Can’t find answer to this obvious question:
Viral epidemics and pandemics die out. Why? Why don’t they just sicken everyone that comes into contact? What stops propagation?
Yes I know they are fast-evolving, but those that successfully reproduce by definition propagate. There’s a reason the Spanish Flu died out, why didn’t it kill everyone? Why isn’t it still killing? Wouldn’t survivability make the the most prolific virus the one that survives rather than the one with”devolved” genetic material?
Sky News Breaking
@SkyNewsBreak
Sixth British national who also stayed at the chalet in Les Contamines-Montjoie is confirmed to have coronavirus covid-19 in France
Why doesn’t everyone get it? A “bug” has a small number of of surface proteins that can each latch onto a specific surface protein on a cell before infection can happen. If your genetic shuffle doesn’t happen to have those surface proteins, you won’t get that disease. Also many may have has an earlier similar “bug” and their immune system is already primed to fight it. Cowpox vs small pox for example.
But what stops a pandemic before everyone else is dead? Simple answer? I don’t know.
I’ll take a stab at your question: isolation and lack of vector seems the obvious answer.
Infected villages become no-go zones. No people in, no people out. No vector. Outbreak kills off 90% of the village (10% herd immunity hopefully), the village becomes ‘haunted ground’ or ‘sour ground’ or ‘evil ground’ or ‘sacred ground’ whatever it takes for the locals to avoid it. By the time someone gets around to defying the curse, the virus has passed beyond survivability.
China has a bat and rat problem. Compounded by their obsession with building concrete ghost cities aka 21st century bat and rat caves. And until they tell the envirowackos to bugger off, and reduce those numbers by hundreds of millions, and close the bat caves to guided tours which get poo’d on, they will continue to churn out epidemic after epidemic after epidemic. Right now they have (at least) three epidemics going on at the same time, swine flu, bird flu and bat flu. I don’t care if bats eat mosquitoes, the bats in china are now contaminated with hundreds of viruses that have turned them into evil critters that bring disease to domestic animals.
Off them like the rabid dogs they are before they start a rabies epidemic too. Find some new bats.