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A (possible) solution to Covid-19

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Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#381

Post by Retric »

danieltillett wrote: post #360
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.

I can’t believe you think I am arguing for the “two strain” theory. My proposal has absolutely zero to do with two strains.

"As of 2nd March 2020, there are 111 nonsynonymous mutations that have been identified in the outbreak, these have been catalogued here in the CoV-GLUE resource 504 and can be visualised in Figure 1. At current, there is no evidence that any of these 111 mutations have any significance in a functional context of within-host infections or transmission rates."

The proposal requires identifying new strains among symptomatic and asymptotic people, find strains that only occur with asymptomatic people, start infecting people with that strain, verify they are at lower risk. Then scale this up to ever larger populations.

If we knew of a less dangerous strain then sure you can start down that path. However, at this point there is significant evidence such a strain does not exist due to the extremely slow mutation rate, making this mostly wishful thinking.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#382

Post by michaelcampbell »

xvilka wrote: post #335

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…

> nobody cares about infectious diseases until the pandemic...

Bill Gates would like a word.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#384

Post by dragonsh »

mkl wrote: post #375
dragonsh wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covid-19 is not mutating like other viruses, but it acts differently on different people, and very problematic for people with pre-existing conditions. Also in some cases again not proven it also infected heart muscles, now it’s not clear yet that it’s due to pneumonia or covid-19. In China they tried plasma from recovered patients and that also didn’t yield very good results. Also in some studies they find a correla…

Huh? The key premise of the article is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is mutating.

Well it’s not mutating the virus they found in initial cases is still the same as the one at present in Patients in Europe and USA.

The premise of article is actually not novel, it’s the way vaccines are made. Smallpox way of developing vaccine in crude way without scientific understanding was done in the early years, now we have come very far.

This virus is really novel that’s the reason novel corona virus (covid-19). Scientists and research community are frantically searching for a vaccine or treatment plan to manage it. So far there is a very limited understanding. Hope can find some way to treat it, otherwise only solution left is relying on herd immunity.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#385

Post by pinkfoot »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #192
pinkfoot wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There just isn't a lot of evidence for the case that the choice is shutting the economic or killing millions. Which is why we have models, no?

Yes, although reality seems to be disagreeing with the models more and more. You have countries in southeast Asia with community transmission but no lockdown, and countries in Europe with the military enforcing a strict lockdown, and the latter are far worse off in terms of hospital admissions and deaths per capita than the former.

Did the European countries not get their transmissions before they implemented a lockdown?

My understanding is it takes 1 - 3 weeks to see the effect of a lockdown?

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#386

Post by wbl »

twomoretime wrote: post #311
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.

>ADE is more a problem for the vaccine approaches. It is one reason we may never have a vaccine for this disease. This is at least partly why there are no SARS/MERS vaccines. There's a paper I'll try to dig up where 4-8 (can't remember) modified vaccine candidates were tested in multiple animal species, and in each case except one, immunity was conferred but exposure to the virus lead to a dangerous autoimmune respon…

That's not ADE as I understand it. ADE is where the virus gets grabbed more easily by cells thanks to the antibodies on it proving handles.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#387

Post by ineedasername »

I'm always skeptical simple solutions proposed to solve complex problems. Unintended consequences or unanticipated roadblocks are often an issue.

In this case, the author might under estimate the logistics involved in getting this done. At a minimum, the author does not adequately address the logistical challenges of this endeavor in the context of already challenging testing environments. The "quick & cheap" aspect of this is therefore a claim without support.

It might be a promising line of endeavor, and we should pursue multiple parallel initiatives, but the resources needed to pursue this are highly correlated with the resources needed to perform many of the other initiatives that are also promising. There is a bottleneck. Why should this take precedence over other already promising lines of inquiry?

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#388

Post by DanBC »

hebrox wrote: post #227

Could we already start with this? There are almost no deaths in young people, so how about we send the youth to a Corona Summer Camp for a week or 3? https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se...

relying on numbers from February feels sub-optimal, especially when they're entirely using numbers from one country, not many countries.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#390

Post by ferzul »

Robotbeat wrote: post #300
danieltillett wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is an attenuated live vaccine, though. So the risks are similar or worse than just doing a real, engineered vaccine. If it's mere paperwork, we can solve that with a regular vaccine just as fast. And the regular vaccine would be more likely to be safe, even at an early stage. (Note: I'm a rando, not a medical or biological professional.)

if bureacracy held up the spread of a live coronavirus, we wouldn't be in this mess
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