My girlfriend died from human metapneumovirus at 30 years young. She had a weakened immune system from lymphangiomatosis, so something like metapneumovirus, which is a mild illness for most people, was a death sentence for her. I hope this fund is successful so nobody else ever has to go through what she did.
Thank you. It's crazy how quickly life can change.
She filled out a healthcare directive when she was 24. Either she never gave it to her clinic or it didn't get transferred with her other files or something when she started going to a different hospital system. Anyway, the hospital she was in didn't have it. She was hospitalized for like 5 days before she passed. I found that healthcare directive that morning, just a few hours before she died. It was stuffed in the back of a drawer. I was tearing up my apartment trying to find it. And when I found it I saw she had written on there
Please celebrate my life, mourn for me, but know I am in a better place.
God has a plan for me, and He has a plan for all of you.
We spend that on illegal immigrants every month if not more in the US, while demoralizing many citizens (I know someone that is on the verge of killing himself because he gets $1000 a month in social security and hearing about addict assistance spending or illegal spending basically makes him feel like a lowest tier citizen in this country.)
My oldest starting preschool was one of the worst times in my life. We were sick from august to december, then january to may. Dreadful.
It got better. My youngest is 3 now and is ahead of where my oldest was due to having 2 older siblings importing illnesses for several years, and this year we finally were mostly not sick all school year. Which is to say, we were probably closer to the 15 days "materially sick" mark. I say materially sick to mean, definitely sick, though perhaps not taken out of school (due to not technically being outside of the health exclusion policy, and sometimes I only realize they were "materially" sick instead of just "passably sick given kids will basically have a lingering cough from august to may").
I heard about vitamin D during covid, and that and hand sanitizer are the only 2 things we still do. I haven't been sick for a few years. Before covid (and vitamin D supplements), it was at least 25 days sick every year, if not more.
This sounds roughly normal for what I came to expect back when I worked in an office with many people who had school-age kids. I had a colleague who wryly referred to his kids as "my little plague carriers".
When I stopped working in an office, I almost completely stopped getting sick.
I've had years in which most people in my immediate surroundings were sick for weeks or months (likely exacerbated by mold, school, and travel). Also years in which I never really got sick at all.
For my family of 5 w/ school age children I would say that is a pretty reasonable estimate, maybe even a bit low for us. There are levels of “sick” though and I would say for us most respiratory illnesses are very mild and are a minor annoyance. Where it becomes more menacing is when we have sick kids and sick parents at the same time.
I am so tremendously excited to see this, I've had quite a few friends become permanently disabled from long covid and even have some lingering symptoms myself from my last infection and so anything to improve access and uptake of air cleaning technologies and new preventatives is amazing.
As someone who still masks (KN95) in all indoor settings where unmasked people are present, I am all for this. Very much looking forward to seeing where it leads.
> Why haven’t we already seen the same kind of transformation with respiratory viruses?
Because it’s a lot easier to control the supply of a material that has to be actively transported into people’s houses for them to use? I struggle to take them seriously when I didn’t see this basic and fundamental difference even mentioned.
> We surveyed attendees ahead of the symposium. One of our questions was: if this doesn’t happen in the next ~10 years, what will the primary reason be? The number one reason cited was lack of funding, followed by technical feasibility. Why hasn’t this field attracted sufficient funding, especially given the enormous societal burden?
Isn't a projected problem with technical feasibility an explanation for lack of funding?
Noble goal, but tell a bunch of scientists and startups that you've got a grand vision and $500 million in cash to burn, and they're always going to tell you a story about how it could be possible if you give them that money. And your sycophantic AI you use to research and vet will also always tell you there's a chance, if that's what you seem to be wanting.
While I think it’s a noble idea I think much more could be achieved with much smaller amounts of money. Actually zero. Regulate sugar, introduce a HIGH sugar tax. Introduce higher nicotine and alcohol tax. Introduce stricter environmental controls for poisonous materials and water and air pollution.
All these things cost essentially zero to implement, they even bring in money and all of them are credible ways to significantly reduce health problems world wide.
But eh, I’m not part of a lobbying organisation, so what do I know.
My son is susceptible to these type of infections and has asthma. He missed 17 days of school last year. Even if not fatal these types of infections are miserable and have an impact on those who get them and their caretakers.
I was really disappointed that air cleaning didn’t take off after Covid. Super disappointing to see society just collectively decide to not learn any lessons.
Even if there were no mortality or productivity benefits, you’d think cutting down on cold and flu would be sufficient motivation on its own. Especially in schools and other high risk places.
> Even if there were no mortality or productivity benefits, you’d think cutting down on cold and flu would be sufficient motivation on its own.
You'd think that, but air-cleaning equipment that's not legally required is an avoidable expense. People getting sick, crippled, or even dying from things that aren't legally your fault doesn't appear on a company's balance sheets.
Given that, it's pretty obvious what a business that's out to save every dollar you can get away with will choose to do.
We had twins after having a singleton during covid. We invested in 4 big hepa air filters and placed one in each bedroom. I think it significantly reduced the amount of illnesses we faced in the first year if the twins life. Lesson learned for us.
I'd be interested to see more concerted research into contagious/self-replicable vaccines that are self-replicating and spreadable to a wider swath of people. That seems like a step forward in public health prevention for seasonal illnesses that we have well-engineered and safe vaccines for.
I understand the bar for deployment would need to be high to ensure that side effects are even rare compared to typical voluntary vaccinations.
1) There’s no way the public would buy in to this idea.
2) This seems like a serious violation of medical ethics.
3) If we already gave a well-engineered and safe vaccine, why not take that? Supply chain and immunization itself isn’t a practical choke point: it’s vaccine accuracy for things like flu, and vaccine misinformation for something like measles. But again, take the vaccine or don’t: for most illnesses and most scenarios, you’re only hurting yourself.
My girlfriend died from human metapneumovirus at 30 years young. She had a weakened immune system from lymphangiomatosis, so something like metapneumovirus, which is a mild illness for most people, was a death sentence for her. I hope this fund is successful so nobody else ever has to go through what she did.
Sorry for your loss.
Thank you. It's crazy how quickly life can change.
She filled out a healthcare directive when she was 24. Either she never gave it to her clinic or it didn't get transferred with her other files or something when she started going to a different hospital system. Anyway, the hospital she was in didn't have it. She was hospitalized for like 5 days before she passed. I found that healthcare directive that morning, just a few hours before she died. It was stuffed in the back of a drawer. I was tearing up my apartment trying to find it. And when I found it I saw she had written on there
Please celebrate my life, mourn for me, but know I am in a better place. God has a plan for me, and He has a plan for all of you.
It's sad we're resorting to philanthropy to solve problems like this. $500M is chump change.
NASA spent something like $300B in today's money on the Apollo program, and Artemis has exceeded $90B already.
I'm much more keen on never getting sick than prepping for Mars.
The Iran war is going to cost us at least $200 billion dollars and you’re over here complaining about NASA spending?
What makes you think they will succeed?
It’s 500m spend without guaranteed success.
Yeah, so was building moon rockets.
Looking at how Blue Origin is doing, it seems that that's still true.
We spend that on illegal immigrants every month if not more in the US, while demoralizing many citizens (I know someone that is on the verge of killing himself because he gets $1000 a month in social security and hearing about addict assistance spending or illegal spending basically makes him feel like a lowest tier citizen in this country.)
Everything should be voluntary philantrhopy! It seems like the ideal state if people are willing to do the pro-social thing by their own volition.
Is it better if your child does their homework because they freely choose to, or is it better that they do it because you will beat them with a belt?
> Healthy people spend roughly 15-25 days each year—about 5% of their lives—sick with respiratory infections like the common cold and influenza
This seems completely unbelievable to me. Totally outside of my personal, professional, and family experience.
No kids eh?
My oldest starting preschool was one of the worst times in my life. We were sick from august to december, then january to may. Dreadful.
It got better. My youngest is 3 now and is ahead of where my oldest was due to having 2 older siblings importing illnesses for several years, and this year we finally were mostly not sick all school year. Which is to say, we were probably closer to the 15 days "materially sick" mark. I say materially sick to mean, definitely sick, though perhaps not taken out of school (due to not technically being outside of the health exclusion policy, and sometimes I only realize they were "materially" sick instead of just "passably sick given kids will basically have a lingering cough from august to may").
This happened to us too, until I heard the podcast about Vitamin D. Nipped that in the bud almost immediately.
I heard about vitamin D during covid, and that and hand sanitizer are the only 2 things we still do. I haven't been sick for a few years. Before covid (and vitamin D supplements), it was at least 25 days sick every year, if not more.
This sounds roughly normal for what I came to expect back when I worked in an office with many people who had school-age kids. I had a colleague who wryly referred to his kids as "my little plague carriers".
When I stopped working in an office, I almost completely stopped getting sick.
Unbelievable in which direction?
I've had years in which most people in my immediate surroundings were sick for weeks or months (likely exacerbated by mold, school, and travel). Also years in which I never really got sick at all.
Getting sick that often is pretty debilitating.
This feels about right to me. Living with kids and commuting via public transport (in a country where face masks are not common) might break 5%.
Are you reading “sick” as so ill that you can’t carry out your normal routine? I think they mean any symptoms.
I would love to move to whatever planet you're living on. To me the estimate seems low.
For my family of 5 w/ school age children I would say that is a pretty reasonable estimate, maybe even a bit low for us. There are levels of “sick” though and I would say for us most respiratory illnesses are very mild and are a minor annoyance. Where it becomes more menacing is when we have sick kids and sick parents at the same time.
I am so tremendously excited to see this, I've had quite a few friends become permanently disabled from long covid and even have some lingering symptoms myself from my last infection and so anything to improve access and uptake of air cleaning technologies and new preventatives is amazing.
As someone who still masks (KN95) in all indoor settings where unmasked people are present, I am all for this. Very much looking forward to seeing where it leads.
> Why haven’t we already seen the same kind of transformation with respiratory viruses?
Because it’s a lot easier to control the supply of a material that has to be actively transported into people’s houses for them to use? I struggle to take them seriously when I didn’t see this basic and fundamental difference even mentioned.
> We surveyed attendees ahead of the symposium. One of our questions was: if this doesn’t happen in the next ~10 years, what will the primary reason be? The number one reason cited was lack of funding, followed by technical feasibility. Why hasn’t this field attracted sufficient funding, especially given the enormous societal burden?
Isn't a projected problem with technical feasibility an explanation for lack of funding?
Noble goal, but tell a bunch of scientists and startups that you've got a grand vision and $500 million in cash to burn, and they're always going to tell you a story about how it could be possible if you give them that money. And your sycophantic AI you use to research and vet will also always tell you there's a chance, if that's what you seem to be wanting.
Can it be dangerous to use uv as it can cause mutations in pathogens potentially making them evolve even faster?
I assume the kind of uv used must be fatal, but is there a chance that a tiny percentage makes it?
Sunlight is the biggest UV source and at the scales we’re talking, manmade disinfectants would not register
While I think it’s a noble idea I think much more could be achieved with much smaller amounts of money. Actually zero. Regulate sugar, introduce a HIGH sugar tax. Introduce higher nicotine and alcohol tax. Introduce stricter environmental controls for poisonous materials and water and air pollution. All these things cost essentially zero to implement, they even bring in money and all of them are credible ways to significantly reduce health problems world wide. But eh, I’m not part of a lobbying organisation, so what do I know.
My son is susceptible to these type of infections and has asthma. He missed 17 days of school last year. Even if not fatal these types of infections are miserable and have an impact on those who get them and their caretakers.
I was really disappointed that air cleaning didn’t take off after Covid. Super disappointing to see society just collectively decide to not learn any lessons.
Even if there were no mortality or productivity benefits, you’d think cutting down on cold and flu would be sufficient motivation on its own. Especially in schools and other high risk places.
Kudos to these people.
> Even if there were no mortality or productivity benefits, you’d think cutting down on cold and flu would be sufficient motivation on its own.
You'd think that, but air-cleaning equipment that's not legally required is an avoidable expense. People getting sick, crippled, or even dying from things that aren't legally your fault doesn't appear on a company's balance sheets.
Given that, it's pretty obvious what a business that's out to save every dollar you can get away with will choose to do.
We had twins after having a singleton during covid. We invested in 4 big hepa air filters and placed one in each bedroom. I think it significantly reduced the amount of illnesses we faced in the first year if the twins life. Lesson learned for us.
I'd be interested to see more concerted research into contagious/self-replicable vaccines that are self-replicating and spreadable to a wider swath of people. That seems like a step forward in public health prevention for seasonal illnesses that we have well-engineered and safe vaccines for.
I understand the bar for deployment would need to be high to ensure that side effects are even rare compared to typical voluntary vaccinations.
Self-replicating vaccines? We already have those. They're called diseases.
1) There’s no way the public would buy in to this idea. 2) This seems like a serious violation of medical ethics. 3) If we already gave a well-engineered and safe vaccine, why not take that? Supply chain and immunization itself isn’t a practical choke point: it’s vaccine accuracy for things like flu, and vaccine misinformation for something like measles. But again, take the vaccine or don’t: for most illnesses and most scenarios, you’re only hurting yourself.
As someone currently with a nasty cold, having to work through it anyhow - please.