Hank: eradicating the varicella zoster virus will be very hard because it breaks back out as shingles where people are unvaccinated (2026)
prediction · status: unresolved · last event: predicted (2026-03-20) · owner: Hank
In March 2026 Hank predicted that eradicating the varicella zoster virus would be very hard, because the virus lies dormant for decades and breaks back out as shingles wherever people are not vaccinated.
About: Varicella zoster virus, Eradication of infectious diseases, Virus latency, vaccine, Shingles
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-20 | predicted | Hank says eradicating VZV would be very hard: it lies dormant for decades, so unless everyone stays vaccinated for its whole life cycle, it will break back out through shingles. | I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins 00:06:16 |
What is said about it
9 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank says chickenpox and shingles are both caused by the same virus, the varicella zoster virus (VZV). — 00:00:29
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank says the virus then quietly infects nearby nerves and migrates along them without alerting the immune system until it reaches the ganglia and goes dormant. — 00:01:53
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank says about two to five percent of ganglia cells hold single-digit numbers of dormant viral particles. — 00:01:53
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank says later in life the virus can reactivate, especially when the immune system struggles, travelling painfully along the nerves back to the skin to form shedding blisters. — 00:01:53
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank calls this weird: life rarely evolves such a complex dormancy-and-return trick when a disease already survives by being very infectious, and today the shingles step does nothing for the virus. — 00:02:51
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank says VZV's ancestor evolved to lie dormant for decades and re-emerge once a new unexposed cohort was born, its shingles blisters then starting chickenpox through the young. — 00:05:00
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank says the trait had to fit not just its hosts' biology but their social structures, which he finds cool even though it sucks. — 00:06:16
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank says VZV is technically eradicable: like measles and smallpox, it infects only humans, no other animals. — 00:06:16
- 2026-03-20 · I'm Sick Because of the Social Structures of Early Hominins — Hank concludes that by luck the virus evolved a complex trait for a world before people were people, and that trait now helps it evade modern technology. — 00:06:50