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

Wibble said:
Pure unfounded speculation alert

As this Coronavirus is a Betacoronavirus, in common with some of the Beatcoronaviruses that give us colds, could this in part account for some people being asymptomatic or getting mild sysmptoms. In much the same way that getting t
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Possibly, but all viruses tend to target specific parts of the immune system. The way the immune system responds to a virus can sometimes harm yourself so if the immune system over-responds it can produce a cytokine response which causing inflammation and therefore Pneumonia which is believed to be the major cause of death with Covid-19. This wouldn't happen to children as they have immature immune systems.

This happens a fair amount with viruses and why they can be unpredictable with some targeting younger adults and some older.

https://www.newscientist.com/term/cytokine-storm/
 
Skills said:
Isn't mutation itself just complete random luck which then gets selected for by an evolutionary stress? Would there be any evolutionary stress on this virus to select to a less harmful version?

Cause it's already pretty successful at infecting as many people as possible.
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Yes, because without human input (such as vaccines) a stronger virus will kill more people meaning that strain of the virus would die out. The weaker mutations let people live, therefore the virus survives.
 
Sweet Square said:
:lol:

I honestly feel a bit sorry for people like you. But also cheers I need a bit of laugh after a rather dull day.
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Why do you feel sorry for me? There are loads of people out there more deserving of sympathy at the moment.
 
Balljy said:
Possibly, but all viruses tend to target specific parts of the immune system. The way the immune system responds to a virus can sometimes harm yourself so if the immune system over-responds it can produce a cytokine response which causing inflammation and therefore Pneumonia which is believed to be the major cause of death with Covid-19. This wouldn't happen to children as they have immature immune systems.

This happens a fair amount with viruses and why they can be unpredictable with some targeting younger adults and some older.

https://www.newscientist.com/term/cytokine-storm/
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This was one of the reasons why the Spanish flu particularly effected healthy people.
 
Skills said:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/415378



For anyone thinking it's just a good idea to just get it for the sake of herd immunity. It's a novel disease, we haven't got a clue what the long term effects of this disease are yet but if they're anything like the original SARS outbreak they're horrific. Even milder forms of permanent lung damage/scarring will be life changing for most young people.

We're years away from finding out what this will mean long term, but I'd much rather be in the group to have never got it.
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Exactly this. Sure, younger people seem to have an extremely low fatality rate, but feck, I don't want permanent lung damage (and possible other damages). I'd rather not get infected at all.
 
Wibble said:
Pure unfounded speculation alert

As this Coronavirus is a Betacoronavirus, in common with some of the viruses that give us colds, could this in part account for some people being asymptomatic or getting mild sysmptoms. In much the same way that getting t
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From what I know(from the INSERM). The answer would be no, in general coronaviruses will "produce" a fair amount of asymptomatic patients or provoke mild symptoms. It's part of their characteristics. It's important to remember that a virus doesn't want to kill its host but live discreetly with him.
 
Fiskey said:
No, not necessarily wrong, but you wouldn't present Owen Jones or Ash Sarkar as an independent voice whether what they have to say is valid or otherwise.
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He presented him as the editor of The Lancet Fiskey, which is exactly what he is. You're right that people wouldn't present Owen Jones or Ash Sarkar as the editor of The Lancet because they aren't.
 
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JPRouve said:
From what I know(from the INSERM). The answer would be no, in general coronaviruses will "produce" a fair amount of asymptomatic patients or provoke mild symptoms. It's part of their characteristics. It's important to remember that a virus doesn't want to kill its host but live discreetly with him.
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I just wondered if there was another factor at play with the particular corona-virus because of the disparity between the badly affected vs the asymptomatic. But I guess that wouldn't explain the huge skew to older people as they would also have partial immunity in some cases.
 
Fiskey said:
Why do you feel sorry for me? There are loads of people out there more deserving of sympathy at the moment.
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Because you've just written off the editor of one the worlds most well known medical journals during the biggest pandemic since the Spanish flu because he likes the party in red. It's brain worms of the highest order, all critical thinking gone out the window.

btw have you got a link to this guy being a labour activist ? I've had a look online but haven't found anything, also I think you might be confusing him with Professor John Ashton.
 
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Honestly reckon there’s a crazy percentage of people in the UK who have got this/had this very lightly. Spoken to/heard of so many people who have had a cough, fever or lost their sense of smell and taste. A lot of celebs coming out now saying they have had it not just from the royal family but Paul Chuckle I notice! Absolutely essential people stay indoors the next few weeks.
 
Wibble said:
Doesn't make him right though does it? He is spot on - many countries reacted far too slowly in many ways.
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But I wish he'd make his mind up

Richard claims the message by the end of January from China was absolutely clear – why then, in late January, did he Tweet:

A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language.
— richard horton (@richardhorton1) January 24, 2020
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https://order-order.com/2020/03/27/lancet-editor-slams-government-for-listening-to-his-advice/
 
Sweet Square said:
Because you've just written off the editor of one the worlds most well known medical journals during the biggest pandemic since the Spanish flu because he likes the party in red. It's brain worms of the highest order, all critical thinking gone at the window.

btw have you got a link to this guy being a labour activist ? I've had a look online but haven't found anything, also I think you might be confusing him with Professor John Ashton.
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I don't know who this guy is but article about this virus was published in the Lancet magazine in January and the British government was informed about the article but it looks like that they completely ignored it.
 
hobbers said:
100k deaths for a country of 350mil would be a pretty acceptable outcome, no?

In fact I'd say at this point it'll be a bit of a miracle if it's anywhere close to that.
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100,000 was actually on the low end of what I assume are 95% confidence intervals. 240,000 was the high end of the interval. I'm stunned they didn't state the point estimate for expected deaths. That should be the number being talked about.
 
senorgregster said:
100,000 was actually on the low end of what I assume are 95% confidence intervals. 240,000 was the high end of the interval. I'm stunned they didn't state the point estimate for expected deaths. That should be the number being talked about.
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Donald Trump said 100k will die and that's exactly how many will die.

He also discovered that you could use chloroquine to treat this infection after working long nights in his own lab.

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Wibble said:
I just wondered if there was another factor at play with the particular corona-virus because of the disparity between the badly affected vs the asymptomatic. But I guess that wouldn't explain the huge skew to older people as they would also have partial immunity in some cases.
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Previous history of lung infections/pneumonia? I was reading, that lung infections in general cause long term immune suppression - thus you're much more likely to get pneumonia a 2nd time, if you've already had it once.
 
Offside said:
Honestly reckon there’s a crazy percentage of people in the UK who have got this/had this very lightly. Spoken to/heard of so many people who have had a cough, fever or lost their sense of smell and taste. A lot of celebs coming out now saying they have had it not just from the royal family but Paul Chuckle I notice! Absolutely essential people stay indoors the next few weeks.
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I think you are right mate.

Myself and my wife have had hacking coughs and had flu like symptoms for weeks.

My five year old had a temperature of 39.6C last week with the hacking cough and was nearly hospitalised with it.

111 seemed to think it was the corona virus.
 
Full bodied red said:
But I wish he'd make his mind up

Richard claims the message by the end of January from China was absolutely clear – why then, in late January, did he Tweet:



https://order-order.com/2020/03/27/lancet-editor-slams-government-for-listening-to-his-advice/
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He says we knew since the last week of January that there was a virus with pandemic potential. Those "late January" tweets highlighted in that article are from the week before that.

If we check what he was tweeting at the end of January will we see him continuing to downplay the virus? Or will we see his position had changed in line with developing information that there was a virus with pandemic potential, thus making making this article's point utterly irrelevant as there is no contradiction whatsoever? Place your bets.
 
Skills said:
Previous history of lung infections/pneumonia? I was reading, that lung infections in general cause long term immune suppression - thus you're much more likely to get pneumonia a 2nd time, if you've already had it once.
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Bollocks as I had it 10/11 years ago and I'm 56 now :nervous:
 
People are already losing their minds being isolated. Not just isolated, but nothing is open, the world is on pause. For how much longer will people be able to put up with this? I’m quite introverted and like my alone time, and even I’m dreading having another month of it. We all understand the reasons for social distancing, of course, but I feel that people are really going to start to struggle with it soon.
 
My brothers local hospital, Piedmont in Atlanta has a FB campaign asking people to sew homemade masks for medical personnel. Crazy!
 
golden_blunder said:
Yes, mine are splitting and bleeding at my knuckles
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That's my hands for about 9 months of the year.

Having dogs I wash them all the time. Canadian winters don't help either. I get three or four humid months where the dryness and cracking reverses but it takes two months to heal. Then I have two months where my hands don't look like I'm in a fight club before it starts all over again.
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
That's my hands for about 9 months of the year.

Having dogs I wash them all the time. Canadian winters don't help either. I get three or four humid months where the dryness and cracking reverses but it takes two months to heal. Then I have two months where my hands don't look like I'm in a fight club before it starts all over again.
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For me I think it’s mostly down to my blood thinners. I can feel my skin tightening and my knuckles getting sore, then cuts break out. I use that Norwegian have cream but it’s only a brief respite. Happens more in the cold weather I think
 
Skills said:
I'm not really qualified to comment though, someone else should clear it up.

This is where I came across this - and tbf, I've only read the summary :

https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(17)30281-9
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That study was in Mice and only looked at up to 30 days after initial recovery (I think from a quick scan). There are also suggestions the opposite is true. I choose to believe the later ;)

https://invisiverse.wonderhowto.com/news/your-lungs-arent-same-after-battle-with-pneumonia-0177700/
 
Wibble said:
I think some level of restrictions will have to remain to keep the post lock-down spike to a minimum. I also imagine face masks, social distancing and better hygiene won't disappear overnight no matter what the regulations.

I wonder if a law that requires you to wear a face mask if you are sick could be enforced when this all settles down and they are available again?

Agreed about the vaccine. I'd say that if we had a vaccine that has been administered to much of the world by late 2021 would be impressive much less late 2020.
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It should be mandatory for the rest of the pandemic, regardless if you are sick or not. The problem is that we have such a big shortage of masks, that governments have to lie to tell us that masks do not help, or even are harmful, in order to avoid even more shortages of masks (cause then the doctors and nurses would be screwed). The solution needs to be to make more masks so that everyone can wear them.
 
hobbers said:
100k deaths for a country of 350mil would be a pretty acceptable outcome, no?

In fact I'd say at this point it'll be a bit of a miracle if it's anywhere close to that.
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100k is quite optimistic to be fair. Scaling it down to Italy's numbers, it would be around 25k (which is less than double what Italy has so far, and Italy is at best at half of the number of victims). Essentially, it is quite optimistic (and the graph said so, it being on the low end of a 95% confidence interval), it will likely be worse than that, but hopefully nowhere near Imperial College's prediction of 2.2m.
 
golden_blunder said:
For me I think it’s mostly down to my blood thinners. I can feel my skin tightening and my knuckles getting sore, then cuts break out. I use that Norwegian have cream but it’s only a brief respite. Happens more in the cold weather I think
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Yeah the cold weather sucks the moisture right out of them. My hands bleed almost daily from November through March.
 
Revan said:
It should be mandatory for the rest of the pandemic, regardless if you are sick or not. The problem is that we have such a big shortage of masks, that governments have to lie to tell us that masks do not help, or even are harmful, in order to avoid even more shortages of masks (cause then the doctors and nurses would be screwed). The solution needs to be to make more masks so that everyone can wear them.
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Governments have been clear that masks are most helpful at reducing how far a sick person spreads droplets.

There is some anecdotal evidence from South Korea and Taiwan that masks can help people stay healthy but you have to know how to use them and most of us don't.
 
Revan said:
It should be mandatory for the rest of the pandemic, regardless if you are sick or not. The problem is that we have such a big shortage of masks, that governments have to lie to tell us that masks do not help, or even are harmful, in order to avoid even more shortages of masks (cause then the doctors and nurses would be screwed). The solution needs to be to make more masks so that everyone can wear them.
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I only have a few so I'm wary of using them up too soon.
 
T00lsh3d said:
Spain isn’t flattening, just the spacing and log style of the x a six makes it look that way. They had 914 deaths yesterday, more than any single day in Italy (if memory serves)
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It flattens because is diminishes the percentage of growth compared with the day before. Thats why is a curve that progressively flattens. If it would grow exponentially, it would curve the other way. Actually all of them are flattening, but yesterday, with yesterday's criteria, Spain was flattening more than Italy.

Smores said:
I still think these daily graphs misrepresent the picture somewhat. Especially with regards to the US.

Much better to start each country from the point exponential growth really kicks in, some countries had a few isolated cases for weeks whilst others comparatively had rapid community spread from migration.
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I agree that there is something that doesn't add up. I think that's why he changed the criteria today. Lets see if it is more representative of the situation. New or old criteria, it was interesting nevertheless because the criteria was the same for everyone, but probably, now is fairer

 
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