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How the novel coronavirus has evolved

graphics.reuters.com

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Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#81

Post by jaclaz »

Izkata wrote: post #12

So it's finally okay to say there's multiple strains with different infectiousness and (possibly) severity? Back in February-ish (I forget exactly when), we had confirmed community spread in Washington (West-coast state in the US), with the belief that it had been spreading for weeks and no one noticed, because of how few cases there were, and no bump in hospitalizations. This was likely the Wuhan strain, which likew…

>On the flipside, when it reached Italy,

Only for the record/FYI, there is growing evidence that the virus (cannot say which strain) was present in Italy months before, possibly since September 2019.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4632_article

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#82

Post by jlokier »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #38

What does everyone think of the idea that there is an 80/20 rule in play for Coronavirus? Specifically, 80% of the infections come from 20% of the infected. I’ve heard some hearsay about it, but nothing conclusive; I was hoping someone knew either way.

From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54648734 "Covid test-and-trace: Is backwards contact tracing the way forward?"

> "Coronavirus does not spread evenly. Most people who get the virus won’t pass it on to anyone at all. But a small number of people will spread it widely. Scientists estimate as few as 10% of infected people are responsible for 80% of infections."

Based on this, they go on to explain why, if it's true, it becomes worthwhile to do backward contact tracing to reduce R.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#83

Post by darkerside »

hef19898 wrote: post #69
Lucasoato wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And just conveniently blame China for being the origin of the virus, just because they were the first ones to detect it, and report it. This is false, China has actively denied the existence of the virus until it was too late. The scientist who discovered it could have been a new kind of virus was blackmailed and threatened. The numbers China released were mostly false.

That trope again. First, that's spilled milk, even it were true, and thus is a pointless discussion. Second, local Chinese authorities screwed up. That was followed by one of the quickest, strictest and most effective reactions. As for the international response, that could be based on cases in Korea and Japan, for example. Europe reacted quick enough in Spring, after Italy waited a couple of days to long. Which is n…

There's truth in this, but you need to ask, why did local officials screw up? And it's probably related to the way mistakes are treated by central government. So, even if central government was not responsible for the individual actions early in the pandemic, they set the framework for how they interact with local governments, and thus still bear responsibility.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#84

Post by khuey »

jaclaz wrote: post #81
Izkata wrote: post #12

So it's finally okay to say there's multiple strains with different infectiousness and (possibly) severity? Back in February-ish (I forget exactly when), we had confirmed community spread in Washington (West-coast state in the US), with the belief that it had been spreading for weeks and no one noticed, because of how few cases there were, and no bump in hospitalizations. This was likely the Wuhan strain, which likew…

>On the flipside, when it reached Italy, Only for the record/FYI, there is growing evidence that the virus (cannot say which strain) was present in Italy months before, possibly since September 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim... https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4632_article

"Some people had antibodies that react with SARS-CoV2 prior to January 2020" isn't great evidence that the virus itself was present prior to 2020. There's some amount of cross-reactivity between antibodies to other human coronaviruses and SARS-CoV2.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#85

Post by darkerside »

jlokier wrote: post #82
sillysaurusx wrote: post #38

What does everyone think of the idea that there is an 80/20 rule in play for Coronavirus? Specifically, 80% of the infections come from 20% of the infected. I’ve heard some hearsay about it, but nothing conclusive; I was hoping someone knew either way.

From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54648734 "Covid test-and-trace: Is backwards contact tracing the way forward?" > "Coronavirus does not spread evenly. Most people who get the virus won’t pass it on to anyone at all. But a small number of people will spread it widely. Scientists estimate as few as 10% of infected people are responsible for 80% of infections." Based on this, they go on to explain why, if it's tru…

A colleague of mine was infected, became symptomatic and tested positive, and results took several days to come back. The whole time he was at home with his family waiting for results, he quarantined at home but had contact with his family. He tested positive, but they never did. More credence to the idea that some are super spreaders and some are not.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#86

Post by kordlessagain »

Izkata wrote: post #12

So it's finally okay to say there's multiple strains with different infectiousness and (possibly) severity? Back in February-ish (I forget exactly when), we had confirmed community spread in Washington (West-coast state in the US), with the belief that it had been spreading for weeks and no one noticed, because of how few cases there were, and no bump in hospitalizations. This was likely the Wuhan strain, which likew…

> when it reached Italy, it hit that country hard

In general, Italians have issues with high blood pressure. High blood pressure seems to be a factor in the severity of the illness.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#87

Post by therealx »

hef19898 wrote: post #69
Lucasoato wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And just conveniently blame China for being the origin of the virus, just because they were the first ones to detect it, and report it. This is false, China has actively denied the existence of the virus until it was too late. The scientist who discovered it could have been a new kind of virus was blackmailed and threatened. The numbers China released were mostly false.

That trope again. First, that's spilled milk, even it were true, and thus is a pointless discussion. Second, local Chinese authorities screwed up. That was followed by one of the quickest, strictest and most effective reactions. As for the international response, that could be based on cases in Korea and Japan, for example. Europe reacted quick enough in Spring, after Italy waited a couple of days to long. Which is n…

Setting aside the idea of intentional coverup, China is still the most likely area origin.

Normalized working/eating close to all animals, wet markets, pollution, lack of food care (incl refridgeration), unclean water, and more all make for a hotbed of potential disease.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#88

Post by Rexxar »

hutzlibu wrote: post #50
sillysaurusx wrote: post #38

What does everyone think of the idea that there is an 80/20 rule in play for Coronavirus? Specifically, 80% of the infections come from 20% of the infected. I’ve heard some hearsay about it, but nothing conclusive; I was hoping someone knew either way.

Since some people are very mobile and others are not, it is possible. But what would be the point of further discussing it?

> But what would be the point of further discussing it?

If you have a limited number of vaccines, you can vaccinate the propagators first and have 80% of the benefit of full population vaccination for 20% of the cost.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#89

Post by kordlessagain »

When this started, I did some visualizing of the virus' code: https://github.com/kordless/covid19_viz

That "spike" in the graph comes from sequences in the nucleotides coding the spike on the virus, which is somewhat expected given it's repeated on the surface of the virus membrane.

Apparently most of the spike encoding is from a South Asian fish. Reference in the repo.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#90

Post by hedora »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #38

What does everyone think of the idea that there is an 80/20 rule in play for Coronavirus? Specifically, 80% of the infections come from 20% of the infected. I’ve heard some hearsay about it, but nothing conclusive; I was hoping someone knew either way.

In Santa Clara county, hispanics are about 25% of the population and about 50% of the cases:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Santa-Clara-County-do...

Split by race, it’s not 80/20. Splitting by occupation or socioeconomic status would certainly reveal a stronger divide than splitting by race.

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