Coronavirus: COVID-19

[Alan Phipps]

Probably the same reason that a flu jab cannot prevent you getting all types of flu but only affects the strain that the health authority predicted would be most prevalent in that country that Winter. Vaccines, almost by definition, are variant-specific.

It's also why there is no cure or prevention for the common cold which is also caused by corona virus strains.

[felter]

There is one main problem with herd immunity, well two actually. First there are some reported cases of people catching covid-19 for a second time, meaning that immunity may not work at all or for too long. Secondly there is a pretty good chance that the virus itself will mutate, meaning any immunity that you have will be useless and out the window. As far as I know, I think I read it somewhere but cannot verify so not too sure if it's true or not. Anyway as far as I'm aware herd immunity can also cause the virus to mutate, as it gets to the state where the virus is no longer finding valid hosts, to infect so to survive it will mutate. it just takes one little mutation and we are back to square one.

Can't be infected twice you say.

[RegisterMe]

..... meaning any immunity that you have will be useless and out the window.

Were that true we'd all die of the common cold every year.

[jlehtone]

Its no secret that CoV2 has been known and studied for years

Please give links to earliest publications about CoV2.

How could they sit on that and not develop a vaccine?

You do what you get paid for and research funding is limited. If you have resources to do one thing only and you have two options: something that might be good and something that is known to be good, which one will you choose?

[jlehtone]

Secondly there is a pretty good chance that the virus itself will mutate

One virologist's opinion is that the coronaviruses are relatively stable.

[Axeface]

Its no secret that CoV2 has been known and studied for years

Please give links to earliest publications about CoV2.

How could they sit on that and not develop a vaccine?

You do what you get paid for and research funding is limited. If you have resources to do one thing only and you have two options: something that might be good and something that is known to be good, which one will you choose?

Ignore what I said, It looks like I was wrong and it is basically a new strain that is almost identical to ones observed previously, and that it has mutated as it made the jump to humans. So perhaps it is a new strain that was only discovered in december. perhaps one of the articles I read was incorrect (I do try to read legit articles only, maybe one sensationalist article slipped through).

Hopefully its similarity to strains that have been known for a long time will make the development of a vaccine much faster.

[felter]

..... meaning any immunity that you have will be useless and out the window.

Were that true we'd all die of the common cold every year.

No that is not true, the common cold does not kill and that is not due to immunity, if it was I would probably be dead by now. Every year the flu kills thousands of people while others will survive and have immunity against the flu they recovered from, they can catch the flu again and die from that as it will be a new mutated strain they have just caught, this is due to the immunity they have from the previous infection being null and void, it does not effect the new mutated strain.

This is why one of the biggest fears is that this virus will mutate, but saying that it may mutate into something that is not as bad as it is right now, but it can easily mutate into something with a very high mortality rate. A good example could be that currently they don't think this virus is spread by air, it's contact spread, now Imagine if it mutated and became an airborne spread virus that could live in the air for several hours after someone coughed.

It is also why they come out with a new flu vaccine every year, this comes around by years of studying how the influenza virus has mutated over the years, but in the end it is all just guess work and there is no guarantee that the vaccine will work.

Also remember that the covid-19 is just really a mutated strain of the SARS virus from a few years back, but they are totally different, any working solutions they have for SARS does not work with covid-19. I don't know if they have a vaccine for SARS, I suppose if they do that could be used as a baseline for a covid-19 vaccine but a SARS vaccine will not work on the covid-19 virus, and the same goes if covid-19 mutates a covid-19 cure or vaccine will not work on a new mutation, they will have to start all over again on a new cure or vaccine.

A virus is a nasty thing but not all of them are dangerous, like the common cold, while others like covid-19 are dangerous and kill by the thousands but there is always the possibility of a more dangerous virus waiting just around the corner. Right now there is no cure for the common cold after years of looking for one, just imagine if one day that mutated into something that is dangerous to human life.

[birdtable]

@ felter ... Well that cheered me up no end,, going back to the tinned tomato topic.

[Vertigo 7]

Hah! ESPN stepped up to the plate and they're airing ESPN 8 'The Ocho' to provide a bit of relief. I actually might have a reason to watch ESPN now...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/esp ... g-n1165996

[burger1]

So with 0.9% death rate posted by officials and 96,006 recovered 13728 deaths (13% death rate) + x % of people who will be permanently damaged I think there must be well over 1M carriers. The death and new case rates are still climbing basically exponentially.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Some of the death/recovery rates are pretty high. Brazil 18 dead 2 recovered, USA 388 dead 178 recovered , Denmark 13 dead 1 recovered, Spain 1756 dead 2215 recovered, Italy 4825 dead 6072 recovered, UK 244 dead 93 recovered, Netherlands 179 dead 2 recovered, Canada 20 dead 14 recovered

Males are also much more likely to die. 2.8% (4.7%) males vs 1.7% (2.8%) females.

[pjknibbs]

Um, not sure where you're getting your numbers from, but I've not seen any official claiming a 0.9% death rate, and death rate is defined as number of deaths divided by number of cases, not number of deaths divided by number of recoveries. Sure, some people who currently still have the virus and haven't recovered may possibly die, but the odds are most of them won't.

[Chips]

Its all very strange. Its really hard to get my head around it and the only conclusion I can come to is that we are being lied to about the statistics and chinas released statistics are false.

You've got to bear in mind here that when China puts a city into lockdown, they *really mean it*. They can do stuff to force people to stay home that western democracies like Italy or the US simply can't, so it's not entirely surprising they've been able to bring their outbreak under control. Of course, it *is* entirely possible they're lying through their teeths about it, but this is one instance where I think they might be legit.

Apparently they had drones flying around with speakers on them which would hover over someone shouting at them for being out... literally 1984 style (but without then being executed).
Of course, this may be exaggeration or utter bs. Who knows Think it was in the Guardian, but I can't remember and this is precisely how fake news starts

[Observe]

I live in Washington State next to Oregon. Yesterday, there were crowds of people visiting Oregon beach towns, with the highway lined up for miles with cars heading to the coast. Residents in these beach towns are angry that people aren't staying away. For many people, this is just Spring vacation come early.

People just aren't getting the message. It doesn't help that President Trump only confuses things with his contradictory messages.

At this rate, things can only get much worse. My wife and I are both in our late 60's. I fear one or both of us may not make it through this.

[matthewfarmery]

I live in Washington State next to Oregon. Yesterday, there were crowds of people visiting Oregon beach towns, with the highway lined up for miles with cars heading to the coast. Residents in these beach towns are angry that people aren't staying away. For many people, this is just Spring vacation come early.

People just aren't getting the message. It doesn't help that President Trump only confuses things with his contradictory messages.

At this rate, things can only get much worse. My wife and I are both in our late 60's. I fear one or both of us may not make it through this.

Then again the US is about 3 or 4 weeks behind Spain. So if people aren't going to stay indoors, then expect things to get get far worse. Sadly, its Trump that doesn't seem to be getting the message. I still think he thinks this is still a hoax and its nothing to worry about. that and it will disappear in a poof of smoke.

He really hasn't got a good handle on this. But if things do end up escalating, it will be Trump that will get blamed.

[Axeface]

This was posted on reddit, the article that the image is from is where I thought I read that Cov2 has been around for a long time. I was wrong of course but its still worth knowing. https://i.redd.it/ub0lb0hl49o41.jpg

Actual journal - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2176051/

[felter]

Ouch, well it looks like my American predictions are starting to become true.

NY is reporting that they will run out of major medical supplies in the next 10 days, Trumps answer, here's some money. Here's the thing, they don't need the money, they need the supplies along with 49 other states. Trump seems to think money is the answer, just go and buy what you need, it's as simple as that. But with all 50 states, all trying to buy the exact same thing in very large numbers, there is not enough to go around. So it doesn't matter how much money you have, if there is nothing there to buy you just can't buy it. So supplies are running out, all the states require respirators, medical gloves, masks and gowns but there are none to buy and demand is greater than what is currently being manufactured. What are Trump and the senate doing about it well nothing, they are currently arguing on how to boost the economy with 2 trillion dollars (keeps going up), but what's the point of an economy when a large portion of you populace is dead.

We are in the same predicament with a lack of equipment, but here's the thing were diverting our manufacturing capabilities towards the manufacturing of those medical supplies, all trump seems to be doing is spending money.

Some facts. NY has around 5% of all the cases of the covid-19 virus in the world and they are running out of supplies to keep that 5% alive. They have over 15000 confirmed cases of the virus more than 4000 of them were confirmed yesterday so nearly a third of their current cases were confirmed in a single day. And as I said Trumps answer, here's some money.

America could do with one thing right now, and it's the one thing they cannot have, that's Obama. You know that little meeting they have when handing over the presidency, Obama warned Trump about this exact thing happening and what did Trump do, he sacked all the people Obama had put in place to deal with it, because it was done by a black guy. it's good to have a racist in charge.

[Axeface]

You know that little meeting they have when handing over the presidency, Obama warned Trump about this exact thing happening and what did Trump do, he sacked all the people Obama had put in place to deal with it, because it was done by a black guy. it's good to have a racist in charge.

If obama was still in charge this could have ended quite different globally. If he was actively putting teams together for it they would probably have done more work on studying the family of viruses in general, he was obviously heeding experts warnings. I do wonder if he could have done more once he got unseated though.

I watch things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5TZ6fTYrsE and just drink it in. I drink in this mans pure imbecility and wanton arrogance and let it feed my deep loathing for him. The people that vote for that are something so far removed from who I am and the way I think, its like they are some kind of alien race that I cant comprehend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsI3w-jRBPA

[Vertigo 7]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-su ... b7c5458af2
These guys? Disgusting people... These turds were damn near gone till Trump came along.

[felter]

So I was just on the Johns Hopkins web site looking at the stats there, and I have to say something tells me the Russians are not telling the truth, as they are reporting only 367 confirmed cases and zero deaths. I know Putin is trying to portray that there is nothing to fear, that mother Russia has everything under control as he went around being photographed shaking hands with a lot of people, what he wasn't telling anyone is that every one of them were pre screened to make sure they didn't have the virus.

It also looks like the UK has something that they have been exporting more than anyone else as 64 people returning to Singapore from the UK had the virus America is in second place with only a measly 24 infections. Not something we should be proud of, that's for sure.

At last a country has told the IOC to go get stuffed, as Canada has pulled all of it's athletes out of the Tokyo 2020 games. I hope the UK and many other follow suit and sooner the better.

[red assassin]

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1662088

Good interview here with epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, who worked on the smallpox eradication and consulted on the film Contagion, among other things. Worth a read.