281–290 of 585 posts
Any thought of writing a WaPo, NYT, etc. editorial? With an idea this potentially impactful and your credentials, seems like you'd have a good shot of being accepted.
We actually started clinical trials of the Moderna mRNA vaccine in humans a month ago. We may have some early safety data. Better that than intentionally exposing people.
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There are plenty of shortcuts in medicine. Think how you would stop this strain from being spread by individuals once it was identified. This strain will spread no matter what the FDA says. Personally I think the regulatory authorities would rapid approve it based on the epidemiology data collected in the process of finding the strain. The FDA has already shown that it can move faster than its usual glacial pace give…
Serious question: are we not? People are sequencing these things like crazy (c.f. the nextstrain.org data). Epidemiologists are working like mad to come up with data on severity in regions all over the globe. Virologists everywhere are dropping what they're doing otherwise to work on covid. It sorta strains reason to argue that none of these people thought of looking for an attenuated strain. Isn't the simpler truth…
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> If it was killing 50-60% of people infected then yes the selection pressure would be there it isnt killing, but it's isolating them, preventing its spread
That's already baked in to human responses to suspected COVID-19 though, and a chance mutation to a less lethal strain would be unlikely to change human responses to an outbreak in a way which benefited the virus' ability to spread.
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Serious question: are we not? People are sequencing these things like crazy (c.f. the nextstrain.org data). Epidemiologists are working like mad to come up with data on severity in regions all over the globe. Virologists everywhere are dropping what they're doing otherwise to work on covid. It sorta strains reason to argue that none of these people thought of looking for an attenuated strain. Isn't the simpler truth…
they re probably not sequencing asymptomatic people's virus, it would require some specific expedition. it doesn't even sound hard or expensive reply to @ajross: how would they know someone is asymptomatic? afaik they are mostly testing people who have symptoms , and their contacts (who will have contracted the same , symptomatic strain) I think in germany they did antibody testing, or PCR of swabs of people who most…
For reference: I have a family member in virology. He reports that everyone he knows is now working on covid, mostly because if they don't they can't come to work on anything. The biggest problem is finding subjects that will produce a paper of any kind. I really don't think research bandwidth is the issue here.
I guess I have to repeat the question as its converse: is there any evidence that this is not happening? If it isn't, let's figure out the right people to pressure and not just discuss it on HN. And if it is, maybe we should let the experts do their work without pretending to have had their ideas for them?
If life was a Star Trek episode, Picard would be saying "Make it so" right about now.
Source: https://nos.nl/artikel/2330036-nederlandse-coronapatient-hee...
NB: I am NOT a microbiologist and do not know how far this is related.
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Serious question: are we not? People are sequencing these things like crazy (c.f. the nextstrain.org data). Epidemiologists are working like mad to come up with data on severity in regions all over the globe. Virologists everywhere are dropping what they're doing otherwise to work on covid. It sorta strains reason to argue that none of these people thought of looking for an attenuated strain. Isn't the simpler truth…
they re probably not sequencing asymptomatic people's virus, it would require some specific expedition. it doesn't even sound hard or expensive reply to @ajross: how would they know someone is asymptomatic? afaik they are mostly testing people who have symptoms , and their contacts (who will have contracted the same , symptomatic strain) I think in germany they did antibody testing, or PCR of swabs of people who most…
The ideal outcome is you find a strain with a deletion and you then test everyone in the area and you find 10,000 more people infected with the strain that have only a mild case and none of these people are in the hospitals. This strain would be very valuable to have.
The Netherlands is testing with plasma from a recovered patient right now: Source: https://nos.nl/artikel/2330036-nederlandse-coronapatient-hee... NB: I am NOT a microbiologist and do not know how far this is related.
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they re probably not sequencing asymptomatic people's virus, it would require some specific expedition. it doesn't even sound hard or expensive reply to @ajross: how would they know someone is asymptomatic? afaik they are mostly testing people who have symptoms , and their contacts (who will have contracted the same , symptomatic strain) I think in germany they did antibody testing, or PCR of swabs of people who most…
Are they not? That seems like a pretty obvious experiment to do. For reference: I have a family member in virology. He reports that everyone he knows is now working on covid, mostly because if they don't they can't come to work on anything. The biggest problem is finding subjects that will produce a paper of any kind. I really don't think research bandwidth is the issue here. I guess I have to repeat the question as…