Cable-
I believe that with the recent infections any kind of "standards" are years away. As more data is gathered theories about what can be expected to occur in a given lake with a population of x of these and y of these can be established. I do not know the mechanism of this virus whether it is a lytic or lysogenic, DNA or RNA and what the likelihood is of strain variation. If we are really lucky it will run its course and kill the susceptible fish leaving stronger ones behind. The thing that scares me is that in Europe this virus primarily affects trout and salmon. There has been a much lower mortality among those species here so one of two likley things, either the virus has altered or the particular exploit it uses is not as available to it here. What we need is data and that can only come from infected fish. The problems with viruses is that many cannot be de-activated, they can't be killed because they are not alive so all we can do is develop a vaccine which preps the bodies to fight it or find a way to destroy its capsule. Neither is real likely to occur due to long term research and the cost of implementation. We have been battling the cold viruses for years and they are doing quite well.
Kevin