[weiming]

HSV always seemed particularly poorly understood in the society to me, e.g. with many people getting it as children due to careless parents/extended family, and the benign branding of "cold sore" as if it is related to a cold. Given that the vaccine for 1 or 2 has proved to be extremely challenging, always wondered if the public simply being more well-informed on this topic could help reduce the incidence in the population.

Asymptomatic shedding of HSV has to be considered, too. "Transmission commonly occurs from contact with an infected partner who does not have visible lesions and who may not know that he or she is infected. In persons with asymptomatic HSV-2 infections, genital HSV shedding occurs on 10.2% of days, compared to 20.1% of days among those with symptomatic infections." (https://www.cdc.gov/std/herpes/stdfact-herpes-detailed.htm)

[SketchySeaBeast]

The rate of infection is 90% worldwide.[1] It's not just careless parents and lack of awareness, it's endemic to all of mankind.

Given that asymptomatic shedding occurs there's basically no way to not transmit herpes to your partner. Unless we remove kissing from our social norms, it's going to stick around.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_herpes_simplex

[hn_throwaway_99]

> e.g. with many people getting it as children due to careless parents/extended family

Puhleeze. HSV is present in the majority of the population. Branding parents as "careless" because their children get it is ridiculous.

[nsxwolf]

Not letting family members kiss your kids on the mouth and not letting your kids use other people's cups/forks etc? If the entire population did this there would be fewer herpes infections.

edit: the downvotes are interesting. If I had made the statement "We can take steps to reduce COVID-19 transmission" I can't imagine I'd get the same result. I can only assume that people really are ashamed of having herpes and are reacting emotionally.

[hombre_fatal]

What's your gameplan for the rest of your life? You're never going to kiss anyone or share a cup or a smoke or any of the thousands of ways that have infected the vast majority of humanity? You can even get it passing through your mom's birth canal.

Your two examples of transmission are so specific that I'm not sure you know how it spreads. Just extended family members kissing or sharing cups with your kids? What?

Herpes-1 is just part of the human condition. Time to get over it. Btw, odds are that you have it. And for your own sanity, don't worry -- it doesn't mean you were making out with your family nor their kids.

[asia92]

Herpes-2 is also part of the human condition at this point

Either way, they are gross

[benibela]

>You're never going to kiss anyone or share a cup or a smoke or any of the thousands of ways that have infected the vast majority of humanity?

Sounds reasonable

I am 30 and have never kissed anyone, and no plans to change that soon. Although I had some shared cups. I probably should get tested. But there is a good change I have avoided all herpes, even EBV. I hope they can find a vaccine soon.

[lm28469]

I mean, yeah, I guess if we avoid all physical contacts during our entire life until the world pop drops to 0 we could get rid of herpes. /s

[rebuilder]

If we all stopped having sex, that would admittedly solve the issue of all disease rather thoroughly. No people, no human Herpes infections.

[nsxwolf]

If we all had fewer sex partners, that would go a long way.

[s5300]

Never change, HN

[nsxwolf]

I'm in the second half of my life and I married an HSV-negative. I try not to put my mouth on sketchy things.

[SketchySeaBeast]

You both got blood tests for both types of HSV before you were married I assume?

[hn_throwaway_99]

You "married an HSV-negative"? Quite the romantic.

[lostapathy]

If you can figure out a way to get a 3 year old to care about what utensils they use or who's cake they finish, you're probably on track to solve even bigger problems than this!

[nsxwolf]

You can't prevent 100% of infections. We could do a whole lot better than we're doing now. Getting rid of the moniker "cold sore" would be a great start.

[echelon]

> careless parents/extended family

> benign branding of "cold sore"

This is a dangerous, hurtful opinion and you need to be downvoted. No one is to be shamed for this virus.

A third of teenagers will acquire HSV-1 during childhood from simply putting things into their mouths. There is no way to prevent this sort of transmission. [1]

Most of the world's population has the virus. [2] Given these odds, you probably have the virus yourself and may or may not be asymptomatic.

The focus should be on finding a cure, not changing social norms or shaming people. The stigma is obstructing our focus. It's also impeding research, which as it may turn out, is a cause for Alzheimer's and related neurodegenerative disorders.

So much suffering from something that isn't anyone's fault, yet everyone blames "bad parenting" and "sexual promiscuity" for. It's shameful and we need to do better.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db304.htm

[2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simp...

[serf]

The statement "There is no way to prevent this sort of transmission" while linking CDC data that shows changes in the trend of transmission over time are at odds to me.

There are most definitely ways to reduce spread.

>The focus should be on finding a cure, not changing social norms or shaming people.

There is no cure yet, thus changing habits and social norms is our only chance at reducing this problem outside experts who are working on the problem directly.

I don't know whether or not labeling parents as villains has anything to do with what needs to be done to label and reduce spread; but I dare say that the attitude of "Nothing to be done, let's give up due to the fact that the virus is prevalent." is in fact the dangerous opinion for society at large.

>... and you need to be downvoted.

The call to arms for down-voting a comment you disagree is a tactic that I personally feel is cheap and a disgusting misuse of the karma/discourse system that is in place.

[bryanrasmussen]

syntactically speaking reduce spread is statistical while prevent transmission is individual. There is no preventing transmission with 100% surety no matter how careful and good of a parent you are, so saying bad parenting might be a bit much.

I totally agree that too many people are downvoting just because they don't like what someone has to say even though what was said falls within general parameters of acceptable social discourse, or even worse when the downvoted has the temerity to disagree with the downvoter.

So I guess I'll go upvote to fix the karmic scales.

[geomark]

Yeah, shaming is counterproductive. But I have to disagree with one of your points: changing social norms.

Changing social norms can be have huge benefits. Very timely example is that social norms are likely a major reason so many Asian countries have much lower Covid-19 infection rates than western countries. If only Americans could get over themselves and stop shaking hands and wearing their shoes in the house. I say that as an American expat.

[_s6ue]

... Americans wear their shoes in the house? I'm a (non-white) American and this is news to me. Whenever someone comes to my house, or I go to someone else's house, people leave their shoes at the door. I thought this was something that pretty much everyone from every part of the world did.

[pests]

Most definitely not. It depends on the household or how clean inside is itself. Usually you tell by context or just knowing the person whose house you're entering.

Personally here in Michigan at my house right outside Detroit shoes are taken off if you are going inside to stay. If you're grilling or doing yardwork or moving from the front to the back (no path but thru house currently) they stay on. I'd never keep them on for longer than 10 minutes inside but it's common.

My cousin's is totally different. Shoes off before you hit the carpet. Maybe cause they keep it obsessively clean? Carry them to the backdoor if you have to. It's not something I even think about - they just come off, I don't need his wife upset or anything.

[orbme]

Calif. resident born and raised. Shoes off. However feet are covered with slipper or sandle indoors always. Many homes in ca are built on concrete slabs so walking indoors barefoot isn’t all that comfortable in feet, knees or ankles. Having a barrier between the bottom of your feet and the foundation absorbs and reduces some of this hardness. But outside shoes are for outside only. We have always thought of it like walking in your cleaned laundry. Would you do that... no so why would you consider wearing dirty shoes on clean flooring. Everything, including ourselves are often on our floors so keep them as clean as possible.

[geomark]

Is it a regional thing? Because I grew up in Southern California and lived there many years. Also lived in Arizona and northern California for a few years. Always shoes in the house everywhere I went and everyone I knew.

[tcoff91]

I definitely think it's regional. I think that it's more common in very dry climates like california/arizona. I mean honestly, my shoes are almost never visibly dirty when entering the house. It's not like there's mud everywhere in southern california. I wear shoes in the house all the time and my carpet looks fine. Until covid-19 I never thought twice about it.

[bryanrasmussen]

I think you're right about the regional thing, although when you think about it wearing the shoes in the house is a pretty weird thing to do. Probably also not good for foot/ankle development given all the support most shoes give you.

[carlmr]

A lot of Europeans, too. Usually when I have a lot of guests I'll tell them they can leave the shoes on. I'll just wash the carpets afterwards and clean the house anyway.

If it's only a few friends I usually ask them to take their shoes off.

But I know many people who always wear shoes inside. I think it's also due to the cold. In Northern Europe you don't want to walk around barefoot, so keeping on the shoes is comfortable.

[a_imho]

It is seen in American movies all the time, people jumping on the sofa/bed with their shoes on.

[willio58]

Even though I don't agree with this person, I think labeling what they said as "dangerous" is silly. Who exactly is in danger?

[leephillips]

On the other hand...https://lee-phillips.org/isrealPediatrics/

[core-questions]

Well, it's good to see they're slowly modernizing this, but in the end it's still a pretty bizarre practice even if you don't do it in that particularly disgusting way.

Not an American, and always wondered how it somehow became the standard in America....

[leephillips]

It by "it" you mean circumcision, it was thought to be good for hygiene. But these days it is no longer routine, as it was a few decades ago.

[morningcovfefe]

It's called Herpese Simplex.. but there's nothing simple about it!

[Supermancho]

Future Man reference.

[Supermancho]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4975856/