Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[solarz]

It's about the availability of hosts to infect, not geographic spread to nearest population. All you done is shift the ceiling of how many target at-risk population you can infect from the tribal level to the world-wide level, but the natural selection pressure does not disappear because there is still a finite number of hosts to infect, whether at tribal or world-wide level. Therefore evolution still occur.




As sinophilia pointed out.... I never said lethal strains cannot happen. Mutations are random, so anything can happen, include more lethal variants. It's whether natural selective pressures annihilate maladaptive mutations or encourages it to flourish into a dominant strain. Hence the "tendency" or common average for it be more contagious and less lethal based on historical analysis of most viruses.



Evolution and natural selection still occurs because all you have done is shifted the limited available hosts to infect at the country or regional level (finite population: 300 Million) to another ecosystem with a limited available host to infect (world-wide finite population: 7.9 billion). It's not about geographical distance to nearest population, it's about the total available hosts (e.g. at-risk population) which is finite and limited on this earth, so evolution will still occur because these people will either gain immunity (natural or vaccine), or die off, thereby reducing the at-risk population.

Sure, so now that you've shifted the limited available hosts to the entire human population on Earth. The only way the pathogen is going to evolve into a less virulent strain is when all the virulent strains die out with their hosts. How much of the population will be culled this way? 10%? 20%? 50%? 90%? Nobody knows.

That's why all this talk of covid evolving to be less lethal is just wishful thinking. There is no data to support this view.

 

[solarz]

Unless it can travel on SpaceX rockets to reach new alien populations, the virus will eventually exhaust the world-wide human population, which is a finite and limited number of hosts to infect. All you have done is shifted the finite availability of hosts from the tribal/regional level to the world-wide level, but there is still finite number of hosts at the world-wide population to exhaust, so Evolution will still occur.

Sounds to me you're saying in order for covid to evolve to be less lethal, a large chunk of the global population will need to die first.

Yeah, I think I'll go with China's approach for now.

 

[Phead128]

Think of it this way: "Fire consumes oxygen just like virus consumes human."

If you light a candle in an enclosed jar, the jar will eventually lose all oxygen, and the candle will extinguish.

If you light a candle in an enclosed house, the home will eventually lose all oxygen, and the candle will extinguish. Expanding the enclosed spaced only increases oxygen supply, but oxygen supply is not unlimited or infinite in the enclosed space (or the world).

There is a finite oxygen supply in the ecosystem (even in the entire Earth, there is limited Oxygen supply, just like there is limited Human supply for virus to infect)

So no, Evolution and Natural selection can still occur even air travel expands the pool of at-risk population, because there is finite human population to infect. That's how the Bubonic Plague evolved to be less virulent and less lethal, because it exhausted the entire world population.

 

[solarz]

Think of it this way: "Fire consumes oxygen just like virus consumes human."

If you light a candle in an enclosed jar, the jar will eventually lose all oxygen, and the candle will extinguish.

If you light a candle in an enclosed house, the home will eventually lose all oxygen, and the candle will extinguish. Expanding the enclosed spaced only increases oxygen supply, but oxygen supply is not unlimited or infinite in the enclosed space (or the world).

There is a finite oxygen supply in the ecosystem (even in the entire Earth, there is limited Oxygen supply, just like there is limited Human supply for virus to infect)

So no, Evolution and Natural selection can still occur even air travel expands the pool of at-risk population, because there is finite human population to infect. That's how the Bubonic Plague evolved to be less virulent and less lethal, because it exhausted the entire world population.

That's not really the point.

The point is, if you're living in that jar, are you going to wait until the fire consumes all the oxygen and extinguish itself, by which time you're going to be dead, or are you going to put out that fire while it's still small?

 

[HybridHypothesis]

The lockdown shills are sane right now because the measures still work. But if all their scaremongering about future lethal AND contagious variants are true, then what happens when a variant too strong to be contained emerges?

Will they slaughter every animal and destroy the supply chains just to contain the virus when the rest of the world has already moved on?

In the West, the lockdown advocates after being discredited can only double down on failed policies that erode the very basis of their country. What will be done in the rest of the world, I wonder?

 

[HybridHypothesis]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1426195311039496194

So much scaremongering over how these mass gatherings were going to cause an apocalypse... yet that did not happen.

Really makes you think.

 

[Tam]

Your own example of Bubonic Plague proves this wrong..... because Bubonic Plague never "died out with it's last victim", in fact, there is Fleas and Rats (animal reservoir) that keep the Plague alive for centuries until now, and Bubonic Plague also evolved to be less virulent and lethal. Even today, Bubonic Plague kills 650 people every year..... We don't care anymore because we have modern medicine that can reduce the death rate from 90% down to 10%. (Sound Familiar??)

The Bubonic Plague evolved to be less virulent because it exhausted it's world-wide human population (finite population), which explains why so few people die from bubonic plague in modern day.

What happened with Bubonic Plague will happen to COVID.... once the virus evolves less virulence and lethal, the death rate is significantly reduced due to modern medicine and vaccines, and overall death rate is low enough, we will just forget about it, even if it continues to exist and kill 650 people every year.

Nope. The Bubonic plaque ended with the invention of Quarantines. The word Quarantine originated from the Italian word --- remember Italy was so stricken with the plague --- Quaranta or 40 days. The Venetians ordered a 40 day quarantine or Quaranta on all incoming ships.

The Bubonic Plague did not become less lethal. In fact, any occurence of it is an immediate report to the CDC and the WHO.

We controlled the Bubonic Plague not just with the invention of quarantine but also with hygiene and pest in particular rat eradication.

Smallpox didn't become less lethal, neither did Diphtheria, Malaria and Dengue.

Delta variant is actually slightly more deadly than the "wild" form, so there is no trajectory to prove that it is becoming less lethal.

 

[Tam]

Think of it this way: "Fire consumes oxygen just like virus consumes human."

If you light a candle in an enclosed jar, the jar will eventually lose all oxygen, and the candle will extinguish.

If you light a candle in an enclosed house, the home will eventually lose all oxygen, and the candle will extinguish. Expanding the enclosed spaced only increases oxygen supply, but oxygen supply is not unlimited or infinite in the enclosed space (or the world).

There is a finite oxygen supply in the ecosystem (even in the entire Earth, there is limited Oxygen supply, just like there is limited Human supply for virus to infect)

So no, Evolution and Natural selection can still occur even air travel expands the pool of at-risk population, because there is finite human population to infect. That's how the Bubonic Plague evolved to be less virulent and less lethal, because it exhausted the entire world population.

The "evolved into less lethal" is but a theory. There has been repeated outbreaks of the Plague including the Islamic world, China and India as late as the 19th Century where it still killed tens of millions. Humans also did in fact, evolve to become partially resistant to it, particularly in Europe.

So the natural course would be to overcome that resistance, and to overcome antibiotics. That's why scientists still caution the next plague will be from a superbug.

Your analogy is flawed. If the oxygen is consumed, we will evolve not to consume oxygen but something else.

If the humans are dead, we transfer to the animals instead.

The recurrence of H1N1 also proves once again that virulity can resurge after a period of dormancy.

It doesn't matter if the host is dead eventually if the host had a longer asymptomatic period where he/she can infect others allowing it to spread before the host expires. It doesn't matter if the host lives or dies as long as the virus gets its chance to infect others before the host expires.

This is why the virus is becoming increasingly asymptomatic, and is now infecting children which were once more resistant to the wild variant.

 

[siegecrossbow]

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Latest from NHC:
99 new confirmed cases, 52 of them imported, 47 domestic (Jiangxu 26 (Nanjing 1, Yangzhou 25), Henan 14, Hubei 4, Hunan 2, Yunnan 1)
34 new asymptomatic carriers, 29 imported, 5 domestic (Hubei 3, Hunan 2).
33 asymptomatic carriers converted to new cases (20 imported, 13 domestic)
Yangzhou is well down from peak now

CCP survives by the grace of Comrade Chang!

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Looks like delta variant will be under control pretty soon. Comrade Chang has spoken.

 

[Bellum_Romanum]

I wasn't interested, but now I am, thanks for sharing.

Anti-imperialistic American movie. I enjoyed the movie immensely.