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A (possible) solution to Covid-19

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Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#181

Post by danieltillett »

ForHackernews wrote: post #155
danieltillett wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I want to do. I want to collaborate with those in the position to go looking for one of these attenuated viruses.

This seems like a pretty good idea (good enough that certainly there must already be people working on it) so it seems like if you could find and contact them, maybe you could contribute to their efforts? It just seems more practical than hail-mary posting on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22810639

Well I hope other are working on it, but I haven’t found much evidence of this so far. HN has a pretty diverse audience including a lot of scientists like me.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#182

Post by jimktrains2 »

foobarbecue wrote: post #147
yoz-y wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or until something like 95% of population has been infected and we know for sure that those who already had the disease can not spread it anymore.

Has this ever happened in humans? I haven't been able to find an example.

Isn't this why there is a 1918-related flu outbreak every generation and why bubonic plauge used to recurved every generation because there aren't immune?

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#183

Post by nabla9 »

danieltillett wrote: post #170
nabla9 wrote: post #166

There are several pre-clinical studies with live attenuated viral vectors and replicating viral vectors going on against SARS-CoV-2. https://www.who.int/blueprint/priority-diseases/key-action/l... Developing attenuated-virus vaccines is by screening serially propagated SARS-CoV-2 for reduced pathogenity has also been suggested already. 1. The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia calls for viral vaccines https://www.natur…

This is not a proposal for a live attenuated vaccine. These numbers on the death rate are not mine, but what has been reported in the scientific literature. Probably the best numbers come from South Korea where they have done a pretty good job of tracking down everyone infected. There the fatality rate is around 1.8%. Even if the true death rate is 0.6% that still means the deaths of nearly 50 million people worldwid…

Even the sources you cite give case fatality rate not infection fatality rate. You are confusing the two.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#184

Post by danieltillett »

baybal2 wrote: post #162
danieltillett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a virologist - well I have published many papers in this area. I have a PhD in molecular microbiology and have been a tenured professor (I now work in the biotech sector). This is not intended to be a scientific paper, but a layman’s summary of the idea so non-technical people can understand the idea. It is not risky to go looking for a naturally attenuated virus. This is the first step that needs to happen.

Wouldn't an attenuated strain vaccine still require years of paperwork and clinical trials too?

Yes. This is why I am suggesting an alternative. It is all in the blog post.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#185

Post by tzs »

yoz-y wrote: post #131
foobarbecue wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herd immunity doesn't happen until you have a vaccine.

Or until something like 95% of population has been infected and we know for sure that those who already had the disease can not spread it anymore.

What about people born after that point? As immune people die over time from other causes, and as people are born without immunity, the percent of the population with immunity from having had it falls.

Non-vaccine acquired herd immunity is temporary.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#186

Post by ajnin »

The idea of voluntarily infecting the entirety of the population with a virus to prevent economic downturn seems a very dangerous idea to me. The purpose of society is to ensure the well-being of the people. It is not economic growth.

Furthermore, I see a few problems with that idea :

- it seems very hard to create a truly harmless virus. Viruses still destroy cells to replicate, they cause immune system response, inflammation, what would happen to weak or immunocompromised people ?

- if immunity through vaccines lasts 6 to 24 months, why wouldn't this be the case here too ? You'd still need to develop a vaccine or keep infecting people with new strains of this virus

- why would the deadlier strain disappear ? Unless you also engineer the mild strain to be much more infectious, both strains would still spread equally in the population. Presumably the milder strain would be less symptomatic so it would in fact spread less

- it's not demonstrated in what way economic downturn would be more harmful in the end. Economy is a means not an end.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#187

Post by danieltillett »

ubercow13 wrote: post #169

How would you allow the harmless strain to spread without also spreading the deadly strain? If you relax or reverse social distancing, wouldn't the deadly strain also have a chance to spread widely again? It seems like you'd need to manually administer this strain to millions of people, or have very carefully administered 'contagion parties' where everyone is pre-screened for the deadly strain, while everyone else ke…

There are dozens of ways the attenuated strain could be spread. You could do anything from going door to door sticking an infected swab up people’s noses to one of your contagion parties (they would be fun).

Actually once a safe strain was identified it would be impossible to stop people spreading it on their own. People would test to make sure they had the safe strain and then invite everyone they knew around for tea and scones.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#188

Post by _-___________-_ »

> SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) appears to be killing between 1% to 3.5% of the people it infects

The article that this text links to discusses case fatality rate, which is not the percentage of people the virus infects that die. This is a fundamental and very important difference, especially given that you later note the percentage of asymptomatic people.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#189

Post by MichaelJanssen »

drewblaisdell wrote: post #88
user_50123890 wrote: post #50

I don't think the mutations are the reason for asymptomatic cases. Coronaviruses mutate very slowly. More likely, viral load, immune system strength, overall age and the genetics of the person infected are what determines if the infection is fought off before any symptoms are shown

For my own understanding: where can I read about how coronaviruses mutate slowly?

It is deemed to have an RNA repair mechanism. This is suggested by analogy with other coronaviruses [1,2] and the length of its RNA of ~30k nucleotides while the upper limit for RNA without repair mechanism seems to be 10k [3]. The german wikipedia cites [4] which I found nicer to read.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Replication [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4984655/ [3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronaviridae#Genom [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3127101/

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#190

Post by DCKing »

ajnin wrote: post #186

The idea of voluntarily infecting the entirety of the population with a virus to prevent economic downturn seems a very dangerous idea to me. The purpose of society is to ensure the well-being of the people. It is not economic growth. Furthermore, I see a few problems with that idea : - it seems very hard to create a truly harmless virus. Viruses still destroy cells to replicate, they cause immune system response, in…

> The purpose of society is to ensure the well-being of the people. It is not economic growth.

"Growth" is not the issue, but economic prosperity and stability is immensely important with respect to the well-being of the people. Economic downturns also reliably cost lives in a huge amount of different ways.

I'll consider this idea to be pretty whack until people smarter than me think it's a good idea. But I hope we can come to terms that it's worth discussing taking some health risks to limit economic downturns. "People's lives" vs "the economy" is a false dichotomy.

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