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H5N1. Just how bad is the situation? — LessWrong

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H5N1. Just how bad is the situation?

8th Jul 2023

1 min read

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How bad do you think the H5N1 situation is? I tried to search on LessWrong and EffectiveAltruism, but haven't found that much discussion.

When I was reading about H5N1, a lot of my assumptions were broken. I was shocked how vulnerable we are to the most "predictable" threats.

Should/can rationalists take this threat into account? Can this threat warrant even, I dunno, some community-wide preparation?

Edit: this comment gives specific predictions. Can somebody explain the justification behind such predictions? What exactly keeps the risk relatively low?

H5N1. Just how bad is the situation?

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Jul 09, 2023

31

Metaculus puts 7% on the WHO declaring it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and 2.4% on it killing more than 10,000 people, before 2024.

[-]avturchin3y2-2

Both these questions have too short timing: half a year. The real question is will H5N1 pandemic happen in the next 5-10 years, that is, before strong AI. If we extrapolate 2.4% per for half a year – to the next 10 years, it will be around 50 %, which is much less comfortable.

2gbear6053y

Metaculus isn’t very precise near zero, so it doesn’t make sense to multiply it out. Also, there’s currently a mild outbreak, while most of the time there’s no outbreak (or less of one), so the risk for the next half year is elevated compared to normal.

2avturchin3y

In the case of H5N1 we could suggest exponential growth of adaptation to mammals and humans as well as the number of infected birds, and ion that case the probability will be higher in the next few years.

1Q Home3y

Sorry for a dumb question, but where do those numbers come from? What reasoning stands behind them? Is it some causal story ("jumping to humans is not that easy"), or priors ("pandemics are unlikely") or some precedent analysis ("it's not the first time a virus infects so much animal types")? I really lack knowledge about viruses.

5avturchin3y

I think it is mostly prior probability for large zoonotic event, slightly updated by recent events

What exactly, in our rational consideration, keeps the risk relatively low? Is it a prior that calamity-level pandemics happen rarely? Is it the fact (?) that today's situation is not that unique? Is it the hope that the virus can "back down", somehow? Is it some fact about general behavior of viruses?

What are the "cruxes" of "the risk is relatively low" prediction, what events would increase/decrease the risk and how much? For example, what happens with the probability if a lot of mammal-to-mammal transmissions start happening? Maybe I've missed it, but Z... (read more)

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Florin

Jul 08, 2023

21

Reusable respirators will work well against any fast-spreading pandemic (assuming no ridiculously-long, asymptomatic incubation periods).

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