A (possible) solution to Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#331

Post by uhnuhnuhn » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #148

robocat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you need to find someone who can help make your post feel more professional - perhaps Ask HN for help or just directly email one of the clued up people here that are open to cold emails (patio11?). I almost didn’t read it because the title sounds too generically woowoo, and the domain you are using seemed unprofessional. Then on reading the article, you didn’t give your background, an irrelevant picture…

The site is my personal blog. I thought about writing a more technical level paper, but what I wanted to accomplish is to get this idea in front of a non-scientific audience who can think outside the box (like many of those on HN). A standard scientific paper will sink without a trace -scientists are just too conservative to take something like this seriously. I hate to say it, but the people who will make something…

The tech billionaires of this world will not fund anything based on a layman's explanation. They want to fund ideas based on reliable research. The Gates Foundation is staffed with tons of specialists for this reason.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#332

Post by robomartin » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #215

robomartin wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just sent your article to my contacts at the White House, Department of Defense, DARPA and a couple of other acronym agencies. I sent this to Director level people (or just under) at those agencies. No guarantees (they are all swamped). I hope they respond and put you in touch with the right people.

Thanks. This is the problem I have run into which is all the right people are so busy at the moment that they don’t have time to look at something like this from someone like me.

Yes.

I can confirm that your information got to one of my contacts at the White House. He replied saying he would distribute it to the right people. Your guess is as good as mine as to what happens from there. Even people within the White House have trouble penetrating through various layers due to just how busy everyone is (as well as security, etc.).

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#333

Post by Amygaz » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

annoyingnoob wrote: post #324

How do we know that a less deadly strain actually provides some immunity to a more deadly strain? That seems like an assumption here.

His assumption is based on live-attenuated vaccines. The measles vaccine being one of those. All the early vaccines where like that. The process only requires heat inactivation. So you end up with a dead or almost dead virus, which can't replicate anymore. Your immune system recognizes it as a foreign agent, makes antibodies to tag it for removal.

Today we prefer to immunize with a part of the virus structure, which end up doing the same thing.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#334

Post by danieltillett » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

Amygaz wrote: post #319

danieltillett wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADE is more a problem for the vaccine approaches. It is one reason we may never have a vaccine for this disease. Hard to rule out worst case scenarios, we just have to work with what we have and make hard choices.

What about Dengue?

Dengue is a different virus. All viruses behave differently.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#335

Post by xvilka » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

In one of the article comments there is an interesting suggestion on reviving the research on DRACO[1]:

> In cell culture, DRACO was reported to have broad-spectrum efficacy against many infectious viruses, including dengue flavivirus, Amapari, and Tacaribe arenavirus, Guama bunyavirus, H1N1 influenza, and rhinovirus, and was additionally found effective against influenza in vivo in weanling mice. It was reported to induce rapid apoptosis selectively in virus-infected mammalian cells while leaving uninfected cells unharmed.

They even had a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo[2] but as usual, nobody cares about infectious diseases until the pandemic...

Now the crowdfunding seems moved to another page[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRACO

[2] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/1641241

[3] https://riderinstitute.org/discovery/

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#336

Post by Amygaz » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:10 PM UTC

remote_phone wrote: post #329

This entire article is a waste of time from the beginning. The “two strain” theory was debunked the very next day as bad science. http://virological.org/t/response-to-on-the-origin-and-conti... I can’t believe that a month later, this bad science is still being circulated, by a purported PhD and former professor.

Thanks for saying that. It is super flawed.

I was planning to go through all of his replies to other posters and debunk them one-by-one.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#337

Post by Robotbeat » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #316

Robotbeat wrote: post #282

This is the same thing as a vaccine (but without doing the safety due diligence). IMHO as a not-medical-professional, we’d be better off with just using one of the (dead) vaccine candidates early than with a slightly attenuated live virus. 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.

No it is not. There is still safety data, it has just been done by nature and not by jabbing people in the arm with some experimental vaccine.

No, the safety data is not well controlled in this case. There are lots of ways to administer a vaccine, it doesn't have to be injection.

Look up the history of vaccination. Starting in the late 18th Century, people used to do this exact thing for early vaccinations: they found a naturally occurring, less pathogenic strain (for instance, cowpox[1] in the days of smallpox), and intentionally exposed people. This is exactly the same thing as a vaccine except less controlled and, ultimately, much less safe.

.

[1]The root of "vaccine" is "vacca," i.e. Latin for "cow," for this reason.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#338

Post by Amygaz » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #334

Amygaz wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Dengue?

Dengue is a different virus. All viruses behave differently.

Wow. What an answer. All flaviviruses cause ADE. Only few attenuated vaccines worked as a strategy. And no they don't shed.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#339

Post by perlgeek » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #314

The idea that naturally mild strain of the coronavirus would provide a durable benefit, but a human-created vaccine would not, seems to me like an idea that needs a lot more explanation. The mechanism of immunity should be the same between those two.

The main argument here is that finding a mild strain (and having it tested implicitly by virtue of it infecting many humans) could be faster than developing a human-created vaccine.

I don't have any credentials in this field, but IMHO we should attack the problem from all possible angles, including the search for a natural, less harmful strain.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#340

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

czep wrote: post #286

Finding an attenuated strain that spreads as easily but is less deadly does sound like our best hope. Such a strain would "crowd out" the deadly strain, effectively blocking it from causing harm. If life was a Star Trek episode, Picard would be saying "Make it so" right about now.

Just take a trip through time and stop it that way, if you could.

(I'm not even talking about the inconsistency between traveling faster than light and not moving backwards in time, I'm talking about repeated in-universe demonstrations of time travel mastery)

Of course, the writer's tortured "ethics" might require that everyone has to keep the last couple months of awful memories.