COVID-19 — Coronavirus

Status
Not open for further replies.
Chippy_boy said:
What I cannot get my head around is that the common cold is a coronavirus and yet after donkeys years of research into the common cold, we never managed to come up with a vaccine. And yet in a matter of months, with COVID-19, we have a vaccine.

Now there could be various reasons for this. Perhaps with a cold, we just didn't try very hard because it doesn't kill people. But in a way, that seems unlikely to me when you consider the misery colds cause, to billions of people every year. Another possibility is that it's really, really difficult to come up with an effective vaccine for coronaviruses. I believe the reason you can catch a cold every year - having already had one - is because the virus is constantly mutating. Maybe this is why its so difficult to come up with an effective vaccine? Just as it's impossible for the human body to naturally develop resistance to the common cold, maybe it's also impossible to cause the body to develop immunity by vaccinating, because the virus is always mutating to something which is not protected by the vaccine.

It seems extremely possible to me that this could be the situation we find ourselves in with COVID-19. What if the vaccines don't work on the new virus? What if people who have had COVID already, are not immune to the new variant? These are worrying concerns. It could well be the case that we are never going to get rid of this thing and our only approach is to accept that we have to live with it, and the best we can do is to try to find treatments which stop people from dying when they eventually catch it, as perhaps we all will?
Click to expand...
The classification of Coronavirus in the world of viruses is like the Monotreme, Marsupial and Placental sub-class under the class Mammal. With the RNA class of virus equating to Mammal. A huge number of subclass genus and species underneath. A lion and a Wilderbeast both fall under the Placental mamal sub-class but both are totally different in behaviour.
 
Last edited:
somapop said:
Can’t speak for everyone obviously but I’m hugely grateful of your input on these threads mate.
Wonderful having someone knowledgeable in the field calmly detailing (and often reassuring) the processes that surround virology/epidemiology.
I decided early on in this to follow the scientists in these fields rather than slanted opinion pieces.
In saying that, it’s caused huge waves of emotions in people so some level of empathy has to be engaged. Another polarisation of the nation in some regards (fuelled by ‘perhaps not entity honest news’ spread by the ‘information super highway’.

Cheers mate & have a fine Xmas (if possible),
Click to expand...

I second this. Same goes for Marvin, Cityfan, 03 March 2020 and a few others who are clearly knowledgeable on this stuff. Your input is invaluable to a complete idiot on the subject such as myself. In the same way as HP kindly takes her time to post statistics every day, it's much appreciated.
 
ell said:
Stupid question time so apologies in advance.

Grant Schapps saying we carry out more Genome testing than any other country (45% of the worlds genome testing) so thats why we found the mutant strain first.

If that's the case how did they find it in Brazil 8 months ago?
Click to expand...

how did they find what in Brazil 8 months ago?

there are loads of countries doing lots of genome analysis on the virus to detect mutations there are websites dedicated to it from all over the globe so Id suggest Grant Schapps is talking bollocks.

auspice

nextstrain.org nextstrain.org
 
somapop said:
Can’t speak for everyone obviously but I’m hugely grateful of your input on these threads mate.
Wonderful having someone knowledgeable in the field calmly detailing (and often reassuring) the processes that surround virology/epidemiology.
I decided early on in this to follow the scientists in these fields rather than slanted opinion pieces.
In saying that, it’s caused huge waves of emotions in people so some level of empathy has to be engaged. Another polarisation of the nation in some regards (fuelled by ‘perhaps not entity honest news’ spread by the ‘information super highway’.

Cheers mate & have a fine Xmas (if possible),
Click to expand...

I second this. Same goes for Marvin, grunge, Cityfan, 03 March 2020 and a few others who are clearly knowledgeable on this stuff. Your input is invaluable to a complete idiot on the subject such as myself. In the same way as HP kindly takes her time to post statistics every day, it's much appreciated.
 
True_Blue69 said:
67k without any kind of vaccine or known treatment. Wonder what flu would be without a vaccine, probably very similar numbers I'd imagine if not higher.
Click to expand...
Flu would virtually wipe out the human race if our immune system had never seen anything similar before. But we have and have taken the hit in previous generations.
Covid is pretty tame considering that - with only it's asymptomatic nature for 1/3 of the people catching it being really bad news.. Yes its killing people but the point I'm trying to make is it could be a lot lot worse. Imagine Ebola if 1/3 of people who got it didn't become ill.2/3 of the worlds population would now be dead.
 
grunge said:
how did they find what in Brazil 8 months ago?

there are loads of countries doing lots of genome analysis on the virus to detect mutations there are websites dedicated to it from all over the globe so Id suggest Grant Schapps is talking bollocks.

auspice

nextstrain.org nextstrain.org
Click to expand...
Thanks for this link, really interesting!
 
ayrshire_blue said:
I second this. Same goes for Marvin, grunge, Cityfan, 03 March 2020 and a few others who are clearly knowledgeable on this stuff. Your input is invaluable to a complete idiot on the subject such as myself. In the same way as HP kindly takes her time to post statistics every day, it's much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the include. but I openly admit a lot of my knowledge comes 2nd hand from the likes of Dr Campbell and then doing my own digging around for info on papers and datasources etc since this kicked off.

I just hope i've not lead people astray in anything.
 
Scotland data:

O deaths - but Sunday data so not unusual.

BUT 1504 cases. Most in quite a while. At 6.0% positive.

Yet again a lab issue at LIghthouse suspected - as in the one that led to many cases in Wales vanishing. Being investigated but nobody sure yet.

The total mess our testing system has been for 9 months now is a national scandal that really needs getting a grip. These things are happening way too often at critical times.

Patients in hospital up again by 17 to 1078

And ventilators up again by 1 to 59.

Numbers now starting to go in the wrong direction here too sadly.
 
Nicola Sturgeon adds that after weeks of things being under control cases are starting to show signs of rising even without the lab issue and the R number - which has been below 1 for some time - she now believe is about 1.

Scotland DOES have a few cases of the new strain and the actions are aimed at stopping it from spreading.

The strain is so infective it is believed to add 0.4 to the R number on its own,
 
The travel ban in and out of Scotland to the rest of the UK will NOT be relaxed even on Christmas day and will stay for the foreseeable future.

From Boxing Day all mainland Scotland will be in Level 4 lockdown.

Schools will be on line learning only to at least 18 January and that will be reviewed so could be extended.
 
grunge said:
how did they find what in Brazil 8 months ago?

there are loads of countries doing lots of genome analysis on the virus to detect mutations there are websites dedicated to it from all over the globe so Id suggest Grant Schapps is talking bollocks.

auspice

nextstrain.org nextstrain.org
Click to expand...
Samples are being taken all over the world but places like big pharma and university labs are doing the genetic sequencing. Once a strain is detected that is replicating fast in the overall virus population, then places like Porton Down and the top Big Pharma labs examine the strain in detail.
We have at least 8 places in the UK asside from Porton Down where advanced virus genetics can be analysed - Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, London STM, Liverpool STM, Manchester, Glasgow CVR and the Perbright Institute. There are probably others.
Porton Down can and does do this on an industrial scale though.
 
I don't know if this is the exact same test being rolled out to schools in January, or used in Liverpool, but this evaluation in university students of lateral flow fast tests makes them appear not merely useless, but positively dangerous.





You'd expect university testing to be much more reliable than school testing if anything, I think.

There's been quite a lot of scepticism from the scientific community of the value of this sort of testing, and I think this shows why.
 
BlueAnorak said:
Yes its killing people but the point I'm trying to make is it could be a lot lot worse. Imagine Ebola if 1/3 of people who got it didn't become ill.2/3 of the worlds population would now be dead.
Click to expand...
Quite difficult for that to happen though because dead people tend not to spread the virus much. That is why this virus is the worst we have seen in 100 years. It combines a high fatality rate with a high R rate. People can by asymptomatic and spread it freely before they themselves become ill, or not.

The fact is we have had Ebola outbreaks and none of them have killed anything like the numbers of people that COVID has. Ebola might be more deadly, but it's clearly less dangerous.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
I don't know if this is the exact same test being rolled out to schools in January, or used in Liverpool, but this evaluation in university students of lateral flow fast tests makes them appear not merely useless, but positively dangerous.





You'd expect university testing to be much more reliable than school testing if anything, I think.

There's been quite a lot of scepticism from the scientific community of the value of this sort of testing, and I think this shows why.
Click to expand...


In theory, if there are this many false positives, doesn't this drastically raise the CFR? Or am I (hopefully) looking in entirely the wrong direction.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
I don't know if this is the exact same test being rolled out to schools in January, or used in Liverpool, but this evaluation in university students of lateral flow fast tests makes them appear not merely useless, but positively dangerous.





You'd expect university testing to be much more reliable than school testing if anything, I think.

There's been quite a lot of scepticism from the scientific community of the value of this sort of testing, and I think this shows why.
Click to expand...

Once vaccines are being rolled out doesn't mass testing become something of a waste of resources even if it was more accurate?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top