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Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread



Horton's halftime iceberg

Blooming Marvellous
Jan 9, 2005
16,491
Brighton










Kalimantan Gull

Well-known member
Aug 13, 2003
13,598
Central Borneo / the Lizard
........Like a lot of these pathogens it mutated to far less deadly strain as the virus wants to stay alive itself. .........

ahem, point of order, viruses not considered to be living by most scientists ....

the gene can of course mutate - but it is far more likely to mutate at this stage to be more contagious, rather than to be less deadly. Its not killing people very quickly, so there isn't much selection pressure to be more benign. The selection pressure is mainly on its ability to spread from person to person, and to stay viable outside the human host.
 






Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
53,637
Goldstone
Connor Bamford Virologists at Queens College Belfast. States that it may be lower due to us not knowing how many people have had it, recovered so not reported it.
That may have been his opinion over a month ago, but this is what he said yesterday:
"The world looks to be teetering on the edge of a coronavirus (or severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2/SARS-CoV-2) pandemic that will be extremely hard for the world to contain."

"There remains no vaccine nor specific antiviral drugs against the coronavirus that emerged in humans from animals at the very end of 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Since early December, nearly 80,000 cases have been confirmed globally (most of which are in China) leading to nearly 3,000 deaths as the virus has spread to nearly 30 countries across the world."

3,000 out of 80,000 is not 1%. As you say, some may have had it and not reported it, but also there will be those who contracted it, but have not yet survived it, and others who have died from it never made it to hospital or got diagnosed.

I'm not sure how anyone could confidently state that the mortality rate is 1%.
 


Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
53,637
Goldstone
Spanish flu infected over 500 million people once it started in France and that was a quarter of the worlds population. That developed in French 1st world world trenches that were shared with pigs and chickens. It spread through terrible hygiene practices. Like a lot of these pathogens it mutated to far less deadly strain as the virus wants to stay alive itself.
Just a small pedantic point - the virus doesn't want to stay alive. Viruses don't want for anything. They live, they spread, mutate, and die. It's simply that when the some of the virus mutates to something less deadly, it survives and spreads more.
 




Soylent Blue

Banned
Mar 13, 2019
195
and it doesn't seem to be spreading there.... a few cases of transmission, but if it was like Korea or Italy it would likely be over a 1,000 now considering how long the first cases were there.

Thailand and Vietnam were the first countries outside China to report cases, and nothing since.....

There are lots of reasons for varying outcomes. Singapore is a very socially autocratic country, on the outbreak they went overkill on tracking people down "checking friends of friends of friends". Thailand has had reasonable success as most of its cases are Chinese as there are a lot of Chinese in Thailand.

Iran worries me a lot as its main Religious hub was infected and that could spread all over the place by pilgrims. Africa has over a million Chinese but only 6 labs for testing for the Virus on the whole continent. Also the Syria conflict has left disjointed people in many refugee camps. This could or probably will be a disaster for them
 


Swansman

Pro-peace
May 13, 2019
22,320
Sweden
Its very difficult to know if China (who ddint help my conspirational mind by putting that lab on 666 Gaoxin Road) are trustworthy either. Nobody trust anything they say normally, I'm not sure why you would now. I could easily see them downplay the number of infected or dead, they must be desperate to get export, tourism, production etc going.
 








Triggaaar

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2005
53,637
Goldstone








portlock seagull

Well-known member
Jul 28, 2003
17,962
Is it a pandemic yet? WHO doesn’t seem to think so. In other words, take a leaf out your ancestors book I.e. keep calm and carry on. You can drive yourself crazy with unnecessary fear otherwise.
 










knocky1

Well-known member
Jan 20, 2010
13,124
What? That sounds extremely weird.. you got any source for this?

Apparently their spokesman said:

Got a feeling inside (Can't explain)
It's a certain kind (Can't explain)
I feel hot and cold (Can't explain)
Yeah, down in my soul, yeah (Can't explain)
 


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