Talk:2287: Pathogen Resistance

Note that the title text says "not not" -- meaning we're both trapped in here together John.Adriaan (talk) 04:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Do bacteriophages "afflict" humanity? To my knowledge, they only infect bacteria and are even considered a possible future alternative to antibiotics by some. What is up with them being represented here? 09:12, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, bacteriophage is just wrong here, it's a generic virus. This type of virus is depicted on the bacteriophage wikipedia page but viruses that affect humans can have that shape also. 172.68.51.94

There are no known human viruses of that shape (source: I'm a biologist), so this seems like more of a mistake on Randall's side (albeit an odd one for him to make, so perhaps somehow deliberate?). 162.158.91.155 08:55, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

But... if it affects bacteria and humen have many bacteria (and many/most of them useful) in them, shouldn't it affect the human then as well? indirectly? Source: I have very vague knowledge :D --Lupo (talk) 09:06, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

It may be deliberate in the sense that almost everyone will go "Oh, that's a virus!" when they see this shape, contrary to the other 2 which look more like big molecules or bacteria.162.158.111.7 09:20, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Don’t worry, pathogens! All is not lost. There will always be some humans whose brains don’t work very well, who will buy into ideas like “vaccines cause autism”, or “faith healing”, or “natural remedies”, or “Trump is always right”. You’ll still have hosts. Tualha (talk) 07:27, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

   That's right 108.162.216.158 13:13, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Bacteriophages only infect bacteria and some kinds of Archaea, not humans, so the explanation is slightly wrong. They are probably the prettiest and easiest to recognise viral shape though, which is why they are so commonly used in cartoons and illustrations.Phil (talk) 08:29, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I am just as much a hobby-virologist as anybody else suddenly is, but I have no clue what you are talking about. I don't even know which of the 3 shapes you mean. So please edit the explanation yourself if you see, that it is wrong. --Lupo (talk) 08:37, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

The narrator-virus in the middle of the three, that looks somewhat like a rotation of a mosquito, with a D20 on top. Wikipedia diagram 141.101.69.13 12:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

"They bought lots of pasta." More like they bought lots of toilet paper! Humans, when we think rationally, can make great things happen. Humans, when we panic, can make incredibly foolish decisions. Nutster (talk) 11:32, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

It's both. At least in the supermarkets close to my place (western Germany), pasta, toilet paper, rice, milk, flour, yeast are all common to be out of stock or almost out of stock and usually their shelfes have by now signs that they will only sell a certain amount of them to each customer. --Lupo (talk) 12:14, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Why does one of the voices say, "I hate lungs"? --108.162.216.62 13:08, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

To emphasize that they really do want to destroy those lungs. All good here. 13:13, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

This comic is a positive message giving good advice to people on how to beat the current COVID-19 spread. But the numbers clearly show it is not working (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-52066105/coronavirus-us-death-rates-v-china-italy-and-south-Korea, and many other locations on the internet.) Continuing to believe this pandemic can be beat with only lock-downs, hand washing and telling people to not do things they do naturally without thinking, is the public health equivalent of engineering design with friction-less surfaces and mass-less pullies. We need solutions that understand human nature and tell people to do things they actually will do, not keep saying the same things over and over again despite experience screaming at us that people are not doing it. The 6 places that have controlled the outbreak (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Japan) have used different methods of testing, tracing, isolating, restricting travel, etc., but the one thing they have in common is a large portion of the population is wearing masks in public. The 5 places with the largest uncontrolled outbreaks (USA (especially NYC) Italy, Spain, Germany and France) are all using the same lock down strategy and all have public health officials discouraging / preventing people from wearing masks in public. This should not be hard to figure out. And saying the limited supply of masks need to go to certain people, not working to increase the number of masks, is what failure looks like.