Lockdown are greater (from his perspective) than the costs of the virus. In social, psychological, emotional and spiritual terms, not just economic.
Has @Marvin the Martian been arguing "that the costs of Lockdown are greater (from his perspective) than the costs of the virus".
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
As an aside, the UK continues to have open borders wrt no tests for travellers flying in from abroad.
Idiocy. We're an island - if we'd closed the borders with strict quarantine for any citizens returning from elsewhere this time last year we'd never have even got the virus here in the first place.
Seems like he's okay with with draconian disease control measures provided they're borne by someone who isn't him.
What I am postulating here is that ultimately, the economic costs of not-locking down will be very close to the costs of locking down (ignoring the human cost, for the moment). This is especially true as if you mitigate the pandemic successfully (i.e. act EARLY enough) then the bounce-back of the economy compensates for the loses and hence the long-term costs are minimal. This is true economically but not necessarily in terms of the personal, emotional wellbeing.
By delaying lockdown, but not doing it properly, then you don't avoid these costs; they end up higher ultimately.
Deferred maintenance is always more expensive than timely maintenance.
@Marvin the Martian has been articulating very well that the costs of Lockdown are greater (from his perspective) than the costs of the virus. In social, psychological, emotional and spiritual terms, not just economic.
Has @Marvin the Martian been arguing "that the costs of Lockdown are greater (from his perspective) than the costs of the virus".
I'd almost prefer it to be Ebola, because with Ebola it's much easier to identify who has it, quarantine/isolate them, and let the uninfected get on with their lives.
As an aside, the UK continues to have open borders wrt no tests for travellers flying in from abroad.
Idiocy. We're an island - if we'd closed the borders with strict quarantine for any citizens returning from elsewhere this time last year we'd never have even got the virus here in the first place.
Seems like he's okay with with draconian disease control measures provided they're borne by someone who isn't him.
What I am postulating here is that ultimately, the economic costs of not-locking down will be very close to the costs of locking down (ignoring the human cost, for the moment). This is especially true as if you mitigate the pandemic successfully (i.e. act EARLY enough) then the bounce-back of the economy compensates for the loses and hence the long-term costs are minimal. This is true economically but not necessarily in terms of the personal, emotional wellbeing.
By delaying lockdown, but not doing it properly, then you don't avoid these costs; they end up higher ultimately.
Deferred maintenance is always more expensive than timely maintenance.
I think that's a fair summary of his position which has been consistent over 9 months now.
By the way, respect to Chris Whitty for working on respiratory wards over the holiday. He has a lot of armchairs critics, who, oh, sharpen their pencils very nicely.
With respect to cross-species transmission and the possibility of an animal reservoir of the disease - is it not the case that there have been a few cases of COVID being transmitted from humans to cats and some other domestic animals? I believe there is no evidence of infections going the other way, from cat to human, but on the face of it wouldn't it be at least possible?
With respect to cross-species transmission and the possibility of an animal reservoir of the disease - is it not the case that there have been a few cases of COVID being transmitted from humans to cats and some other domestic animals? I believe there is no evidence of infections going the other way, from cat to human, but on the face of it wouldn't it be at least possible?
It's the right question. In order for animals to be a reservoir you need two things:
1. Animal to human transmission. AND
2. Human to animal OR animal to animal OR long term animal infection.
The small number of human to animal transmissions is not in itself concerning. Noteworthy but not concerning. Animal to human would worry me a lot more.
A lot lot lot. Hence the probably in the post above.
With respect to cross-species transmission and the possibility of an animal reservoir of the disease - is it not the case that there have been a few cases of COVID being transmitted from humans to cats and some other domestic animals? I believe there is no evidence of infections going the other way, from cat to human, but on the face of it wouldn't it be at least possible?
It's a factor of rates. If on average 1 person out of every 100 infected passes the virus to their pet, and 1 out of every 100 pets infected passes the virus to their owner then this is not significant compared to on average every person infected passing the virus onto three others. The potential problem comes when every pet infected infects many other pets such that you have thousands of infected pets - then you have a zoonotic disease with regular occasions when pets pass the virus on to owners. But, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of widespread transmission between animals.
GRAFTON, Wis. — The FBI and the Food & Drug Administration are investigating the person who left 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine out of a pharmacy refrigerator at Aurora Medical Center-Grafton.
Advocate Aurora Health now says it was an intentional act.
After an internal investigation, it was first believed to be human error.
The person in question Wednesday admitted they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration.
That person is no longer employed, Advocate Aurora Health said in a news release.
More than 500 doses of the vaccine had to be thrown out.
What do you think the odds are that this former Aurora employee is a true believer in one (or more) of the vaccine conspiracy theories floating around the internet?
Perhaps - the articles I've seen say the motivation is as yet unknown. But even if that's it, I find it hard to imagine the mindset of someone so invested in those theories as to risk their own job. That's pizzagate level nutjobbery.
A Wisconsin pharmacist convinced the world was “crashing down” told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people’s DNA, according to court documents released Monday.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Milwaukee, arrested Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist Steven Brandenburg last week following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people. Charges are pending.
“He’d formed this belief they were unsafe,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said during a virtual hearing.
So yeah, that's pizzagate-level nutjobbery. It could have been much worse though.
He added that Brandenburg was upset because he and his wife are divorcing, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.
Or were you only speaking of this pandemic? And if so, why only of this situation?
Because it’s not just a question of how to prioritise funding like those other things you mentioned - in this situation we’re shutting down our entire fucking society. That’s a pretty big difference.
Nice swerve but I haven't merely addressed a question of prioritising funding, as you know. You clearly make the point that when it comes to prioritising who lives and who dies it's the good of the majority which should prevail; I point out that your simplistic notion of 'majority' is in fact a complex mixture of countless AND INEXTRICABLE minorities. Therefore, even if the welfare of the elderly were written off as payment for a better pandemic experience for the younger, and therefore more deserving, people, the results almost certainly would not be worth the sacrifice, even if such decisions were either practical, possible or conscionable.
I also point out the unpopular view that mankind is not in control of this particular circus. We don't need to shut down society. The effects of what we can't control - ie, the virus - has done that. (That society generally functions at all is, of course, mainly about the disposition of funding, profit and market-trading, with a little bit of necessary philanthropy thrown in.) The barest glimpse at a history book tells us that that is what a virus of this extreme nature does simply by being extraordinarily contagious, difficult to treat, and responded to carelessly. Circumstances change somewhat depending on contingencies eg, how such viruses are permitted to travel globally, as in how peripatetic we are as a species, how responsible we feel towards one another's preservation and any advances we may make in medical science. The rest is down to scale, propinquity and what is the extent of and our responses to the losses we're incurring as a result of this pandemic.
I personally do not believe things would be better without lockdowns and restrictions, operating with a bias to caring less for the vulnerable elderly and also those who should be judged as not having 'quality' of life enough worth saving. I think things would be just as bad; and in fact worse because in adopting that attitude we may have made ourselves less than we can and should be, humanly speaking.
Yes ...
Anyway, the sensible public health measures that were at first encouraged and now later are enforced to some degree are not all*or*nothing ...
Society and the economy have NOT been 100% shut down ...
Society and the economy have NOT been 100% shut down ...
No, just all the fun bits that people actually want to do. All the shitty bullshit boring soulless bits that you literally have to pay people to even consider doing are going along just fine...
Society and the economy have NOT been 100% shut down ...
No, just all the fun bits that people actually want to do. All the shitty bullshit boring soulless bits that you literally have to pay people to even consider doing are going along just fine...
LOL ...
IOW, we introverts are having the time of our lives ...
IOW, we introverts are having the time of our lives ..
I wish. Part of the problem with being locked down in the house with my family is that I’m always with my family. The chance to just be on my own and do whatever I like for a few hours has disappeared.
IOW, we introverts are having the time of our lives ..
I wish. Part of the problem with being locked down in the house with my family is that I’m always with my family. The chance to just be on my own and do whatever I like for a few hours has disappeared.
Society and the economy have NOT been 100% shut down ...
No, just all the fun bits that people actually want to do. All the shitty bullshit boring soulless bits that you literally have to pay people to even consider doing are going along just fine...
I'm apparently soulless and boring, and have no life, but as far as my kids go:
Their various scout troops have been operating throughout the pandemic, mostly virtually, with some outdoor meetings where permitted by Covid rates, local rules, and weather. #1's big trip got cancelled because of Covid.
Dance classes have continued on zoom, with between 0 and a few students present in the studio depending on Covid rates and local rules. The big concert got cancelled; studio is putting together a video showcase "virtual concert".
Church choirs are cancelled for the duration
Video game playing and yelling at friends on discord works the same as ever
The competitive science geek is still engaged in competitive science geekery, but the competitions are online rather than in person.
Sledding down snowy hills is still happening, but not in huge packs like normal years.
Church youth group is running online - they hang out on zoom, play games, talk about their faith: basically what they did before the pandemic, but virtually.
Snowmen are still built
The pandemic sucks. None of these things are ideal substitutes for their non-pandemic equivalents, but it goes rather too far to say that "all the fun bits" are cancelled.
I really don't want to underestimate how hard that might be for you, Marvin, as I don't know how awful your situation is. But speaking as someone who lives alone, hasn't had a day or night away from my home - which is also my workplace - since November 2019 and who doesn't know when I'll see my family again, you get my sympathy but with some caveats. I have an almost permanent chance 'just to be on my own' but what I would like to do for a few hours is also out of the question, because that is to see the people I love.
IOW, we introverts are having the time of our lives ..
I wish. Part of the problem with being locked down in the house with my family is that I’m always with my family. The chance to just be on my own and do whatever I like for a few hours has disappeared.
Sounds like you need a shed. This excellent book might get you started.
I really don't want to underestimate how hard that might be for you, Marvin, as I don't know how awful your situation is. But speaking as someone who lives alone, hasn't had a day or night away from my home - which is also my workplace - since November 2019 and who doesn't know when I'll see my family again, you get my sympathy but with some caveats. I have an almost permanent chance 'just to be on my own' but what I would like to do for a few hours is also out of the question, because that is to see the people I love.
Being permanently stuck in either situation would be awful. You have my sympathy without any caveats.
Just a quick note. I will hunt out the data when I get the chance but just had a penny-drop moment. This comes from the head of the NHS providers group, so I suspect it's solid data but he stated that of those admitted to hospital with Covid-19, fewer are dying than in the first wave. This he says reflects better understanding of how to care for people. I will dig out some evidence on this. It may well be simply that the virus has changed but there has been enormous progress also with medical (supportative) management so I think it a reasonable claim.
The point is, I have spent the past two weeks looking at the daily death figures (still the most reliable way to track the progress of the pandemic). The death rate is around half of the peak in the spring but two notable things; firstly that the peak became a plateau rather than falling and the rate of increase has been much slower. This comes with the fact that hospitals are struggling for capacity much more than they were with equivalent infection levels ~9 months ago.
The point is, if we are getting better at treating people (or even if the virus is slightly less deadly) it means longer hospital stays as people recover. (In terms of bed capacity, it's better if people come in and die quickly). Hence with death rates not that close to the spring peak, we are still at the point where hospitals are seriously over-stretched.
I meant to comment on one of your earlier posts that the reduction in deaths was almost certainly, in part at least, down to better treatments and understanding of the virus.
I watched the most recent Hospital series, still on BBC iPlayer, from the Royal Free and other hospitals in that Trust, filmed through the summer and into October and November as cases started to rise again. Patients were being allocated to different trials, and often walking out of hospital, some time later. One man who came in really ill was frightened of going into intensive care as he had lost a number of relatives in the first wave, all of whom had not come out alive from ICU. He was treated with clot busting medication and recovered to go home. He ran a shop in London, and however much he protected himself, customers refused to wear masks. Another man who recovered, and I suspect would not have in the first wave, was a Cantonese speaking bus driver who had continued to work to keep London moving. He again commented on the refusal of passengers to wear masks. He was treated with steroids and a range of other medications not used in the first wave.
There were a number of elderly patients who didn't recover, often because they refused treatment or chose to go home earlier than the hospital recommended. Which suggested that the death rates being higher at older ages may also be partially influenced by treatments - or the appalling death rates in care homes. (Another care home hit the news yesterday as half their residents died of Covid19 over Christmas and New Year.)
In South Africa, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has just announced that SA has secured 1,5-million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine for health workers, with the first 1m arriving in late January 2021. The first good news in ages.
I really don't want to underestimate how hard that might be for you, Marvin, as I don't know how awful your situation is. But speaking as someone who lives alone, hasn't had a day or night away from my home - which is also my workplace - since November 2019 and who doesn't know when I'll see my family again, you get my sympathy but with some caveats. I have an almost permanent chance 'just to be on my own' but what I would like to do for a few hours is also out of the question, because that is to see the people I love.
Being permanently stuck in either situation would be awful. You have my sympathy without any caveats.
I think you meant well when you typed this, so genuinely thank you for the nice thought. I hope you manage to find somehow the space you need to keep sane and positive. Ironically, I have more space than I know what to do with and I still find it hard to keep sane and positive. Maybe the space that really matters most is the space inside my head!
However, if you've meant sincerely anything of what you've posted so far, your sympathy is completely loaded with caveats! In fact, if I told you that I fall into one of the categories you think should be allowed to die because trying to protect my life restricts the freedoms of the young and healthy you would have no choice but to withdraw your unqualified sympathy and instead be content to consign to me an early death!
If SARS-Cov2 jumped from an animal to a human, how is it not a “truly zoonotic” infection? Isn’t that what zoonotic means?
Apologies, I missed this. I was busy writing too-long posts.... Alan answered it very well. I don't wanna get lost in semantics but the point is that an infective organism that regularly infects both animals and humans is a very different epidemiological beast than one that evolves from an animal virus but is essentially only a human infection.
I probably said this about 27 pages back* but there's a nice parallel with HIV here. We can work out that HIV is a new virus, evolving from SIV (the monkey equivalent) about 100 years ago. But HIV only infects humans and SIV only monkeys so whilst HIV is an off-shoot of SIV**, one would never consider it a zoonotic infection in the way rabies or influenza or cat-scratch fever are...
SARS-CoV2 is the same as HIV in this sense; it's descended from an animal virus but its (essentially only) tropism*** is human cells.
Which comes back to the original point; if we can control it well enough in humans, it will go away.
AFZ
*I hope my meandering waffle is interesting to others but I write this kind of thing coz it fascinates me. I would apologise but you all can just scroll past.
** There are really two HIVs; HIV-1 and HIV-2. It was thought that they were related to each other but they're not really. Both are related to SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) indicating that the species jump to humans (requiring significant changes in the virus structure) occurred on two separate occasions.
***Tropism is the technical term. In this context it means the specific cells a virus can infect. No virus can infect all species or even all cell types within a species (AFAIK). For example, HIV's main tropism is CD4+ T-lymphocytes. These cells are critical to control and coordination of the immune system thus explaining why HIV causes such a massive failure of the immune system (AIDS). This paper (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30193-4/fulltext) is an example of the work being done to understand the tropism of SARS-Cov2. The key here is that it essentially only infects human respiratory epithelium. The exceptions are well documented but there are few absolutes in biology, most things are a spectrum. The propensity of SARS-Cov2 to infect non-human mammals is very low. Low enough to ignore from a public health perspective. (On current evidence).
Comments
Point of order: we're actually a great many islands and part of another.
Really?
The mortality of Ebola is close to 100%. Someone has to dispose of the corpses.
With adequate PPE and quarantining corpse disposal isn't a problem. Sucks for the ones doing it, perhaps, but at least everyone else isn't suffering as well.
And it's not all or nothing either, even rolling out basic tests several months in would have made an impact, AIUI the government is now looking into the possibility but it'll have come very late in the day.
If that’s how you’d feel then you’d get the job.
But the UK is nowhere near self sufficient in anything, so shutting the borders is impossible.
Not how it works
NZ managed it.
Goods are much easier to quarantine for the required time than people anyway. People have this tendency to wander around and need feeding and so forth. With freight you can just direct the lorry to a big depot near the port, drop off the container, pick up an empty container if necessary and get right back on the next ferry out of the country without the driver ever getting out of the cab. Lock up the depot and come back in a fortnight with a local (i.e. uninfected) lorry and driver to pick the stuff up and take it to its destination. Job done, and if you manage it properly there's only two weeks disruption to supplies.
I thought this limits Ebola, as it doesn't spread as easily, as you die, before you can transmit. Covid has hit the sweet spot, spreads easily and doesn't kill many.
I can't make my mind up which Party to represent.
Plus, if you've got it you're not likely to go traipsing round the shops spreading it to everyone else before you finally pop your clogs.
Its real success has been in the number of completely asymptomatic carriers it can recruit to spread it around.
Ebola is very contagious, but because a person needs to develop symptoms first it doesn't transmit rapidly through a community. Previous strains of coronavirus over the last few decades were also not very contagious until after symptoms developed, which also limited community transmission. The spread of the current strain of coronavirus, and the multiple variants thereof, is because it's contagious in assymptomatic and pre-symptomatic carriers who infect others without knowing they have the disease. That presents challenges to controlling the spread that are not present when someone needs to be symptomatic before becoming infectious.
This is the key. SARS-CoV2 is very much in that 'sweet-spot' of highly infections when asymptomatic and hence has the opportunity to spread VERY rapidly. Most Ebola victims are not going very far with their virus. Ebola is an interesting counter-point for lots of reasons. The bodies of Ebola victims are highly, highly infectious. They shed virus in massive amounts after death. One of the biggest means of spread is the various post-death rituals that exist in West African cultures that mean that a victim dies and then goes on to infect everyone else. Ebola was first identified in 1976 but it's almost certainly been around for thousands of years. Pre-urbanised Africa was never at risk of an epidemic because it would wipe out a village and then have nowhere to spread to. Intriguingly, until the big outbreaks in the last decade the total Ebola deaths that were recorded in outbreaks was only about 1500 in over 30 years (pre 2013: 1583 confirmed ebola deaths / since 2013: 11,398). The socio-economic changes in West Africa made Ebola a much greater threat. I had the opportunity to talk to one of the doctors who worked at the centre of Ebola in Sierra Leone. It's actually very easy to contain, if you act fast enough. Contact tracing is one part the other is specialist burial squads, trained in the use of PPE.
There is one other counterpoint of Ebola that should be considered here. Ebola is a zoonotic infection and SARS-CoV2 isn't. (Probably and probably - neither of these points is confirmed but I think they will be).
Ebola burns out in human populations very quickly, there are not chronically infected people who can pass it on. Thus the virus would have died out if it did not have an animal reservoir. The data on this is very clear cut but never quite been proven because the animal host has never been found. This makes eradication of the virus very challenging. Even if we had a vaccine to give to humans, we'd have to keep vaccinating everyone to keep the virus at bay. If you look at Smallpox, Polio, Measles, to name 3 off the top of my head, we have either eradicated the virus completely (Smallpox) or got very close (Polio / Measles). The lack of animal reservoir of the virus means that if you get sufficient human coverage with a vaccine to achieve herd immunity, then the virus disappears completely and you don't need to vaccinate anymore. Smallpox is the great success - no one born in the last 50 years is at risk, despite not being vaccinated because we have eradicated it. Polio is a partial success (and the failure is political rather than technical) but in much of the world, Polio has disappeared and if the geopolitics worked better, we would have managed to get rid of Polio two decades ago! (2001 was the original target). Measles is more tricky because it is so highly infectious and hence you need incredibly high coverage to stop it spreading. Wakefield and MMR nonsense are of course responsible for the recent resurgence but it was a virus that was only ever well controlled in rich countries. But, theoretically it could be eradicated if we had sufficient coverage.
Coming back to SARS-CoV2, whilst it is a new virus that has arisen due to a species jump (we think), and there are some reported cases in animals, it doesn't (on current data) appear to be a truly zoonotic infection. (Influenza A really is, for example, being ubiquitous in poultry and frequently being transferred to humans). Hence if we vaccinate enough of the world, the virus will disappear and in a generation, we won't need to vaccinate people. (This is provisional, but I think it remains the most likely outcome - once we actually control this virus, we will be safe until the next pandemic. Remember that from a proper historical perspective, epidemics are a recurring feature of human history.
I think this is important for lots of reasons but also for my next post (to follow shortly). We are not doomed to have to live with this virus forever. We can get back to 'normal.' The problem is that the sooner you act, the easier it is. The past 12 months is (in the UK and US in particular) a serious of missed opportunities whereby short-term gain creates a much bigger long-term cost.
AFZ
Hilarious! I've enjoyed several of these now. Thank you.
@Marvin the Martian has been articulating very well that the costs of Lockdown are greater (from his perspective) than the costs of the virus. In social, psychological, emotional and spiritual terms, not just economic. (Please forgive and correct me if I have misrepresented you here). I wanted to write about how Marvin is right in the sense that the costs of Lockdown (or whatever intervention) have not been talked about enough or properly (except in purely economic terms). I also want to talk about why Marvin is wrong. Why? Because all of those costs will be higher if we don't lockdown.
Firstly, to agree with Marvin; the argument that it is a trade-off between economic well-being and public health is nonsense. There are real public health costs from interventions (especially the effect on mental health of the lockdown restrictions but others as well). There are real costs to a lockdown for all of us. Some more than others and pretending otherwise is not actually helpful.
Firstly, the economic cost of a lockdown has significant health impacts. There is plenty of empirical data that any sort of economic shock (which lockdown clearly is in a BIG way) has a measurable effect on health outcomes across the board. The mechanisms here are the increased stress of economic insecurity, the effect of poorer housing, poorer diet etc. etc. It's essentially a simple relationship - when GDP goes down, so does public health. Hence it is potentially disingenuous to argue that there should be no opposition to Lockdown because people matter more than money - the health before wealth argument. I have no doubt that it is true of some lockdown critics who are simply trying to protect their (possibly excessive) wealth. Conversely, however, many of those in society who are struggling the most face a huge dent to their health and wellbeing from lockdown. It is not surprising that some feel that lockdown is too high a price to pay for preventing the virus. It is worth noting that this effect is greatest on the poorest in society. That is not inevitable nor just but is still true.
Secondly, if we look at the wider social costs of lockdown they are not small. I shared before that the advent of all this prompted me to go on antidepressants for the first time in 20 years. I know of several people who are struggling with their mental health. The impact on children's education and emotional wellbeing is huge. It's obvious that my two year old suffered from the lack of interaction with other toddlers back in the spring.
So, having agreed with MtM so far, why do I think he's wrong? Well, let's game this out. Let's assume that the government does not act to prevent the spread of Covid-19; what happens?
So again, there's good data to model this out with. If a disease like this spreads unchecked in the population then hospitals are swamped. That means that many people with Covid-19 do not receive care who really need it and die. (Some would have died anyway but the mortality rate climbs rapidly). Hospitals stop being able to function due to this massive influx. The normal provision of healthcare falls apart and many people do not receive treatment or receive inadequate treatment for all the other conditions. Healthcare staff get sick and absentee numbers compromise all aspects of care. There is a spike in non-Covid mortality as a consequence. (To return to Ebola for a moment, at the peak of the outbreaks, some hospitals simply stopped because all the staff were either dead or ill or too scared to come to work!). The same would happen with Covid. PPE supplies would not get close to meeting demand and even the most dedicated staff would struggle. This pattern is also seen in many other areas of society with people scared to go shopping or interact in any way so most businesses find they've lost their customers. Worryingly, it probably takes a few weeks for the fear levels in the community to get high enough for this to happen spontaneously but it would get there. Why is that worrying? All I am implying is that you get effectively a voluntary lockdown in the end. Well, simply because that time window just supports even greater community spread. Whilst many people won't get too sick, enough people do so that behaviour of the populations changes dramatically.
What I am postulating here is that ultimately, the economic costs of not-locking down will be very close to the costs of locking down (ignoring the human cost, for the moment). This is especially true as if you mitigate the pandemic successfully (i.e. act EARLY enough) then the bounce-back of the economy compensates for the loses and hence the long-term costs are minimal. This is true economically but not necessarily in terms of the personal, emotional wellbeing.
By delaying lockdown, but not doing it properly, then you don't avoid these costs; they end up higher ultimately.
AFZ
Has @Marvin the Martian been arguing "that the costs of Lockdown are greater (from his perspective) than the costs of the virus".
Seems like he's okay with with draconian disease control measures provided they're borne by someone who isn't him.
Deferred maintenance is always more expensive than timely maintenance.
I think that's a fair summary of his position which has been consistent over 9 months now.
And to your last paragraph; indeed, indeed.
AFZ
Indeed. I hadn't realised that. This is an interview with him from November:
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4235:
(No paywall)
AFZ
It's the right question. In order for animals to be a reservoir you need two things:
1. Animal to human transmission. AND
2. Human to animal OR animal to animal OR long term animal infection.
The small number of human to animal transmissions is not in itself concerning. Noteworthy but not concerning. Animal to human would worry me a lot more.
A lot lot lot. Hence the probably in the post above.
AFZ
Further information on the case:
So yeah, that's pizzagate-level nutjobbery. It could have been much worse though.
Infection rates are higher
It's a rewriting of lyrics to a popular song, m'lud.
That's very good! Now I'm going to have that tune in my head all day, damn you!
I thought it might be a reference to popular culture, but I think I'll give any research a miss - I have enough earworms already.
Yes ...
Anyway, the sensible public health measures that were at first encouraged and now later are enforced to some degree are not all*or*nothing ...
Society and the economy have NOT been 100% shut down ...
No, just all the fun bits that people actually want to do. All the shitty bullshit boring soulless bits that you literally have to pay people to even consider doing are going along just fine...
LOL ...
IOW, we introverts are having the time of our lives ...
I wish. Part of the problem with being locked down in the house with my family is that I’m always with my family. The chance to just be on my own and do whatever I like for a few hours has disappeared.
There's that ...
I'm apparently soulless and boring, and have no life, but as far as my kids go:
The pandemic sucks. None of these things are ideal substitutes for their non-pandemic equivalents, but it goes rather too far to say that "all the fun bits" are cancelled.
I really don't want to underestimate how hard that might be for you, Marvin, as I don't know how awful your situation is. But speaking as someone who lives alone, hasn't had a day or night away from my home - which is also my workplace - since November 2019 and who doesn't know when I'll see my family again, you get my sympathy but with some caveats. I have an almost permanent chance 'just to be on my own' but what I would like to do for a few hours is also out of the question, because that is to see the people I love.
Sounds like you need a shed. This excellent book might get you started.
Fuck. Yes.
Being permanently stuck in either situation would be awful. You have my sympathy without any caveats.
Just a quick note. I will hunt out the data when I get the chance but just had a penny-drop moment. This comes from the head of the NHS providers group, so I suspect it's solid data but he stated that of those admitted to hospital with Covid-19, fewer are dying than in the first wave. This he says reflects better understanding of how to care for people. I will dig out some evidence on this. It may well be simply that the virus has changed but there has been enormous progress also with medical (supportative) management so I think it a reasonable claim.
The point is, I have spent the past two weeks looking at the daily death figures (still the most reliable way to track the progress of the pandemic). The death rate is around half of the peak in the spring but two notable things; firstly that the peak became a plateau rather than falling and the rate of increase has been much slower. This comes with the fact that hospitals are struggling for capacity much more than they were with equivalent infection levels ~9 months ago.
The point is, if we are getting better at treating people (or even if the virus is slightly less deadly) it means longer hospital stays as people recover. (In terms of bed capacity, it's better if people come in and die quickly). Hence with death rates not that close to the spring peak, we are still at the point where hospitals are seriously over-stretched.
More to follow.
AFZ
I watched the most recent Hospital series, still on BBC iPlayer, from the Royal Free and other hospitals in that Trust, filmed through the summer and into October and November as cases started to rise again. Patients were being allocated to different trials, and often walking out of hospital, some time later. One man who came in really ill was frightened of going into intensive care as he had lost a number of relatives in the first wave, all of whom had not come out alive from ICU. He was treated with clot busting medication and recovered to go home. He ran a shop in London, and however much he protected himself, customers refused to wear masks. Another man who recovered, and I suspect would not have in the first wave, was a Cantonese speaking bus driver who had continued to work to keep London moving. He again commented on the refusal of passengers to wear masks. He was treated with steroids and a range of other medications not used in the first wave.
There were a number of elderly patients who didn't recover, often because they refused treatment or chose to go home earlier than the hospital recommended. Which suggested that the death rates being higher at older ages may also be partially influenced by treatments - or the appalling death rates in care homes. (Another care home hit the news yesterday as half their residents died of Covid19 over Christmas and New Year.)
I think you meant well when you typed this, so genuinely thank you for the nice thought. I hope you manage to find somehow the space you need to keep sane and positive. Ironically, I have more space than I know what to do with and I still find it hard to keep sane and positive. Maybe the space that really matters most is the space inside my head!
However, if you've meant sincerely anything of what you've posted so far, your sympathy is completely loaded with caveats! In fact, if I told you that I fall into one of the categories you think should be allowed to die because trying to protect my life restricts the freedoms of the young and healthy you would have no choice but to withdraw your unqualified sympathy and instead be content to consign to me an early death!
Apologies, I missed this. I was busy writing too-long posts.... Alan answered it very well. I don't wanna get lost in semantics but the point is that an infective organism that regularly infects both animals and humans is a very different epidemiological beast than one that evolves from an animal virus but is essentially only a human infection.
I probably said this about 27 pages back* but there's a nice parallel with HIV here. We can work out that HIV is a new virus, evolving from SIV (the monkey equivalent) about 100 years ago. But HIV only infects humans and SIV only monkeys so whilst HIV is an off-shoot of SIV**, one would never consider it a zoonotic infection in the way rabies or influenza or cat-scratch fever are...
SARS-CoV2 is the same as HIV in this sense; it's descended from an animal virus but its (essentially only) tropism*** is human cells.
Which comes back to the original point; if we can control it well enough in humans, it will go away.
AFZ
*I hope my meandering waffle is interesting to others but I write this kind of thing coz it fascinates me. I would apologise but you all can just scroll past.
** There are really two HIVs; HIV-1 and HIV-2. It was thought that they were related to each other but they're not really. Both are related to SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) indicating that the species jump to humans (requiring significant changes in the virus structure) occurred on two separate occasions.
***Tropism is the technical term. In this context it means the specific cells a virus can infect. No virus can infect all species or even all cell types within a species (AFAIK). For example, HIV's main tropism is CD4+ T-lymphocytes. These cells are critical to control and coordination of the immune system thus explaining why HIV causes such a massive failure of the immune system (AIDS). This paper (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30193-4/fulltext) is an example of the work being done to understand the tropism of SARS-Cov2. The key here is that it essentially only infects human respiratory epithelium. The exceptions are well documented but there are few absolutes in biology, most things are a spectrum. The propensity of SARS-Cov2 to infect non-human mammals is very low. Low enough to ignore from a public health perspective. (On current evidence).