Pretend Covid-19 arrives somewhere in the Honorverse

Where, when, why, how, and... how quickly could any of the general polities react and respond? I'll start...

For example, if a recently addition to the Star Kingdom (Talbott, etc.) was where the first outbreak took place. With the assumption it isn't isolated to one star system quickly enough. Or in the ESN group.

Pick your own place in the Honorverse, or this one and "play it forward"...

SharkHunter wrote:Where, when, why, how, and... how quickly could any of the general polities react and respond? I'll start...

For example, if a recently addition to the Star Kingdom (Talbott, etc.) were where the first outbreak took place. With the assumption it isn't isolated to one star system quickly enough.

Pick your own place in the Honorverse, or this one and "play it forward"...

Unlike our world, communication delays in the Honorverse are measured in weeks. So any cry for help from a Talbott planet will take a month to reach Spindle and then another to get to the capital, where help from Beowulf and the medical establishment can be marshalled.

Another issue is that warning other planets of people who may have been carrying the contagion will likewise be slow. That means other systems will see infections before quarantines can be put up, unless the Planet Zero managed to quarantine the affected regions (we didn't).

--snipping--

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Where, when, why, how, and... how quickly could any of the general polities react and respond? I'll start...

For example, if a recently addition to the Star Kingdom (Talbott, etc.) were where the first outbreak took place. With the assumption it isn't isolated to one star system quickly enough.

Pick your own place in the Honorverse, or this one and "play it forward"...

Another issue is that warning other planets of people who may have been carrying the contagion will likewise be slow. That means other systems will see infections before quarantines can be put up, unless the Planet Zero managed to quarantine the affected regions (we didn't).

Great points. Perhaps the ship it travels there on left early in the contagion, arrives at point #2 and a few folks have had what seems to be nothing worse than a nasty head cold... and 2nd or 3rd generation folks transfer out through a certain wormhole junction... before folks start getting REALLY REALLY sick. We haven't ever read about anyone in the modern Honorverse having to undergo some kind of decontamination protocol, I don't think...

And we KNOW there are still viruses out there, right?

I think Honorverse-level medical care would make quick work of Covid-19.

Loren Pechtel wrote:I think Honorverse-level medical care would make quick work of Covid-19.

I agree. Any culture that can accomplish the level of genetic tampering as the Honorverse won't have any problem with a mere virus. Plus, Honorverse medical equipment is a far cry from what we have today. I can only imagine an Honorverse centrifuge. The production of medicines shouldn't be a bottleneck either.

Btw, I always said there has to be some quick, routine, way of testing visitors for, at the very least, communicable diseases in the Honorverse. Since Covid-19 is a strain of the already known coronavirus, I can't believe Honorverse preventive measures wouldn't readily detect it. There's a quick test that has been developed that gives a positive result in as little as three minutes, even with today's tech. And remember, some planets are as paranoid and strict as any Iron Curtain.

The HV would have to be especially vigilant of any infectious diseases coming from any third world countries. Anyway, isn't there textev that disease is pretty much wiped out in the HV? As far as I can recall, Dmitri Young was the only obese person in the HV. LOL

SharkHunter wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Another issue is that warning other planets of people who may have been carrying the contagion will likewise be slow. That means other systems will see infections before quarantines can be put up, unless the Planet Zero managed to quarantine the affected regions (we didn't).

Great points. Perhaps the ship it travels there on left early in the contagion, arrives at point #2 and a few folks have had what seems to be nothing worse than a nasty head cold... and 2nd or 3rd generation folks transfer out through a certain wormhole junction... before folks start getting REALLY REALLY sick. We haven't ever read about anyone in the modern Honorverse having to undergo some kind of decontamination protocol, I don't think...

And we KNOW there are still viruses out there, right?

RFC never addressed how our immunologic systems have evolved in the next 2000 years. It's entirely possible that almost the entire human population has some kind of genetic uplift (the way that Leonard Detweiler would be proud of) that makes us far tougher for exo-virus and exo-bacteria.

But one thing that's just occurred to me: ship travel being weeks, especially in slow freighters, it means contagions can only spread if the incubation period is longer than the transit time. If the entire crew of a ship arrives feeling sick, the ship gets quarantined and not allowed to disembark (like we've seen with the Diamond Princess and other cruise ships in our case right now).

Let's not forget the Manticorian Plague - that happened 1500 years in our future and ravaged 2 generations. Given, that was 400 years in the modern Honorverse's past, and medicine could ahve come a long way, the Manticore plague dos show an unknown vector can come from no where and future medicine did not know how to handle it.

Theemile wrote:Let's not forget the Manticorian Plague - that happened 1500 years in our future and ravaged 2 generations. Given, that was 400 years in the modern Honorverse's past, and medicine could ahve come a long way, the Manticore plague dos show an unknown vector can come from no where and future medicine did not know how to handle it.

Indeed, and good point. I think the concept of a pandemic is Sharkhunter's premise, and not so much Covid-19.

The two week voyage of infected people might not make it if the entire crew succumbs and dies. I wondered about the people in the Final Wars fleeing from panic and spreading the problem. Like what almost happened when NY was threatened to be shut down and totally isolated.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Unlike our world, communication delays in the Honorverse are measured in weeks. So any cry for help from a Talbott planet will take a month to reach Spindle and then another to get to the capital, where help from Beowulf and the medical establishment can be marshalled.

Another issue is that warning other planets of people who may have been carrying the contagion will likewise be slow. That means other systems will see infections before quarantines can be put up, unless the Planet Zero managed to quarantine the affected regions (we didn't).

On the other hand that slow transit time makes it a bit harder to spread a disease like COVID-19 that normally runs its course in a couple weeks. You'd have to have a large enough crew that they kept the virus going by slowly infecting each other. Because if they all came down with in within a couple days of departure they might well all be non-contagious again by the time they reached their destination.

Plus systems get a lot less ships per day that we get flights per day. That makes it easier to enforce quarantine if they know they need to. Question is whether or not the crew would report sickness aboard, or even pass on news of the pandemic at their last stop, before docking or sending down a shuttle. If they did it'd be easy to isolate them until inspected by medical personnel - since the ship floating in vacuum is already a prefect isolation area.

And on the gripping hand if it did get lose in a planet the ones with modern health care have medical nanites; so they can probably program those to go after the virus directly rather than having to wait a year or so to verify a new vaccine is safe and effective. So they can probably fight it better than we can.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
But one thing that's just occurred to me: ship travel being weeks, especially in slow freighters, it means contagions can only spread if the incubation period is longer than the transit time. If the entire crew of a ship arrives feeling sick, the ship gets quarantined and not allowed to disembark (like we've seen with the Diamond Princess and other cruise ships in our case right now).

Yes and no.
Depends in how crippling the disease is. If none of the 20 to 30 people in the crew present devastating symptoms they might not notice that it was more than a head cold.

Although once it's known to be bad, tracing from planet to planet is doable albeit slow as you have to visit each planet on its route.

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