Coronavirus-losing-potency !!!!!!

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frayne said:
If this is indeed the case, this is really good news.


https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-losing-potency-top-italian-184358113.html
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Wonderful! I hope this is the case. It really seems like it might be, here. Our numbers dropped like a rock after they peaked in early April, and they have not returned to those high levels since.

The mayor of New Orleans says our outstanding improvement is because we have been just ever so exemplary in our obedient practicing of social distancing, masks, and other suggestions. We think this hypothesis is ridiculous; people here aren't any better about following rules than those elsewhere.
 
Here's something I heard fairly early on in an interview with what I guess was a doctor/epidimiologist of some kind. They were discussing which way this could go. i.e. get a vaccine, masks and rolling shutdowns worldwide for some indefinite period, a million deaths, etc etc etc. One of the things mentioned just sort of buried in a lengthy response and never mentioned again anywhere by anyone, was that viruses of this type often eventually mutate into a LESS VIRULENT strain because it actually helps the virus survive better and that's what life is all about at the species level of operation.



Sounded like good news and biologically speaking made sense, but nobody asked why smallpox is still lethal after all these years.
 
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razztazz said:
Here's something I heard fairly early on in an interview with what I guess was a doctor/epidimiologist of some kind. They were discussing which way this could go. i.e. get a vaccine, masks and rolling shutdowns worldwide for some indefinite period, a million deaths, etc etc etc. One of the things mentioned just sort of buried in a lengthy response and never mentioned again anywhere by anyone, was that viruses of this type usually eventually mutate into a LESS VIRULENT strain because it actually helps the virus survive better and that's what life is all about at the species level of operation.
Click to expand...

Fauci also said something like that here: ""What I certainly would like to see is what happened with SARS," Fauci said, addressing how the coronavirus pandemic may finally come to an end. "When public health measures essentially suppressed it, it disappeared and never came back."

However, Fauci warned that this strain of coronavirus was different than SARS. "Even though it's the same category of a coronavirus, it spreads too efficiently," Fauci said."

https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-says...ear-like-sars-spreads-too-efficiently-1493343
 
timo2 said:
Fauci also said something like that here: ""What I certainly would like to see is what happened with SARS," Fauci said, addressing how the coronavirus pandemic may finally come to an end. "When public health measures essentially suppressed it, it disappeared and never came back."

However, Fauci warned that this strain of coronavirus was different than SARS. "Even though it's the same category of a coronavirus, it spreads too efficiently," Fauci said."

https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-says...ear-like-sars-spreads-too-efficiently-1493343
Click to expand...


Good. So I wasn't just imagining things, ha ha. Maybe it was a Fauci interview I am recalling. As far as "yes but this bug is different." I say so what? Different doesn't necessarily mean it makes a difference. Like the old saying: A distinction without a difference or a difference without distinction. And when he said that, really even as of right now, nobody has enough knowledge to swear to anything. Cautious optimism / keep fingers crossed, maybe wear a mask in crowds for a couple more weeks... etc etc
 
This could, *could* explain why the number of new cases at the worldometers site have been fairly steady over the past few weeks but the number of new deaths is in steady decline.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

It could also potentially have something to do with the weather somehow.

Personally I think - without any reasonable basis other than optimism - that the virus is more contagious and less deadly than is generally thought. If so, then reopening would tend to result *not* in a second wave.

I am fascinated to see what happens in the next few weeks as the US continues to open up. I don't know about generally but my state is in phase 3 of a reopening plan and so far the new deaths have been increasing but at a slow pace which is well below hospital capacities. For those who think that a second wave will happen, I wonder why we have not seen it in my state even though we've been reopening for a month now and I was under the impression that the virus has an incubation stage that is much less than 1 month.

I agree that there's a lot we still don't know about this thing. I think we collectively want certainty so in some cases are taking our reasonable first estimates about it's many facets as accurate when they may not (probably won't?) turn out to be.
 
razztazz said:
Good. So I wasn't just imagining things, ha ha. Maybe it was a Fauci interview I am recalling. As far as "yes but this bug is different." I say so what? Different doesn't necessarily mean it makes a difference. Like the old saying: A distinction without a difference or a difference without distinction. And when he said that, really even as of right now, nobody has enough knowledge to swear to anything. Cautious optimism / keep fingers crossed, maybe wear a mask in crowds for a couple more weeks... etc etc
Click to expand...

Since it hit here later maybe it will leave later? Regardless, I'll still be the last one out of my house.
 
SecondCor521 said:
This could, *could* explain why the number of new cases at the worldometers site have been fairly steady over the past few weeks but the number of new deaths is in steady decline.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

It could also potentially have something to do with the weather somehow.

Personally I think - without any reasonable basis other than optimism - that the virus is more contagious and less deadly than is generally thought. If so, then reopening would tend to result *not* in a second wave.

I am fascinated to see what happens in the next few weeks as the US continues to open up. I don't know about generally but my state is in phase 3 of a reopening plan and so far the new deaths have been increasing but at a slow pace which is well below hospital capacities. For those who think that a second wave will happen, I wonder why we have not seen it in my state even though we've been reopening for a month now and I was under the impression that the virus has an incubation stage that is much less than 1 month.

I agree that there's a lot we still don't know about this thing. I think we collectively want certainty so in some cases are taking our reasonable first estimates about it's many facets as accurate when they may not (probably won't?) turn out to be.
Click to expand...

And then there is Brazil.
 
razztazz said:
Here's something I heard fairly early on in an interview with what I guess was a doctor/epidimiologist of some kind. They were discussing which way this could go. i.e. get a vaccine, masks and rolling shutdowns worldwide for some indefinite period, a million deaths, etc etc etc. One of the things mentioned just sort of buried in a lengthy response and never mentioned again anywhere by anyone, was that viruses of this type often eventually mutate into a LESS VIRULENT strain because it actually helps the virus survive better and that's what life is all about at the species level of operation.



Sounded like good news and biologically speaking made sense, but nobody asked why smallpox is still lethal after all these years.
Click to expand...



My daughter is in college with a goal of epidemiology. She told us the exact same thing, that viruses mutate to become less lethal to their hosts as a survival instinct.
 
That would be good news. I’m sure if it’s true, we’ll be hearing about it everywhere soon. And we’ll largely lose interest in developing SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies like many previous outbreaks before (there’s never been a coronavirus vaccine approved by the FDA) and those resources may have been wasted.

It would be nice to get back to a semblance of normal again - until the next pandemic. This won’t be the last.
 
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Not everyone in Italy agreed with him


"The director of the prestigious Spallazani infectious diseases institute in Rome, Giuseppe Ippolito, said there was no scientific proof the virus had mutated or changed in potency.

National Health Council head Franco Locatelli said he was "baffled" by Zangrillo's comments.

"It's enough to look at the number of new positive cases confirmed every day to see the persistent circulation in Italy of the new coronavirus," he said.

International experts also weighed in on Monday.

"In a situation where the numbers of severe cases are falling, there may be time to start observing people with less severe symptoms - giving the impression that the virus is changing," said Martin Hibberd, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine."




https://www.thelocal.it/20200601/row-breaks-out-over-italian-doctors-claim-virus-no-longer-exists
 
nap470 said:
My daughter is in college with a goal of epidemiology. She told us the exact same thing, that viruses mutate to become less lethal to their hosts as a survival instinct.
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Interesting story, I wish it would be correct, and I hope it is. I do not have an epidemiology degree, but my understanding is that viruses mutate, some more readily than others, depending on its type, DNA s. RNA etc.
Smallpox, polio and other viruses that we vaccinate children with are very stable - don't mutate, which is why you don't get sick after the vaccination and other diseases being eradicated or close to. The flu virus mutates, that's why we need a new shot each year, and hope that it is the right vaccine based on best guesses and what lineages are most active in the other hemisphere.

Viruses can mutate to be more readily transmitted, more or less lethal and more or less stable. In general, a less lethal virus will survive longer.

A virus mutation that kills a host within hours, before having a chance to replicate and infect others, will cause the strain to die out very soon.

A virus mutation that does not kill the host but spreads rapidly, will infect many, and this mutation will survive.

A virus mutation that kills the host, but only gets deadly after a couple of weeks of virus replication, will result in both death and spread.

At this point, I imagine that we have strains mutating differently in different parts of the world as we are so isolated compared to how it was before most travel shut down. That the virus is mutating to a less deadly version in Italy is no guarantee for the same happening in the US. There is no mothership coordinating the virus mutation. My hope is that the virus would mutate to be less lethal and more communicable that would give us a good enough immunity against a more deadly strain that might come in another wave.

Just my two cents...
 
Specifically for Italy - they have had a long lockdown and hopefully have gotten to where their medical system can handle the load, for those reasons alone they should have fewer simultaneous hospitalizations and fewer deaths simply because an unoverloaded hospitals can provide much better care.

And even if they possibly have a less virulent strain now, they might have had a particularly bad one before, and it probably has little bearing on whatever strains other countries are dealing with.

Pure speculation at this point.
 
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nap470 said:
My daughter is in college with a goal of epidemiology. She told us the exact same thing, that viruses mutate to become less lethal to their hosts as a survival instinct.
Click to expand...

You can't have a survival instinct unless you are an animal. A virus is just a very dumb piece of DNA or RNA. There is no teleology, only emergent "behaviour" (which is our attempt to impose meaning on a huge statistical series of events).

It's true that, on average, variants of viruses that don't kill their hosts will spread more than those that do, but the higher the R number and the longer the incubation period (on both of which points SARS-CoV-2 seems to score quite substantially), the advantage for the non-killer version will be reduced.
 
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audreyh1 said:
Specifically for Italy - they have had a long lockdown and hopefully have gotten to where their medical system can handle the load, for those reasons alone they should have fewer simultaneous hospitalizations and fewer deaths simply because an unoverloaded hospitals can provide much better care.

And even if they possibly have a less virulent strain now, they might have had a particularly bad one before, and it probably has little bearing on whatever strains other countries are dealing with.

Pure speculation at this point.
Click to expand...

+1
Not only do viruses appear to mutate regionally, but they can hide out in the body and come back later. Just look at chicken pox/shingles. Just because someone found less virus now in some people doesn't mean anything for later. Plus we now have many people with a variety of organs damaged by coronavirus. So who knows how that will progress, especially if the virus starts hiding out for now.

I'm really hoping for the development of some sort of AIDS/HIV style treatment for COVID-19 rather than expecting a miraculous vaccine.
 
Can't have this virus weaken, it will ruin all the dire and horrible predictions.
 
Yeah and hasten the reopening that makes us more afraid.
 
Virus strains are being sequenced frequently. Actual mutations would be easy to detect. I think you need to establish a correlation between death rates and the actual virus strains in circulation.
 
Cases in my state continue to rise. . .
 
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badatmath said:
Cases in my state continue to rise. . .
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Cases is the poorest indicator in some cases, more testing = more cases. Hospitalizations and deaths are better, per capita if you’re making comparisons to other states/countries.
 
Looking at the worldwide numbers, I don't see the death rate coming down. The epicenter has moved to Latin America and South Asia where I think more people are dying faster than being counted.
 

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It could be seasonality. That would be a good thing.

A number of mechanisms could make sense for this from more vitamin D produced, more people outside who (a) are bathed in UV which kills viruses, or (b) so fewer people in closed spaces which does seem to facility transmission or (c) more fresh air and exercise, etc.

So many commingled variables. It'll be interesting to read all about it in 5 years when people look back and try to explain what happened.
 
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