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Lions and domestic cats have a common ancestor but lions don’t devolve to mostly harmless. Immunity to domestic cats (we can just physically dominate them) doesn’t give us any immunity to lions. Lions aren’t a pandemic scourge for other reasons.
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Interesting to consider the difference between a predator and a parasite. Small size and reproductive speed both matter. A lion is big enough that it can’t feed on you indefinitely keeping you alive. Let alone breed in you.
Hmm there are only 45 recognized species of coronavirus total, of which 7 infect humans. For rhino viruses, there are 160 for humans alone. Possibly because rhinoviruses are among the smallest RNA viruses and coronaviruses are among the largest? Makes them less stable maybe?
Sizes: Rhinoviruses: 30nm Flu viruses: 80-120nm Coronaviruses: 120nm but can range from 50 to 200 at extremes Smallpox: 300nm Domestic cats, leopards, lions/tigers, cattle. HIV is also 120nm range
Hmm large mammals are actually a bad comparison. Viruses are as much smaller than bacteria (up to 100x) as insects are smaller than us. So we should map bacteria to predatory mammals and viruses to insects to get a better sense of proportions. Cholera = 2 μm = 2000nm
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Wonder if there’s any home-grade experiments or observations you can do with harmless bacteria that don’t require an electron microscope and won’t bring the FBI down on you. Hobby virology should be a thing.
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Replying to
Yet Another N=1 “Hugely Significant” Finding— I heard today (TWIV 673) That Trump had NO COVID antibodies prior to receiving (on day 7?) REGN-COV2 antibody cocktail I am NOT an expert immunologist but it *seems* adaptive immunity is not guaranteed v COVID