SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Hound Dog said:
It seems that NY is hit by a particularly nasty strain of the virus and that death rates vary a lot depending on strains:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1
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That study looks at viral isolates from patients in China. Where did you read about New York having a particularly bad strain?

On a side note, the study above is done in vitro. In a non-human cell line. So certainly doesn’t tell us anything about death rates.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
It was always the plan in my opinion. I'm expected us to release measures around May 20-25th. Personally I think the plan was always a 2month lockdown but if he'd come and said that straight off the bat people would have lost their heads - 50% through mental breakdowns and depression and 50% through thinking 'sod THAT' and defying the rules from day one.

3 + 3 + 2 was always the most likely for me, anyway.
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I was under the impression a 6 week lockdown was inevitable and speaking as someone who's well and truly on the train of thought that a lockdown for any serious length of time won't work i fully agreed with it.

However unless there's a concerning spike in the next two weeks some sort of rope has to be shown now, something like can visit non elderly relitves and freinds homes if nothing else.
 
Hound Dog said:
It seems that NY is hit by a particularly nasty strain of the virus and that death rates vary a lot depending on strains:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1

There has been an LA study suggesting a 0.12% death rate, similar to the Stockholm one from a few days ago.

Why?

This will inevitably happen any time you open up.
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Not sure this has much to do with what you said. The study was totally done in China, and had a sample of 11 infected people.
 
@Pogue Mahone @Revan

I am aware that it is regarding China. The point is that it suggests that there are different strains wtih significantly different outcomes.

Comparing numbers from NY and Italy and numbers elsewhere, combined with the above, a possible explanation is that those places are dominantly being struck by more lethal strains.
 
F-Red said:
A waste of time and some noisy statement for headlines, it needs to be done at an international level. There's no civil jurisdiction of such claims in US courts.
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Entirely agree with you. It's pointless as it's impossible to prove in a Court of law that they did something they shouldn't have done. Furthermore more there is no international law about this specifically what any country has to do.
 
Hound Dog said:
@Pogue Mahone @Revan

I am aware that it is regarding China. The point is that it suggests that there are different strains wtih significantly different outcomes.

Comparing numbers from NY and Italy and numbers elsewhere, combined with the above, a possible explanation is that those places are dominantly being struck by more lethal strains.
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This is what I have heard too. There are different strains discovered in different countries.
 
Sweet Square said:
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Technically you don't die of coronavirus unless you're diagnosed for it, and I guess unless there's a coroners investigation after death. I can see the latter not happening because 1) there's too many deaths 2) govt pressure not to investigate the cause - especially for those who are not dying in hospitals.
 
Maagge said:
What's the news here? Of course infection rate will rise when some restrictions are listed. It's literally the parameter they're looking at when trying to figure out how much of society they can open.
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The news is that Germany, seen by many as a positive example for other big countries, has taken a very small step on Monday. Measures which were critcized as too careful by some and which haven't even been fully implemented yet, especially for schools which are supposed to be rebooted deliberately one school year at a time (or not at all in some states). I also assume that testing data won't show the full impact of these changes within two days. And still R is basically already back at the sustainable limit. There is still some potential from masks which aren't mandatory in public yet, but if that doesn't compensate for the bump then we might even see a roll back of what little easment was attempted.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don’t think anyone who’s been able to do their job from home should - or will be allowed to - return to their office again when current lockdown is eased. And that will likely be the status quo for the next year or two.
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Working in the public sector in a job that can be done remotely, I’ll be very surprised if I am back in the office this year. My employer would both have to be incredibly irresponsible on a pastoral level and lose sight of the bigger picture to expect us to routinely commute in packed public transport and sit in a heavily populated office for virtually no benefit.
 
Wibble said:
That paper isn't peer reviewed and also says "However, no mutation has been directly linked with functional changes in viral pathogenicity."
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Not too many hard facts available at the moment, are there?

I was just throwing out an idea that might explain a few things. We will obviously find out for sure over the coming months.
 
Foxbatt said:
This is what I have heard too. There are different strains discovered in different countries.
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SARS-CoV-2 is a strain of the original SARS virus. To be a new strain genetic variation isn't enough. From what I have read I believe that you have to demonstrate a phenotypic (physical) change such as a antigen variation that alters the behaviour of a virus before it can be designated as a strain.

There are slight genetic variations in SARS-CoV-2 in different places with some researchers speculating that there may be 2 or even 3 main strains of SARS-CoV-2 but everything I've read so far suggests that these are not truly strains and that the genetic mutation rate of the virus is quite low which is encouraging for vaccine development.

Some papers do talk about strains of SARS-CoV-2 but reading the rest of the paper makes me wonder if a) I don't understand the term strain properly, b) the paper doesn't use the term strain correctly or c) strain isn't a firmly defined nomenclature?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567134820300915

The Daily Mail went with a headline claiming there were 30 strains which is just typically irresponsible Mail bullshit.
 
Hound Dog said:
Not too many hard facts available at the moment, are there?

I was just throwing out an idea that might explain a few things. We will obviously find out for sure over the coming months.
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There is evidence albeit often incomplete and in some cases conflicting (which will be explained in due course). And while there is some talk of strains from researchers (often in very small isolated studies) the big picture data so far suggests that there isn't enough variation to prevent the development of a vaccine and if we do so (not a given of course) then the immunity will last a reasonable time. Most of the talk of different strains seems to be bad reporting from idiots like the Daily Mail.
 
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Interesting paper that proposes variations in human genetics rather than virus genetics for regional variations in prevalence and mortality. No idea how good, bad or indifferent the publication is which makes it hard to judge the quality of the paper. This is a problem with much of what is being written at the moment as full peer review in top quality peer reviewed primary literature takes much longer and demands far more rigorous data collection and analysis than is possible in such a rapidly evolving situation.

https://www.degruyter.com/view/jour...-2020-0425/article-10.1515-cclm-2020-0425.xml
 
Wibble said:
Interesting paper that proposes variations in human genetics rather than virus genetics for regional variations in prevalence and mortality. No idea how good, bad or indifferent the publication is which makes it hard to judge the quality of the paper. This is a problem with much of what is being written at the moment as full peer review in top quality peer reviewed primary literature takes much longer and demands far more rigorous data collection and analysis than is possible in such a rapidly evolving situation.

https://www.degruyter.com/view/jour...-2020-0425/article-10.1515-cclm-2020-0425.xml
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Here is to hoping that this is indeed the case.
 
Here we go with the deadlier strains thing again. I give it two days before we’re round to “Herd Immunity” and then back to “it was leaked from
a Chinese lab”.....
 
Wibble said:
SARS-CoV-2 is a strain of the original SARS virus. To be a new strain genetic variation isn't enough. From what I have read I believe that you have to demonstrate a phenotypic (physical) change such as a antigen variation that alters the behaviour of a virus before it can be designated as a strain.

There are slight genetic variations in SARS-CoV-2 in different places with some researchers speculating that there may be 2 or even 3 main strains of SARS-CoV-2 but everything I've read so far suggests that these are not truly strains and that the genetic mutation rate of the virus is quite low which is encouraging for vaccine development.

Some papers do talk about strains of SARS-CoV-2 but reading the rest of the paper makes me wonder if a) I don't understand the term strain properly, b) the paper doesn't use the term strain correctly or c) strain isn't a firmly defined nomenclature?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567134820300915

The Daily Mail went with a headline claiming there were 30 strains which is just typically irresponsible Mail bullshit.
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I don’t think it is true that SARS 2 is a different strain of SARS. More like being different viruses which are similar to each other (probably comparable to two influenza A viruses like H1N1 and H3N2 but might be wrong).

Also, a virus having different strains does not necessarily means that a vaccine won’t be developed. For example there are many strains of H1N1, but the vaccine is definitely efficient against it (though you expect a strain to dominate for some period of time - typically vaccines are updated every year for some new strain). Only when some strain differs significantly (probably by recombining with some other virus or some strain of the same virus in a different animal which is what happened in 2009 for the swine pandemic) the vaccine might not be effective.

Maybe @berbatrick can shed some light here.
 
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Revan said:
I don’t think it is true that SARS 2 is a different strain of SARS. More like being different viruses which are similar to each other (probably comparable to two influenza A viruses like H1N1 and H3N2 but might be wrong).

Also, a virus having different strains does not necessarily means that a vaccine won’t be developed. For example there are many strains of H1N1, but the vaccine is definitely efficient against it (though you expect a strain to dominate for some period of time - typically vaccines are updated every year for some new strain). Only when some strain differs significantly (probably by recombining with some other virus or some strain of the same virus in a different animal which is what happened in 2009 for the swine pandemic) the vaccine might not be effective.

Maybe @berbatrick can shed some light here.
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I'm not sure either. SARS-CoV-2 is often referred to as a strain but I also keep finding conflicting definitions of what constitutes a strain. Some involve genetic variation only and other require a phenotypic change that alters the behaviour of the virus. The former won't necessarily impact vaccine development but the later will (or could).
 
It does look like strain isn't part of the official taxonomy of viruses. I think a strain is a genetic variant of a virus where that genetic variation causes changes to the phenotype e.g. protein shape of the antigen has changed and thus changes the behaviour of the virus whcih could occur by either antigen drift (gradual evolution) or antigen shirt (recombination with another virus). That might explain why the term seems to be used loosely as it isn't an official taxonomic term.
 
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bri2013 said:
Did you actually watch the video in the link?
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Yes. He seemed quite certain that is was a deliberate political decision. But now it was due to email invites being late. Sure it was :lol:
 
EWKJBViUYAAanrl
 
Wibble said:
EWKJBViUYAAanrl
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Aussies showing how this is done correctly. Together with Iceland and New Zealand, the only Western countries who have really done a great job. And for Australia is it even more impressive considering how big and populous it is (relatively speaking).
 
Revan said:
Aussies showing how this is done correctly. Together with Iceland and New Zealand, the only Western countries who have really done a great job. And for Australia is it even more impressive considering how big and populous it is (relatively speaking).
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What have Australia done to achieve this
 
christy87 said:
What have Australia done to achieve this
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We locked down hard enough just soon enough to avoid mass community infection (which was partly initial luck). Geography helped but we do (or did) have a large amount of air traffic with China, the US and Europe. We have tested more than most and contact traced a large proportion of infections. Although a fairly big population (22 million I think) we do tend to have fairly low density populations.

We did let a cruise ship offload lots of infected people but we have rounded that up reasonably well. NZ did an even better job and locked down far harder than us. We closed gyms, pubs, restaurants and the like but most other shops can open. That said we have compulsory 14 police supervised hotel quarantine for everyone who flies in or crosses a state border. And despite Aussies thinking of themselves as wild and free they actually embrace regulation more than most nations so in the main we have done what we are told.

I think we may even eliminate SARS-CoV-2 but then we would have to maintain virtually locked borders until .......... who knows how long.

Another thing that helped is that our government had repeatedly fecked up, most notably with the recent bushfires, and they couldn't afford another inadequate response to something. I can't stand our PM or this government but they haven't done too badly this time so far especially on the health front.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
That study looks at viral isolates from patients in China. Where did you read about New York having a particularly bad strain?

On a side note, the study above is done in vitro. In a non-human cell line. So certainly doesn’t tell us anything about death rates.
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Wibble said:
There is evidence albeit often incomplete and in some cases conflicting (which will be explained in due course). And while there is some talk of strains from researchers (often in very small isolated studies) the big picture data so far suggests that there isn't enough variation to prevent the development of a vaccine and if we do so (not a given of course) then the immunity will last a reasonable time. Most of the talk of different strains seems to be bad reporting from idiots like the Daily Mail.
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The articles supposedly come from quotes the scientists from an article in the South China Post as far as I can see.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...n-30-strains-say-scientists-in-china-11976380
 
Classical Mechanic said:
The articles supposedly come from quotes the scientists from an article in the South China Post as far as I can see.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...n-30-strains-say-scientists-in-china-11976380
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I think I read the source paper

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1

and if it is it should be noted that the paper isn't peer reviewed and also says "However, no mutation has been directly linked with functional changes in viral pathogenicity."
 
Wibble said:
I think I read the source paper

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1

and if it is it should be noted that the paper isn't peer reviewed and also says "However, no mutation has been directly linked with functional changes in viral pathogenicity."
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I’m only reporting what they’re reporting, which is supposedly the opinions of some of China’s top epidemiologists. I have no clue what type of paper the South China Post is or if the quotes are real.
 
In Lithuania, we’ve started to ease some restrictions, another wave of loosening measures (barbers, cafes/restaurants with outside terraces, planned operations etc.) will come next week if all goes well. Looking at yesterday’s test results I think optimism is not totally baseless as from 6k+ tests only 20 came back positive.
 
Wibble said:
That said we have compulsory 14 police supervised hotel quarantine for everyone who flies in or crosses a state border. And despite Aussies thinking of themselves as wild and free they actually embrace regulation more than most nations so in the main we have done what we are told.

I think we may even eliminate SARS-CoV-2 but then we would have to maintain virtually locked borders until .......... who knows how long.
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Yeah, very much like in Lithuania, we’re on the course to eradicating this nasty thing internally but the real hard word will begin on trying to not let it find its way back into the country.

The mandatory two weeks quarantine will definitely be a thing, however, I guess with improved contact tracing and testing volumes as they’re even if virus spreads again it will be managed in smaller clusters thus keeping it under control.
 
Apparently even the patients who recover don't appear to have developed enough IgF antibodies and even the antibodies don't sustain longer than two months, causing reinfection to be a possibility.

This virus is biologically worse than any kind of catastrophe anyone even imagined.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
Apparently even the patients who recover don't appear to have developed enough IgF antibodies and even the antibodies don't sustain longer than two months, causing reinfection to be a possibility.

This virus is biologically worse than any kind of catastrophe anyone even imagined.
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That was my main worry with countries who let the virus spread with little regard to it. It will be a monumental job trying to eliminate it for countries that let it spread uncontrollably if long term immunity is not a thing.
 
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