Coronavirus Pandemic

[tufty]

It is a virus new to our immune systems.

It is indeed, which is why our immune systems can't deal with it.

And if / when it mutates into another variant, there's an extremely good chance our immune systems will consider that variant "new", and won't be able to deal with that either, even if they can already deal with covid-19 as it stands. This is why there is a new 'flu vaccine every year, for example.

The reason new variants tend to be new to the immune system is part of the mathematics of evolution. A new variant that can be detected and dealt with by generalised, existing immune responses within the host population simply won't be able to reproduce and spread, and will die out.

[Harlequin]

^^ What tufty wrote ^^

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.
…
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.

I am willing (or am compulsively inclined) to question statements from just about anywhere and to challenge them if they are contradicted by sources that seem suitably or at least equally reliable.

Yes, I do think you are right that I got sidetracked by the definition of 'novel' in this context, for which I apologise.

I think our only disagreement here is on whether our immune systems can deal better with new strains of viruses that they have previously dealt with than with novel viruses. It might be that you are misremembering what you were taught at school (which I sometimes do) or that you were taught incorrectly (I used to correct some teachers, at least one of whom was, I discovered, relying on an erroneous textbook). It is also possible that you were recalling that some mutations are close enough to previous variants to be recognised by our immune systems. However, as tufty points out, they therefore die out in favour of the mutations that are not recognised and are therefore treated the same as novel viruses.

[gilesgoat]

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.

Yesterday we were listening on the radio to Alex Jones ( again ) .. "as you say" this is ALL a PLAN from the New World Order to cripple USA and its economy and to put you all in a robot-post-human-society dominated by those "interdimensional AIs" that will take over.

It's all part of a GRAND PLAN that he's YEARS trying to warn people about and FIGHT againist it !

Yes OF COURSE China will be better, because this is all a "master plan" originating from China to destrory USA economy, there are medicines and solutions to all this they don't want you to know about, part of the "plan" is to keep everyone indoors under "terror treat" so meanwhile USA economy is put into a recession from where you'll never recover.

Then "the New World Order" will get/buy anything for nothing and will dominate, they make you stay indoors, they give you fear of going out, they put in place "control systems" they'll never remove, all the people will be constantly tracked in all movements and what you do and will be kept sealed under the threat of biological warfare.

But the REAL PATRIOT and the RESISTANCE to all this should buy lot of weapons and be prepared for the fight/resistance to come, buy lot of Zinc ( from his shop ) lot of those "nutrimeds" that are SO POWERFUL ( from his shop ) donate money to Alex Jones so they can continue to INFORM you about what to do and not do to "for the fight".

Trump is something between a martyr, a hero, a saint, God's right arm and maybe above.

Bill Gates is totally part of all this consipracy, he did fund China for all this, so Obama, they are all deeply rooted in evil.

Also - too long story about human sacrifice in ancient cultures - did you know that ALL those ABORTION CLINICS in USA IN REALITY are "continuing the human sacrifices" of YOUNG CHILDREN so "the evil inter dimensional entities" CONTINUE TO SUCK THE ENERGY RELEASED FROM THE SACRIFICES !

You tought it was simply "a medical clinic ?" NOT AT ALL ! THEY ARE EVIL ! THEY ARE DOING HUMAN SACRIFICES OF CHILDREN FOR THE INTER DIMENSIONAL ENTITIES !

Also of course EU is "absolutely totalitarian" we are all full of those un-democratic totalitarian governments , China is the root of all evil and stuff like that.

And yes OF COURSE at some point there will be some vaccines we'll have have to take to "protect us" from those viruses, vaccines that "Big Pharma" will make you cost fuckload ( this actually COULD BE TRUE in USA ) but that also will have "other side effects" beacause all this is part of an EUGENICS PROGRAM with the purpose to remove away from society a certain category of "unwanted people".

And he goes on and on and on and on .. yesterday he switched from "5G is a weaponized system to control people" to all this, every now and then he changes subjects.

NOTE : he's NOT the only one in all this, he has various "guests and experts" coming to talk on the show about all this .. ..

[gilesgoat]

*SNIP* This is why there is a new 'flu vaccine every year, for example.
*SNIP*.

Yes .. "there is" .. kinda .. now "when everyting was normal", at least in Italy, the story tend to go "yes there's in theory the new vaccine but you are not going to get it".

Turns out "they always have less than what needed" so unless you are in a certain age group and you manage to "fit in" certain lists, which is not a guarantee, chances are you'll hear "sorry we ran out of vaccines".

Said that can't remember when , it was many years ago, I think I managed only once ot twice to actually be vaccinated, on the other side so far I think I got a real flu only once, mind you it was really bad, put me ( and Yak ) in a condition like "can't really do ANYHTING else other than falling in bed hoping it passes soon" .. was really bad ..

[KlaxonCow]

To be honest, I think giles got it right in emphasising that mutations are random.

Not just random in terms of when / if mutations might occur, but also random in terms of how it mutates.

As giles rightly notes, it's possible that a mutation could actually make it less aggressive. Or, indeed, it might do absolutely nothing at all. Or it could get worse.

It's basically a total roll of the dice as to whether it even happens, and another roll of the dice in terms of what the mutation actually does to the virus.

Thus, I'd imagine that whether a mutation "resets" our immune response - so it sees it as a totally brand new virus - depends on whether the mutation in question is one that changes its "identity" to the immune system.

For example, a mutation to its outer protein shell would make it "look different" to the immune system, as it's changed shape. But a random change in its DNA somewhere might not really make any sodding difference to how the immune system sees it overall.

I'd think - though, yes, I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice - that it would surely depend on how it mutates exactly.

And, like most everyone else, when warning of the dangers of potential "mutation" if the population spread gets too big, there's an implicit "mutation that makes it worse / changes how it looks to the immune system" in there. Mutations that don't really do anything or could even make it less aggressive and maybe work in our favour aren't the worry (because, as tufty notes, if the mutation "looks" the same as the previous variant then it won't last, as the immune system knows to attack that - the ones that'll survive through are, by definition, those that do manage to "look different" to the immune system to not provoke its response, and those are the types of mutation that we're worried about here).

The underlying point - which is what brought mutation up in the first place - is the prospect that, as it's a random event, if the spread / population size gets too big, such as the tens of millions that "herd immunity" proposes, then the statistical odds of it potentially mutating in a way that might throw our vaccine efforts back, or even be interpreted by the immune system as "a brand new virus" that it has to learn a new immune response to it all over again.

You get the gist. My point is that wild "herd immunity" is an insanely risky proposition.

One bad roll of the dice and we're fucked. And when you've got tens of millions infected, those dice are being rolled tens of millions of times - the odds that one of them, and it only takes one, rolls "snake eyes", as it were, becomes more and more likely, the bigger the population gets. So "flattening the curve" isn't just about making sure that health system can cope, it's also trying to stack the odds in our favour that this virus doesn't mutate in a nasty way, before we've got treatments, a vaccine, antibody tests, and a lot of the world already "past the peak" to deal with it.

There is the possibility there that mutation can set everything back. How much - whether it's a total wipeout or just a partial wipeout of our efforts and immunity - depends on the details of how it mutated (which is why I took back the "back to square one" phrasing, as it might not quite be back to literally square one - but it's definitely a possibility of riding a snake back down the board and undoing the progress so far).

Anyway, the more fundamental human-level point of "herd immunity" is that it's also perfectly psychopathic in demanding "just leave those who would die, to die". That, alone, should make this non-plan morally unacceptable already.

But I was just adding that, in terms of the science, there's also a good possibility that it doesn't even work. Tens of millions get infected, hundreds of thousands die and then - because the population size is now so large, those dice rolls throw up a nasty mutation that the immune system reads as "brand new virus", so all that wild "herd immunity" you built up? Gone. Just like that.

And now you've got tens of millions of people infected with "SARS 2" and an exponential growth of people catching the new "SARS 2.1" at the same time. Rather than putting a lid on it and allowing us to move on, such wild "herd immunity" could not work, make shit far worse and guarantee this becomes endemic.

Now, hey, it's entirely possible that, even with our efforts to "flatten the curve", this still happens anyway. Because mutation is random and the bad roll of the dice might fall anyway.

But let's try the "keep a lid on it" strategy first. Because it's not mutually exclusive - if "flattening the curve" ultimately fails, then we end up at wild "herd immunity" anyway. That's the inevitable default that naturally happens. That's why I call it a "non-plan".

You don't aim for wild herd immunity. You aim for the controlled herd immunity of a vaccine, for treatments to deal with it, for antibody and antigen tests to be widely available so we can "manage" the outbreak with isolation - and if these efforts ultimately fail, then we're back at wild herd immunity anyway.

And, even while we're succeeding to flatten that curve, it's gradually happening - all those in the "recovered" category (even if the UK government weirdly doesn't track that metric for reasons they've never explained) are in the "immune" category right now. For example, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock. For "herd immunity" to work, the idea is to have so many people who're already immune to the virus to act as a "block" to new infections, as the virus just can't find any non-immune hosts anymore to get a foothold anywhere.

This is a good plan. We need to stick with it.

And, on the economic front, that's why we need those antibody tests on a massive scale. Because if we can identify who's got immunity from this, then those people can break "social distancing" and isolation, going back to work and keeping the economy afloat for the rest of us. Those folks will be safe to send back to the NHS / care home frontline to help others.

The isolation can be more targeted, rather than just a blanket ban on absolutely everyone leaving their house.

Testing, testing, testing.

On the scale of millions, releasing significant chunks of the population to now safely go back to business as usual. The WHO's absolutely right - that's the key to unlocking this on the economic side. We're locking everyone at home right now, because we simply don't know who is or isn't infected, who is or isn't immune. But if we had a solid "snapshot" of that from mass testing, we can have a more targeted and useful isolation regime (that shouldn't, if the tests are reliable, compromise the good that the isolation is doing right now).

It would be a "game changer", indeed.

But, yeah, the tests do actually need to work reliably. Misidentification would be worse than no identification, if it sends the vulnerable into the hands of the virus, or keeps folks who're actually now immune in an isolation that they don't need to be in. So I do understand the need for rigorous testing of its reliability before launching it onto the public at large, even if I'm really irritated with impatience by the fact that the "within days" promises turned out to be bollocks.

[Deckard]

So how many viruses in the history of medical science have dice rolled to a nastier version ? Out of presumably a list of 1000s....HIV has but don't just 3 treatments do the lot ?

[Harlequin]

So how many viruses in the history of medical science have dice rolled to a nastier version ? Out of presumably a list of 1000s....HIV has but don't just 3 treatments do the lot ?

As Gumboot suggested on IRC, evolution seems likely to select for less fatal variants as killing hosts reduces infection opportunity.

[tufty]

Perhaps.

Certainly *rapidly* killing the host can be an evolutionary dead-end. However, killing the host once you've had time to spread isn't necessarily; it reduces the number of immune individuals in the population, thus increasing the chance of hitting infectable hosts. But as with other evolutionary factors, it's statistical, over a huge population, and vying with other factors which might or might not favour infection. So, in short, "who the fuck knows"

[gravy]

Perhaps.

Certainly *rapidly* killing the host can be an evolutionary dead-end. However, killing the host once you've had time to spread isn't necessarily; it reduces the number of immune individuals in the population, thus increasing the chance of hitting infectable hosts. But as with other evolutionary factors, it's statistical, over a huge population, and vying with other factors which might or might not favour infection. So, in short, "who the fuck knows"

Particularly if, like coronavirus, it's zoonotic and different species have different responses. It doesn't stunt your progress much if you're fatal to one pool of infection as long as others exist.

[gilesgoat]

Perhaps.

Certainly *rapidly* killing the host can be an evolutionary dead-end. However, killing the host once you've had time to spread isn't necessarily; it reduces the number of immune individuals in the population, thus increasing the chance of hitting infectable hosts. But as with other evolutionary factors, it's statistical, over a huge population, and vying with other factors which might or might not favour infection. So, in short, "who the fuck knows"

Particularly if, like coronavirus, it's zoonotic and different species have different responses. It doesn't stunt your progress much if you're fatal to one pool of infection as long as others exist.

I SUPPOSE evolutionarly speaking "the best" for a virus would be some species that has it endemic so they can live with it without having significant bad effects ?

[Space Cowboy]

Just heard from the paramedic I know, they included a voice message they've clearly received from someone in a senior management position within the ambulance service in which information from PHE was relayed to ambulance staff. They are expecting Thursday to be the peak. In this county they are expecting 900 deaths a day, not infections but deaths. At the moment if you are a patient who is struggling for every breath, who can't complete a sentence without drawing breath, you will be get a priority 2 ambulance service, as in an ambulance will be with you within 18 minutes. From Thursday this will change to you need to manage this at home. They will not be dispatching ambulances and deaths will include babies, children and teenagers. Morgues are full and they will be, and are already, making use of ice rinks. The government will be introducing a full lock down next week, no exercise outside at all and they will be adopting the system of street monitors and you will only be allowed outside for medical reasons and essential food shopping.

Take from this what you will. I must admit it sounds a little far fetched but I trust the person who forwarded it to me and what I heard sounded official. It also included the advice, presumably to ambulance staff but perhaps applicable to the wider population, to wash hands every 20 minutes.

[gilesgoat]

*SNIP*
It also included the advice, presumably to ambulance staff but perhaps applicable to the wider population, to wash hands every 20 minutes.

Erm NO .. maybe if you are in an infected area and you are constantly touching things.

If you are self-isolating at home consider that "there's only so much soap at the time your hands can take", trust me once had to go to do "contact allergy tests" cause a thing was going on my hands turns out I was washing them too much ( because I was working with food stuff all day - cooking/chopping/preparing fish all time ).

Washing your hands/yourself too frequently it's NOT a good idea, you remove natural grease protecting layers.

You can't wash your hands ALL the time it's NOT good for you !

[Rhythm]

Watching and dealing with bits of normal life around this has been "interesting".

Went up to my local Asda to grab the stuff we're not allowed to buy in bulk yesterday lunchtime. As per the last couple of weeks, everyone's queuing up nicely, all at 2m distance. All good. The store has been letting in people 10 at a time to allow room in the store for people to socially distance.

Yesterday, though, they seemed to be letting between 30-50 people through at a time. This was a mistake.

30-50 people piling in at the same time means the store is still quiet, but the clustering means you have that many people all fighting for the same bits of space in the same aisles. It was impossible to keep distance from anybody.

Added to that, staff were chatting with each other, refusing to stand to the side of the aisles whilst doing so. Meaning you're having to be that annoying prick asking them to get out of the way.

The final straw was when I went to pay. The couple in front of us (complete with 2 toddlers in their trolley, fuckwits) were having problems with the card reader. An unmasked, ungloved staffer came over to help. Didn't ask the customers (or their kids) to step back. Took the customers card, licked her finger(!) to aid with wiping the chip. It didn't work.

So she took the card out of the reader, bent over and blew into the reader as if she were a 9 year old trying to clear the dust from an Atari 2600 cartridge. O_O

Absolutely baffling behaviour. We were queue-committed by this point, so had to proceed to pay. Asda don't support contactless payment above £45 (even with Apple Pay), so I had to use my card in the tainted reader. We've been carrying Dettol wipes with us for these trips, so I wiped my card before and after use.

To rub in the absurdity of what had just happened, as we left we were forced to wait as they let in another 50 people. As we waited we clocked all the "help us help you by keeping distant from our staff" signs.

Yeah, if only.

[Barney]

Not to worry you guys over much, but there are viruses out there that actually are worse the second time around. The antibodies being present in your system makes it easier for the virus to gain a foothold, especially other strains or mutations.

And we don't yet know if Covid-19 has that facility.

[merman]

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.

You mean the EU that offered us hundreds of ventilators over a month ago - but Gove said accepting them would have "upset Rees-Mogg and the ERG too much"?
You mean the EU that is including Britain in its fiscal stimulus package?
You mean the EU that has already spent millions helping to repatriate Britons abroad?