Hank: humanity will eventually eradicate measles (2025)
prediction · status: unresolved · last event: repeated (2026-08-28) · owner: Hank
About: measles
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-02-28 | predicted | Hank predicts humanity will eventually eradicate measles: they will worry until then, it can be done, that world is better, and we'll get there, though it is hard. | We Will Eradicate Measles 00:05:02 |
| 2026-08-28 | repeated | Hank says measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, showing it can be eliminated from the whole world. | Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill 00:04:52 |
What is said about it
21 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says humanity can eliminate measles: it has already been done in a country of over 300 million people, and what can be done for 300 million can be done for 8 billion. — 00:00:00
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says measles had been eliminated in a country of over 300 million people. — 00:00:00
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says eradicating measles is not easy, whatever people may say. — 00:00:00
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says smallpox could be eradicated because only humans catch it, and measles likewise can only be caught by humans, which is why it can definitely be eradicated. — 00:00:46
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says measles is more infectious than smallpox: a smallpox patient maybe infected three to six others on average, a measles patient 12 to 18. (hedged) — 00:00:46
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says that when a child in a classroom has measles, 90% of the unvaccinated children there will also get it. — 00:00:46
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank: As an illustration, Hank says that if everyone in America were infected at once, about 700,000 would die of measles but more than 70 million of smallpox. — 00:02:11
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says the motivation to eradicate smallpox was higher: it needed one dose, measles needs two, and the less deadly, less disfiguring disease gives people less impetus to vaccinate. — 00:02:40
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says we proved we could do it, partly riding the success of smallpox eradication, and we can do it for measles too. — 00:03:09
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says the biggest advantage measles has now that it lacked then is that we forgot. — 00:03:09
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Roald Dahl (quoted): Hank reads Roald Dahl's account: his eldest daughter Olivia caught measles at seven, and while recovering grew sleepy, fell unconscious within an hour and died within 12 hours, in 1962. — 00:03:09
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says it is also hard because we forget: in 1962 measles deaths were common enough to terrify, but before this year (2025) the last US measles death was in 2015. — 00:05:31
- 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says beyond the information battle we are losing the ability to help children elsewhere survive measles, malaria, tuberculosis and other preventable diseases, with no clear reason why. — 00:06:08
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says measles is pretty eradicable because, like smallpox, it is antigenically stable and has no animal reservoirs. — 00:04:52
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says measles is harder to eradicate than smallpox for two reasons: how the disease itself acts and how people react to it. — 00:04:52
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says one person with measles infects 12 to 16 others on average, a tremendously high infection rate. — 00:05:50
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says bringing smallpox below one might take vaccinating about 80% of exposed people, while measles needs something like 95%, which is much harder to reach. (hedged) — 00:05:50
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says measles keeps transmitting if just 5% of people are hard to reach or refuse the vaccine, so only places with strong public health systems can eliminate it. — 00:06:19
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says measles's second advantage is more our fault: it is not as bad as smallpox, so the personal incentive to vaccinate is lower. — 00:06:49
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says measles is awful, kills people and children, and should be eradicated. — 00:06:49
- 2026-08-28 · Why the Deadliest Virus Was the Easiest to Kill — Hank says even where health care was bad, measles death rates were about 10 times lower than smallpox's. (hedged) — 00:07:18