Coronavirus Pandemic

[Harlequin]

Covid is a novel virus, meaning our immune systems are unfamiliar with its type because... it's novel.
Immunity will mean mutations, which are different rather than novel, will be resisted . Slowing their spread and minimising the harm they cause.

Can you provide a link to a source of that information? My understanding has been that the immune system treats mutated strains of virus as if they were as new to it as any other. 'Novel', in this case, merely means something that was not previously identified by experts. Genetically, SARS-CoV-2 is a strain of the same species as SARS-CoV[-1].

Immunity will mean mutations, which are different rather than novel, will be resisted . Slowing their spread and minimising the harm they cause.

Okay, yes, I perhaps exaggerate in saying "back to square one".

The immune system, having dealt with the previous strain, is not totally starting from scratch in learning to resist this new variant, and not all the effort put into the vaccine will be in vain because the new strain will be mostly like the old strain with some changes.

I think it is the humans who are not totally starting from scratch in creating vaccines for strains of things they have previously produced vaccines for. Unfortunately, SARS-CoV-1 was eradicated (aside from some lab samples) before any vaccine was ever developed.

[KlaxonCow]

but I'm sure I remember learning about vaccines in school and them basically just being a very small quantity of the virus. Small enough that your immune system can figure it out and produce its own antibody, without getting overwhelmed.

It depends. But generally a vaccine is a harmless version of the virus.

Something that'll trigger the immune system to produce the right antibodies, but which has been "de-fanged" sufficiently, so it won't cause any of the nasty potentially fatal symptoms.

I was watching a report about those working on a vaccine right now, and they were basically saying how they were trying to extract the right bits of RNA / DNA from the virus - so the immune system would identify the vaccine in the same way as the real virus and produce antibodies against it - but leaving out the nasty bits. And if they can identify what those exact bits are, then they can put them into something otherwise harmless, and that'll be the vaccine.

It's a small quantity of a harmless version of the virus. You need it to be as close to the real virus as possible - so that the immune system identifies it and the real virus the same way and produces the right antibodies - but removing all the nastiness of the virus, so they get the immunity but without any of the downsides (or, well, as close to "harmless" / symptom-less as it's possible to get).

This is, unfortunately, why these things can take quite a while to develop, as that's a bit of a tightrope walk to get right. Particularly with a novel virus, as we're still learning what the bloody thing even is, and how it works, in the first place.

[Little stoned kiwi]

Sure, I can Google that for you.

https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/cente ... ation.html

[KlaxonCow]

Has herd immunity via contagion ever worked for eradicating a virus that infects humans? The only effectiveness that I can recall has been via mass vaccination.

Not being the world's greatest expert on the complete history of all viruses there's ever been, I can't answer that definitively, of course.

But I have your same intuition, in that I don't recall any historical instance of this ever being a good idea that actually worked.

[Harlequin]

Sure, I can Google that for you.
https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/cente ... ation.html

A preliminary finding from a single ferret study? I was hoping for established medical facts.

[Little stoned kiwi]

Look, I'm sorry. I quickly tried finding material relevant to what you should have learnt in high school but that sort of information would be better found in a revision book.
I really can't be bothered being responsible for the education of someone obtuse enough to argue that novel means something just hadn't been classified, not realising something may not have been previously classified because it's novel.
"A novel virus refers to a virus not seen before" is as basic as I can break it down for you, buddy.

[KlaxonCow]

Guys, I know being stuck at home can prove more than a little tetchy and irritating, but "peace and love", yeah?

[Cloudane]

I wish we had like buttons.

The hard thing of course, and the root of many problems on the internet, is admitting to not having a clue, rather than spreading some false notion like "I only have a rough 20-odd year old simplified slightest of a clue how vaccines work" and therefore "guys I have an idea, how about we don't sanitise things" (which already gets bandied about to some degree by the "we keep everything too clean these days so we have no resistance to anything" crowd)

[rowan]

A colleague at work was all doom & gloom about whether this will spell the end of the EU.
With the significant economic impact, he reckons in the aftermath of all this, the existing tensions between the member states will be exacerbated to the point they rip each other apart. At its core, a problem he sees as lack of unity in fiscal policy across the bloc and so it can never work long term.
In his eyes, the US also won't fare well & China will end up a lot stronger out of all this.

Not sure how likely this is, he studied economics & I didn't but it's always interesting hearing his viewpoint.

[Harlequin]

Look, I'm sorry. I quickly tried finding material relevant to what you should have learnt in high school but that sort of information would be better found in a revision book.
I really can't be bothered being responsible for the education of someone obtuse enough to argue that novel means something just hadn't been classified, not realising something may not have been previously classified because it's novel.
"A novel virus refers to a virus not seen before" is as basic as I can break it down for you, buddy.

I would wonder why the study you linked to was performed at all if everyone already knew from high school what it was attempting to establish.

Covid is a novel virus, meaning our immune systems are unfamiliar with its type because... it's novel.

A novel coronavirus is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified.

That is all that 'novel' means in this context; not that our immune systems react any differently to novel viruses than to new strains of old viruses.

Guys, I know being stuck at home can prove more than a little tetchy and irritating, but "peace and love", yeah?

I assure you that I am attempting to love. I am also, however, attempting to stick to facts (the majority of which I have to research on this subject as, like the great leader of the Unravelling States, I am not a doctor).

[Little stoned kiwi]

You realise he coronavirus group is responsible for roughly 50% of common colds, right? You're saying covid-19 isn't any different from the strains we are regularly exposed to?
The Wikipedia has a page, if that's a reasonable enough source for you.

Novel virus refers to a virus not seen before. It can be a virus that is isolated from its natural reservoir or isolated as the result of spread to an animal or human host where the virus had not been identified before. It can be an emergent virus, one that represents a new virus, but, it can also be an extant virus, one that has not been previously identified.

[PFVA]

A colleague at work was all doom & gloom about whether this will spell the end of the EU.
With the significant economic impact, he reckons in the aftermath of all this, the existing tensions between the member states will be exacerbated to the point they rip each other apart. At its core, a problem he sees as lack of unity in fiscal policy across the bloc and so it can never work long term.
In his eyes, the US also won't fare well & China will end up a lot stronger out of all this.

Not sure how likely this is, he studied economics & I didn't but it's always interesting hearing his viewpoint.

At this time North and South are fighting over the emission of European Bonds. The South led by Italy wants them and the North, German, Holland, Austria, and a few others don't. Well, Ireland is North but wants them too. Either way things are going to get difficult. If they issue them and they are bouth by countries like China, Saudi Arabia, we are going to loose a certain independence and be pressured by those who owe them. If they don't issue them the recovery is going to be a more difficult road.

However I don't think we'll break apart, none of the countries in the group that wants the bonds is going to be better by itself in anyway.

Note: I don't know much about economics i'm just saying what i feel from watching it from inside.

[Harlequin]

You realise he coronavirus group is responsible for roughly 50% of common colds, right? You're saying covid-19 isn't any different from the strains we are regularly exposed to?
The Wikipedia has a page, if that's a reasonable enough source for you.

Novel virus refers to a virus not seen before. It can be a virus that is isolated from its natural reservoir or isolated as the result of spread to an animal or human host where the virus had not been identified before. It can be an emergent virus, one that represents a new virus, but, it can also be an extant virus, one that has not been previously identified.

I did give you the CDC's definition of 'novel virus', which I trust as a source for this kind of thing more than anything in Wikipedia that I am unable to check. I have been using Wikipedia as a source for further sources, though.

Six species of human coronaviruses are known, with one species subdivided into two different strains, making seven strains of human coronaviruses altogether. Four of these strains produce the generally mild symptoms of the common cold:

• 1. Human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43), of the genus β-CoV
  2. Human coronavirus HKU1 (HCoV-HKU1), β-CoV, its genome has 75% similarity to OC43[39]
  3. Human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-229E), α-CoV
  4. Human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63), α-CoV

Three strains (two species) produce symptoms that are potentially severe; all three of these are β-CoV strains:

• 1. Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV)
  2. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)
  3. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

That indicates that the only known other member of SARS-CoV-2's species to infect humans is SARS-CoV-1, the others (including those that cause colds) not being immediately related to either of them (although the other β-CoVs are apparently members of different genera of the same Orthocoronavirinae subfamily). I have unfortunately not been able to verify the source for the above paragraph. However, when I wrote that "Genetically, SARS-CoV-2 is a strain of the same species as SARS-CoV[-1]" I linked to https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0695-z, which outlines how SARS-CoV-2 was established to be of the same species (SARSr-CoV) as SARS-CoV-1 and hence named as such.

[PFVA]

I went into town today for the first time since confinement started almost 3 weeks ago. Our cash machine here has been without cash for 10 days now and the only way to get it is by going down there.

I learned a few things. It's possible to get in and out of the bus without touching the bar handles. It's also possible to go down the stairs and up the escalator when crossing the train station without touching anything. Actually the buses are a lot cleaner now that they are required to be bleach sanitized every day.

And if i have to go down there of course i walked the 30-40 meters extra to the shoreline.

And the Tagus estuary is still there and the little bay too. And the tide was high and the ocean breeze smelled wonderful.

Still There

The Municipal garden is open just the benches are off limits (as is the children playground)


Covid 19

As up here the police goes by often but only breaks up groups of more than 5 people and/or when they are not keeping a reasonable distance. Or if the places become too crowded. The beaches are off limits though.

The beach sand seemed a lot cleaner, i don't mean the natural stuff that came up with yesterday's heavy rain but from plastic and other discardables. I have a feeling that the absence of crowds by the river in Lisbon has something to do with it.

As for Covid 19 numbers are still rising, specially in Porto's metropolitan area. As for our municipality we have now 142 cases. At national level from the 345 official deaths, a little bit over half are over 80 years old. Nursing homes continue to be a big problem.

[Little stoned kiwi]

A novel coronavirus is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified.

Since you consider the CDC to be a source of information that you won't challenge, we might as well quote the whole statement instead of cherry picking the first sentence.

A novel coronavirus is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified. The virus causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is not the same as the coronaviruses that commonly circulate among humans and cause mild illness, like the common cold.

A diagnosis with coronavirus 229E, NL63, OC43, or HKU1 is not the same as a COVID-19 diagnosis. Patients with COVID-19 will be evaluated and cared for differently than patients with a common coronavirus diagnosis.

The only difference is referring to it as a novel coronavirus, instead of a novel virus. The virus grouping isn't new, but covid-19 is.
That's not the point you are making though. Covid-19 still fits the description of a novel virus and the interaction with human immune systems is the same regardless of calling it a novel virus or novel caronavirus.
For some reason you are harping on about what novel means. In both definitions it could simply be replaced with the word "new". It is a virus new to our immune systems.