When will the coronavirus be over?

FranticFrummie

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 9:50 am

amother [ Powderblue ] wrote:

From what I’ve read it could be it attacks Asians worse due to their genetic makeup. That may be why the virus is so much worse in China.
(Asians (and Africans) have larger number of ACE2-expressing cells in the lung. )

Wow, that is fascinating! Maybe the universal flu cure will come from gene therapy, and not from a vaccine. HIV is still devastating Africa, and it originated there. So many flu strains seem to be coming from China, but not from Japan or Korea, so something must be going on there.

Population density and zoonotic mutations of viruses play a big part, but it doesn't explain things fully. Otherwise we'd be seeing more outbreaks in places like India, where many areas don't have proper plumbing or other health services.

If I had better grades in school and could have afforded higher education, I would have gone into medical research and microbiology. Now I have to settle with being an observer. Israel is one of the top researchers into virology and gene therapy. I wonder if BDS will boycott medical advances? Wink

amother

Tan

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 10:56 am

nchr wrote:

This is partly because currently, in many parts of China, only more severe cases are receiving treatment and being recognized and the mild cases are at home in quarantine. More severe cases are more likely to result in death. Even then, that is a lower death rate than SARS and MERS, Spanish Flu, etc. Also, when they retest after the quarantine is over, the numbers will likely decrease, based upon what we are seeing outside of China, but we'll need to wait and see.

Most of the mild cases are not even being reported. China is only telling us about the extreme cases to scare the world into creating a vaccine/treatment.

FranticFrummie

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 11:47 am

amother [ Tan ] wrote:

Most of the mild cases are not even being reported. China is only telling us about the extreme cases to scare the world into creating a vaccine/treatment.

Conspiracy theory alert!

G-d forbid we should come up with a prevention or treatment that saves thousands of lives. Darn you Big Pharma! How dare you not want people to die!

Rolling Eyes

nchr

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 3:14 pm

amother [ Blonde ] wrote:

sad to say banana etky FF and others make excellent points
theres still much unknown
seems to spread quickly and that raises the death toll by definition of numbers
seems to spread while a person is asymptomatic I.e. before showing any symptoms
now theres info that 14 day quarantine is not long enough and that symptoms can appear up to 24 days
and how was it spread so easily on that quarantined Princess Cruises ship so much so that the numbers rose and countries decided to break it and fly their citizens on chartered flights back to their home countries to restart quarantine
and they say it can be spread through fecal matter and through some plumbing
Hashem Yishmor.

How fast something spreads is not indicative of its mortality rate, rather how "hot" the virus is. In this case, it is about as contagious as the common cold or flu, yet no one has immunity which means anyone exposed to enough virus will get it.

amother

Lilac

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 5:43 pm

DrMom wrote:

I assume this is something that escaped from the biological warfare lab which was close to the market where the outbreak supposedly occurred.

Based on its genome, which Caltech has already made a vaccine for, it was not engineered in a lab.

nchr

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 5:55 pm

ectomorph wrote:

Actually, based on its genome, it was.

No. Where did you hear that? It is actually scientifically the opposite because it had 1,000s of mutations across its genome, which is not something another would do with an engineered virus for several reasons...

Laiya

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 9:47 pm

nchr wrote:

We can't assume the mortality rate as reported by China is accurate. If someone had symptoms of the virus but did not take the actual test confirming the virus' presence, and then dies, China will not report it as a death caused by the virus.

Also, the virus is generally fatal in people with pre-existing conditions. In those cases, China will attribute the death to the pre-existing condition and not to the virus.

So it's likely that the actual mortality rate is far higher.

nchr

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 9:53 pm

DrMom wrote:

Source?

The source of the rumor was senator Tom Cotton. US and UK health officials have come out and stated that the virus's genome contains too many mutations to have come from a lab. It is also a terrible bioweapon, which was confirmed by a few MIT scientists and by the statistics alone.

ETA - obviously there is always a chance it could be, but we will never know. It just doesn't really fit the criteria you'd expect for an engineered virus.

Last edited by nchr on Tue, Feb 18 2020, 10:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

nchr

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 9:57 pm

Laiya wrote:

You can look at how the virus is behaving outside of China as well. Obviously has has significantly more cases but other cases can give you a look into its behaviors. This virus is more lethal than the flu, but much less lethal than SARS or MERS etc. A WHO scientist has also come out and stated generally expect the mortality rate to decrease once we have identified more of the less severe cases since generally more severe cases are reported. However, just look outside of China if you want more reliable data, albeit from a smaller sample size. I'm not saying this virus is a joke or nothing, but it's greatest impacts are to the healthcare system and economy, as DrMom pointed out.

Laiya

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 10:13 pm

nchr wrote:

A much smaller sample size--only 5 deaths globally, outside of China. Lots of unknowns.

We also don't know what's going on in N. Korea since they have not officially admitted to any deaths, but there is suspicion they may be undergoing a crisis.

nchr

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 10:23 pm

Laiya wrote:

N. Korea is an issue in an of itself because its citizens are extremely malnourished and their public health system is extremely poor. They would need extreme amounts of aid to contain and or treat a virus.

Other viruses, like SARS, which spread globally, had a small sample size but similar mortality rate inside and outside China. I think it is really easy to blow things out of proportion, but it is pretty clear covid19 is not a SARS or a MERS, but is problematic because of how easily it is spread. The issue here really is how contagious it is because China has approximately 1.5 billion citizens - all of whom have no immunity to the virus - China needs to take drastic measures because a health system cannot handle that amount of cases. Even if only 1% are fatal that could mean 15 million chinese lives which is unprecedented...

Laiya

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 10:29 pm

The problem is that China is taking drastic measures, but these measures are inhumane.

And yes, North Korea is worse but certainly, the Chinese health system, available medical treatment there, quick spread, etc. are contributing factors to the mortality rate--whatever that rate actually is.

aliavi

Tue, Feb 18 2020, 10:31 pm

nchr wrote:

Problematic because of how easily it spreads and the extended incubation period.

amother

Aqua

Wed, Feb 19 2020, 1:51 am

Laiya wrote:

It's so mean but I can't help thinking this may inadvertently solve China's population crisis.

DrMom

Wed, Feb 19 2020, 2:00 am

nchr wrote:

In N. Korea, I assume the govt would just kill any infected persons.