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Comment by thdrdt | Hacker News Reader

My money is on the virus being an aerosol and badly ventilated indoor events accounting for most of the transmissions. There is growing evidence for this and also that the amount of virus particles you get into your system determines how sick you get (related to your overall health).

If this is true, social distancing wouldn't help us much but disallowing gatherings of people in badly ventilated areas would.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/opinion/coronavirus-super...

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-coronavirus-importanc...

https://youtu.be/SnI5ZsvvTrg

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> There is growing evidence for this and also that the amount of virus particles you get into your system determines how sick you get (related to your overall health).

Which would be a good argument for variolation.

That is, deliberately infect yourself with a very small virus dose. Small enough that you don't get seriously ill, but big enough that you get immunity.

If this were 1800, sure. You could also just skip the phase 3 trials on the Sinovac vaccine instead, but it is not a well supported argument.

I know variolation is banned by 2020 regulations in most of the world.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

To you and the parent, this is why I think we see large antibody counts in prison and military populations while not have as many cases. Folks were infected with a very small initial viral load and their immune systems fought it off and developed antibodies.

This is also why we see young healthy medical personnel die from the disease, 1) their immune system is degraded from harsh working conditions 2) the viral loads are many multiples higher from basically getting coughed in the face all day long

I’m interested: why would a prison or military population fit with a very small viral load?

Dense populations with small cross sections, either at their stations or in bunks/cells. Mostly aerosolized transmission vs direct contact.

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