FUTURE PANDEMICS?
The third point I promised to reveal in the sequel to THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by…well…me!…surrounds pandemics in the not-so-distant future I have created.
Let’s start with today and the basics: COVID-19 is unusual, but not that unusual. It’s said to be a rather large-sized virus whose “family tree” includes variants present in many animals. What makes it “pandemic” is (a) its reported high infectivity and (b) its general novelty to contemporary humans who seem to have little experience with it (see “Profile of a killer: the complex biology powering the coronavirus pandemic” in Nature 4 May 2020 at https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...). Viruses are not uncommon — think of “colds” and “flu” — and can be quite nasty. Viruses, however, while not “alive” are complex genetic “packages” that are generally easily “dis-infected.” That is, they can be made less or even non-infective often with exposure to air, sunlight, soap and a variety of chemicals, and their spread inhibited by barriers.
More interesting in terms of future pandemic opportunists, I think, are prions. Prions are orders of magnitude smaller than viruses and contain no genetic material. They are very tiny chemicals that can flip from on configuration to another, one typically being destructive to human cells, the other the opposite. They are so tiny and inert biologically that exposure to air, sunlight, intense heat (e.g. boiling and open flame), soap and most dis-infectants have limited effect. Furthermore, they are so tiny they can pass through most filters and masks. They are thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“mad cow” disease) in cattle, scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, elk, moose and reindeer, and Kuru-Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) as well as possibly Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease in humans. Like COVID-19, there is currently no definitive treatment (see “Prion Diseases” at https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-co...). In a heavily populated, tightly globalized world as in THE EDGE OF MADNESS, I believe that prions, viroids (commonly called “plant viruses”) and viruses will all pose interesting pandemic threats to on- and off-worlders like our three protagonists. Did I say “off-worlders” and “like our three protagonists” together?
Let’s start with today and the basics: COVID-19 is unusual, but not that unusual. It’s said to be a rather large-sized virus whose “family tree” includes variants present in many animals. What makes it “pandemic” is (a) its reported high infectivity and (b) its general novelty to contemporary humans who seem to have little experience with it (see “Profile of a killer: the complex biology powering the coronavirus pandemic” in Nature 4 May 2020 at https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...). Viruses are not uncommon — think of “colds” and “flu” — and can be quite nasty. Viruses, however, while not “alive” are complex genetic “packages” that are generally easily “dis-infected.” That is, they can be made less or even non-infective often with exposure to air, sunlight, soap and a variety of chemicals, and their spread inhibited by barriers.
More interesting in terms of future pandemic opportunists, I think, are prions. Prions are orders of magnitude smaller than viruses and contain no genetic material. They are very tiny chemicals that can flip from on configuration to another, one typically being destructive to human cells, the other the opposite. They are so tiny and inert biologically that exposure to air, sunlight, intense heat (e.g. boiling and open flame), soap and most dis-infectants have limited effect. Furthermore, they are so tiny they can pass through most filters and masks. They are thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“mad cow” disease) in cattle, scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, elk, moose and reindeer, and Kuru-Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) as well as possibly Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease in humans. Like COVID-19, there is currently no definitive treatment (see “Prion Diseases” at https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-co...). In a heavily populated, tightly globalized world as in THE EDGE OF MADNESS, I believe that prions, viroids (commonly called “plant viruses”) and viruses will all pose interesting pandemic threats to on- and off-worlders like our three protagonists. Did I say “off-worlders” and “like our three protagonists” together?
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