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

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#541

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 8:38 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #532

danieltillett wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a stupid question. Yes we could engineer such a strain, the problem would be testing it given we would not be able to predict how dangerous it was.

Having identified a harmless strain, and presuming regulatory agencies are too slow to be useful, then what? Send people infected with the harmless version around, after lockdown ends in a month or two, to crowded places? Would greater virulence be a desirable quality in our reduced strain?

Well if the regulatory agencies decided that they weren’t going to act then I suspect there would be a grass roots level spread of the strain anyway. This would be the worst way to use such a strain, but I don’t think it would be possible to stop this happening.

I don’t think we will get to that point. If we collect good data from the natural spread of any attenuated strain then I think the regulatory authorities will allow its use on the basis of this data.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#542

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

Glavnokoman wrote: post #361

I totally missed it from the article but how is he going to tell the deadly strain from the less deadly one? I mean I understand how they can tell the difference between the two strains. But how to tell that some particular strain is less deadly? To the best of my understanding the only way to get there is to sequence the virus from statistically significant number (~10^5 ??) of carriers including the significant pro…

This is all described in the post. I have updated it to make it a little clearer (based on feedback). If you missed it the first time around you might get it now.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#543

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

AlexCoventry wrote: post #503

danieltillett wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not planning on doing anything other than trying to look for the attenuated strain. How it is used is for others - what I am suggesting is once such a strain is found is it will be impossible to stop people spreading it around on their own.

How could individuals be sure that they're carrying the correct strain, without access to sequencing technology?

A modification of the standard RT-PCR tests can be used to identify if someone has the correct strain. This really is just a matter of making a different set of primers.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#544

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 8:46 PM UTC

ruslan wrote: post #518

danieltillett wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unregulated spread by individuals is a solution, just not the one I think would be implemented if such a strain were found. I think it much more likely that the regulatory agency would quickly approve the use of the strain on the basis of the epidemiological data gathered in the process of finding it.

Daniel, can you please elaborate on this: "Unregulated spread by individuals is a solution" ? How do you envision it ? Virus is not an open source software, you cannot just "make your own copy" without a physical contact. :)

It is ‘a’ solution, but in my opinion not a good one. There are a number of ways this could happen, the easiest is just to send people to the area where it was first found and look for people infected. It is technically very easy to test any sample to make sure it is the right strain.

Even if you can’t get the strain it would not be technically very complex to recreate the virus from scratch once you know what deletion you need.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#545

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #432

danieltillett wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly at this point if you could get FOX News to pick up the story, the White House will know about it immediately.

I am sure you are right, but I don’t happen to know anyone from FOX News. If you do get in contact with me.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#546

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

mkl wrote: post #377

danieltillett wrote: post #2

I have posted this again as dang asked me to put it up again. Happy to answer questions about the idea, but I am most interested in find collaborators to make it happen ASAP.

A typo correction: In two places you have "overtime" instead of "over time".

Thanks - I will look for these.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#547

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 8:53 PM UTC

dragonsh wrote: post #384

mkl wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The premise of using an attenuated virus as a vaccine is not novel, but the idea of using genome sequencing to find an attenuated strain and showing through epidemiology that it is safe does seem to be novel.

Even if it doesn’t pan out I think it is worth trying.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#548

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

annoyingnoob wrote: post #365

Amygaz wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Still seems like an assumption until its tested/proven. I'd prefer a more evidence based approach, evidence from this virus.

You can only get evidence if you go out and collect the evidence. I am proposing a way we can actually collect this evidence. Saying something won’t work because there is no evidence when you haven’t look for any evidence is not very logical.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#549

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

nikolay wrote: post #528

I hear a lot of ideas, which ignore the indications from both China and South Korea about re-infection. Nobody for sure knows how long the immunity lasts. Also, people could be asymptomatic/mild-symptom, just because they have a strong immune response, not because the strain is less deadly. How do you quantify who is immunosuppressed and who has a well-functioning immune system?

Yes, but this idea of mine is not one of these ideas.

Re: A (possible) solution to Covid-19

#550

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Apr 11, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #537

danieltillett wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I address the number issue here. With little cost we could sequence a few thousand viral strains, or even tens of thousands of strains, from positive test sample from asymptomatic and/or mild case until we find a virus strain with the right mutations to make it harmless and which could work like a vaccine. The manufacturing issues are not really my strength or extremely relevant to the idea, but this involves a live…

You address how many viral strains could be obtained, you don't address how many people have to be tested to obtain that many strains. Since you would need to find asymptomatic people, and current testing prioritizes only those with relevant symptoms, you would need to test many, many people to obtain enough asymptomatic occurrences. You do not provide an estimate for that number. Or if my assumption is wrong, then p…

In some countries they are doing a better job of testing the mild/asymptomatic cases (Germany, Singapore, South Korea are all examples). Even the USA these days is detecting plenty of positive mild cases.

We can use the the swab samples sitting in the testing facilities to do the genome sequencing.

Your response is quite common so I am writing a follow on post mon how this idea can be done in practice.