Some questions about death and infection rates

Dec 11, 2015 14:27

time: nowish; place: in the general vicinity of Washington and Oregon, at least initially ( Read more... )

~zombies, ~medicine: illnesses: infectious (misc)

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marycatelli December 12 2015, 16:05:46 UTC
Regardless of the means of transmission, there's going to be a LOT of variation. Does exposure equal infection, or is it hard to get even then?

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tamtrible December 15 2015, 04:55:08 UTC
Full-on exposure (eg an actual bite, or a serious french kiss, or unprotected sex) generally means infection, but cursory exposure generally doesn't. Though I'm not 100% certain how plausible that is biologically. Basically, what I figure is there are a *lot* of spores being given out, but they're relatively fragile until they establish. So, if you get enough of a dose that you can't fight off all the spores before they can worm their way into somewhere "safe", you'll be infected and stay infected.

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corvideye December 16 2015, 18:10:22 UTC
It seems plausible given that HIV and ebola spread in a very similar way. Perhaps you could look at HIV infection rates from the early 80s (before the transmission rate was fully understood) and correlate that with more standard death rates.

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tamtrible December 21 2015, 05:32:10 UTC
I think it spreads a *little* more easily than HIV (afaik you can't get HIV through oral sex or kissing), but it'll at least give me a good jumping-off point, thank you.

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corvideye December 21 2015, 05:52:31 UTC
For the record, while it's not common, it can happen:

(source: aids.gov)
Less commonly, HIV may be spread by:

Oral sex- fellatio, cunnilingus, and rimming. Giving fellatio and having the person ejaculate in your mouth is riskier than other types of oral sex.

Deep, open-mouth kissing if the person with HIV has sores or bleeding gums and blood is exchanged. HIV is not spread through saliva. Transmission through kissing alone is extremely rare.

Contact between broken skin, wounds, or mucous membranes and HIV-infected blood or blood-contaminated body fluids. These reports have also been extremely rare.

Eating food that has been pre-chewed by an HIV-infected person. The contamination occurs when infected blood from a caregiver’s mouth mixes with food while chewing, and is very rare.

Being bitten by a person with HIV. Each of the very small number of documented cases has involved severe trauma with extensive tissue damage and the presence of blood.

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tamtrible January 3 2016, 16:49:42 UTC
Noted. But this is not "you can very occasionally get this through oral sex or kissing", this is "a long French kiss is a pretty reliable method of transmission".

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