COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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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?
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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.
 
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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),
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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?
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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.
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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.
 
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