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Discussion thread III - Covid-19 (new coronavirus)

Good questions! I wondered about the differences between Germany and Italy. Gsgs thinks it could be timing. That makes sense since Seattle was the first case in the US and now we see havoc in nursing homes there.
I've wondered also about population differences as far as previous infections and chronic infections.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/370841v1.abstract
There could be many factors we don't understand.
 
Also - pure supposition at the moment - it is possible that the early cases were predominantly the S type variant (less transmissible, less virulent) and these latter ones are more closely related to the L type variant. Has there been genetic analysis of these later and earlier cases to compare?
 
Thanks Dexxy these kinds of accounts are very helpful in understanding the severity of the problems faced by HCWs in hot spots. Looking at the big picture numbers can make you forget the reality that most come from very small geographical areas where a hand full of hospitals are swamped while an hours drive away you could be forgiven for not realising anything was going on.
 
The serology testing is underway but there are no results yet and I have not seen any ETA. re routes are you asking about fomites/droplets or where new cases came from (air routes). I have not seen anything very reliable on the former, the later can be derived from the phylogenic tree at nextstrain.org
 
re
Also - pure supposition at the moment - it is possible that the early cases were predominantly the S type variant (less transmissible, less virulent) and these latter ones are more closely related to the L type variant. Has there been genetic analysis of these later and earlier cases to compare?
Click to expand...
I saw this claim but am not sure how they came to the ORF8 L84S virulence change conclusion. The Lysine branch is active in the US, Canada and Korea while the Serine is causing European & Aus/NZ cases. All of these are fairly new and the stage of outbreak, and different health care settings & measures, are going to make it difficult to say anything definitive about differences in virulence i.e. there is a lot more going on than the one AA genetic change. There is one sequence, collected in S Korea on the 6th Feb., which is in the middle of the L sequences which independently also underwent L84S, which might mean this has some function, but its branch seems to have no progeny. N.B GISAID only has 326 sequences out of 100k cases so it may still be alive and well but not sampled. Iran still has no sequences and very little is coming out of China as they only reported 20 cases yesterday, 17 coming from Hubei. There some graphics showing this data here https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...rigin-and-continuing-evolution-of-sars-cov-2 
 
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Officially a Pandemic.

1) Review your personal situation. Get prepared.

2) Ask work what their plan is.

3) Get a "Flu" Buddy and/or a small group together for support.

4) There will be disruptions to your life.

5) Plan strategies for extended period.

#coronavirus
 
Back to S and L type variants, I've wondered if it would be a *good* thing to get exposed in this spring round. It seems like the virulent strain often wins out, so building even modest immunity may help when the second wave rolls in.

I wish there was more data on whether infection confers any protection.
 
A significant mutation could occur at any stage but it could just as easily reduce virulence but increase the rate of spread. I certainly would not want to catch it now before any of the clinical trials or serological data is available. Something may turn out to be effective and if other countries manage their containment as well as China, Singapore or Korea it may be killed off anyway. The absolute worst case scenario is to get infected in the middle of wave in your area as you are unlikely to get the level of care you would at any other time. I would stick with trying not to get infected in the first place.
 
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To be clear, I was just mulling... Not proposing a pox party.

I do not want to be competing for a bed and ventilator if I can help it. Netflix and chill sounds good for a month or two.
 
I'm with JJackson on this one, we all want to see better proactive control measures against this virus so we can burn it out and remove it from human society, if we can. An interesting read from the research section, shows that we are able to increase the SI (serial interval) from 3.5d right up to 7d, which breaks the chains of serial infection ... and it will die out. But the measures need to be strong, like Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea.
 
Oh, definitely true. I should have been more specific. Thanks for bringing that up. I think I tend to avoid zinc supplements for lack of convincing data to outweigh potential harm.
 
This is a good sign in that it supports a hypothesis of a higher number of less severe cases (assuming the ILI is related to COVID19). If hospitalizations and P&I deaths also increased simultaneously - would be cause for even more concern.
 
sharon sanders said:
A Must Watch: [h=1]Coronavirus ‘worse than a bomb’ on Italy, says doctor coordinating response[/h]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mrPHO-nkVE
Click to expand...

Agree with recommendation to watch. Amazing that the ICU capacity could expand so rapidly. It shows how we can adapt better than we can imagine. Also good to know that the vulnerable older patients are still receiving the same consideration for care that they always have.
 
On the recent study posted this morning about aerosol spread and length of live virus on surfaces....is there a common definition on “aerosol”? I recall some debate during SARS about droplet size and aerosol. This is an issue as Osterholm in his recent radio-show video seams to be talking about spread in the general air stream, not just via coughed droplets.

Sorry for the lack of links - iPad.

J.
 
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