COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[cleavers]

Are these figures incorrect then?

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

The number hasn't changed since the end of May, make of that what you want.

 

[BlueAnorak]

People always talk about new, more contagious or deadly strains but it almost universally turns out to not be true. They said it about everywhere that had a bad outbreak, but in the end...they just had bad outbreaks. Over the 4500 pages of this pretty much everywhere from Italy to Madrid to the USA were supposed to have super-deadly strains but after a few weeks it just turned out to be insignificant variations.

Viruses evolve to become less deadly over time because keeping your host alive has an evolutionary advantage.

In general what you say is true but...
RNA viruses like flu and SARS-CoV-2 mutate very quickly. Most of the time, there is very little change but every so often there is a step change that can be very dangerous.
Any change that allows the virus to jump across species, or more quickly infect an individual or change the infection profile is a step change. Most of the time these step-change mutarions are less deadly but there is a chance that the mutation can be devastating.
The Autumn 1918 flu pandemic is one such. The Spring 1918 virus was a bad flu but it mutated and the resultant virus was deadly.

 

[Gabriel]

Basically you can get asymptomatic transmission (or very very mild symptom transmission) for months before someone catches it who is vulnerable. It's why the virus is so incideous.

So countries can declare themselves virus free and yet still be harbouring asymptomatic cases that could later pass that on to the vulnerable? I’ve been watching Iceland’s figures with fascination. Nothing at all for days and then a new case pops up. How many ‘months’ or is that incalculable? Presumably that means the virus will just lie in wait until the autumn turns and more people are vulnerable.

 

[BlueAnorak]

The number hasn't changed since the end of May, make of that what you want.

For example, there were 6 deaths in Catalonia yesterday, but non in Spain...
https://www.catalannews.com/society...n-catalonia-daily-figures-explained-in-graphs

 

[BlueAnorak]

So countries can declare themselves virus free and yet still be harbouring asymptomatic cases that could later pass that on to the vulnerable? I’ve been watching Iceland’s figures with fascination. Nothing at all for days and then a new case pops up. How many ‘months’ or is that incalculable? Presumably that means the virus will just lie in wait until the autumn turns and more people are vulnerable.

Basically - yes. That's what the viroligists are worried about anyway.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

The 'new' strain which we hopefully have at the moment could explain why in Nov/Dec/Jan people who maintain they had it then perhaps had the mild one?

 

[twosips]

This potentially huge and positive news. Not a cure, but it should cut deaths notably. Great news.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281

 

[kaz7]

Haha I know, the idea of the mask is it doesn't slip down and you don't touch it, otherwise your bloody hands are contaminated.
My nursy wife cringes when she sees this happening.

This has been my argument all along,if you are not used to wearing a mask then all you do is fiddle with it and take it on and off,you touch your face a load more times than you would normally do,then there is the behavioural aspect,as you can see in the news the crowds trying to get into shops in a scrum because there are sales on,masks fallen down,they are a false sense of security so social distancing goes straight out of the window

 

[kaz7]

Assuming these recent crowd scenes (demos, raves & shoppers etc) will result in new cases of infection, how long does it take to become evident?

in real terms it takes three weeks on average to die from it so about then,the testing is not and miss to rely on really

 

[kaz7]

We'll know by the end of the weekend

Too soon