That study looks at viral isolates from patients in China. Where did you read about New York having a particularly bad strain?
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.
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.
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.
This is what I have heard too. There are different strains discovered in different countries.
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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.
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.
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.
That paper isn't peer reviewed and also says "However, no mutation has been directly linked with functional changes in viral pathogenicity."
Not too many hard facts available at the moment, are there?
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 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.
Here is to hoping that this is indeed the case.
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He "misspoke"
In the interview or letter?He "misspoke"
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).
Either or.
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).
Did you actually watch the video in the link?
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
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).
What have Australia done to achieve this
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.
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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.
I think I read the source paper
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.
Every time I see a Katie Hopkins Tweet I wish she would die.
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.
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.
