81–90 of 105 posts
This isn't peer-reviewed. Maybe I have bad information, but cold plus high humidity caused it to persist on fomites longer (9+ days). Wouldn't heat plus low humidity be better than heat plus high humidity? What is/are the breakdown mechanism(s)?
(By essentially washing down the vapor and additionally making people exhale less water. At least that's the theory behind it.)
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SARS hasn't been seen in 15 years. Exactly whom did you expect would spend the time and money to develop a vaccine for it?
Maybe we should develop responses to pathogens that have the ability to wipe humanity off the galaxy. Given how close SARS and SARS-CoV-2 is, maybe the SARS vaccine could be applied to the current case.
Not a bad idea, but isn't that a near-infinite set?
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The paper describes how virologists in Wuhan engineered a "SARS-like" virus -- previously limited only to bats -- specifically to make it infective in humans via the ACE2 receptor. That's the same receptor used by the SARS-CoV-2 bug we're fighting now. Note that the paper was submitted 12 years ago. They've had a lot of time to work out the kinks, if they were so inclined. EDIT: I want to repeat what I've said in oth…
Why on earth would they do this? What sort of application does this have or serve? If it's a bioweapon, why was it published? Is there any concrete genetic or documented evidence to show COVID-19 is engineered? This is a big claim and has severe ramifications for China, if true.
> "The evidence we have is that the mutations [in the virus] are completely consistent with natural evolution".[19] Bedford further explained, "The most likely scenario, based on genetic analysis, was that the virus was transmitted by a bat to another mammal between 20–70 years ago. This intermediary animal—not yet identified—passed it on to its first human host in the city of Wuhan in late November or early December 2019" [1]
"20-70 years ago"! [2] Also important: "was transmitted by a bat to another mammal". That could imply it wasn't from bat soup or bats directly.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_the_...
Here's a likely related paper from 2007: https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899 In this study, a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-based pseudovirus system was employed to address these issues. Our results indicated that the SL-CoV S protein is unable to use ACE2 proteins of different species for cell entry and that SARS-CoV S protein also failed to bind the ACE2 molecule of the horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus pearsonii.…
[1] http://english.whiov.cas.cn/ne/201903/t20190308_206697.html
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Can someone with a better understanding of molecular biology and virology explain what this means? I don't want to jump to conclusions.
The paper describes how virologists in Wuhan engineered a "SARS-like" virus -- previously limited only to bats -- specifically to make it infective in humans via the ACE2 receptor. That's the same receptor used by the SARS-CoV-2 bug we're fighting now. Note that the paper was submitted 12 years ago. They've had a lot of time to work out the kinks, if they were so inclined. EDIT: I want to repeat what I've said in oth…
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Yes, that's how one studies these things. The models we have in simulation are far too crude, so scientists are forced to make the real versions. I have a friend who does this with tuberculosis to study how it develops resistance to drugs. Part of it was trying to enhance or block certain genetic pathways, and yes, sometimes it results in tuberculosis strains with much higher adaptivity than normal. This is how we le…
Hey man, no argument from me; I appreciate the need to study deadly diseases in the flesh. I just wonder if they could maybe locate their biosafety-level-4 lab somewhere other than in a metropolis of eleven million people. You know, just in case. For what it's worth, one of the names on that paper is Shi Zhengli, one of the lab’s top researchers who is now defending the lab to the media: [Shi Zhengli] said on her soc…
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Yes, but the average temperature in vast majority of the areas is higher than the avg temperature of say Europe. When we say Africa is warmer, it is a simplification simply by the virtue that its centroid closer to equator than Europe. Thus, we can say that it's warmer. Side note: don't use rhetorical questions to respond to someone. It's demeaning. Rephrase "Why? Africa is a huge continent with all kinds of weather.…
It's not demeaning, it actually adds color to the answer and makes it more engaging. I don't know what's up with HN's fetishizing of impassionate, humorless and snarkless style. Not everything has to be written like the IEE 754 specification.
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Yes, but the average temperature in vast majority of the areas is higher than the avg temperature of say Europe. When we say Africa is warmer, it is a simplification simply by the virtue that its centroid closer to equator than Europe. Thus, we can say that it's warmer. Side note: don't use rhetorical questions to respond to someone. It's demeaning. Rephrase "Why? Africa is a huge continent with all kinds of weather.…
It's not demeaning, it actually adds color to the answer and makes it more engaging. I don't know what's up with HN's fetishizing of impassionate, humorless and snarkless style. Not everything has to be written like the IEE 754 specification.
But not by enough. This epidemic has a growth rate (R) of at least 2. The article claims "One degree Celsius increase in temperature and one percent increase in relative humidity lower R by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively." The March to July difference for New York City is only 19C. San Francisco, 9C. For both cities, humidity is relatively uniform year round. Even assuming this result is meaningful, it still leaves…
The ME in MERS stands for Middle East, since outbreaks of it are always from camels. Such places are some of the hottest on the planet. MERS is another form of coronavirus. It is foolhardy to think spring and summer weather will save us.