Shouldn’t new strains be more contagious but less deadly?
Why "should" they be?
London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
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Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#22Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boris just says stuff day to day. best just to ignore him completely because the next day he’ll be saying something different.
Three days ago he said it would be inhumane to cancel Christmas. Today he said the data from the last 72 hours forced a change. Johnson is an oaf, but covid has kept him fairly serious. His waffling bumbling act was dropped.
He thought it was however perfectly humane to cancel all of the other religious holidays, and though that doesn't speak to his bumbling act, it speaks volumes about his character.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#24Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#25As has been pointed out in an earlier article about the "new strain"[1]: "Let's not be hysterical. It doesn't mean it's more transmissible or more infectious or dangerous." That there are new strains of COVID-19 has been covered over, and over, and over, and over again on the This Week in Virology podcast[2] (which usually has 4 to 6 virologists on it every week discussing COVID-19 news), and they've always had the s…
While this is true generally, please bear in mind that the numbers in the UK do seem to be somewhat concerning. I don’t have actual values yet, but from the announcements from the various UK governments it seems to be the case that the case rate in London has almost tripled in the past 18 days, and 60% of current cases are this new strain.
The response in the UK has been pretty rapid and strict, and this has been justified by the governments on the basis of monitoring of this new strain. It’s unlikely (of course not impossible) that this decision would be taken without some decent evidence backing it up.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#26Shouldn’t new strains be more contagious but less deadly?
Why "should" they be?
Absent any special considerations, that's the general direction that pathogens go, more infectious and less deadly. Dead hosts aren't a benefit to the virus, and neither are hosts too sick to go out and infect others. Evolution is messy though, I don't know how likely a particular new strain is to go that direction.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
He hasn’t been extremely resistant at all, the facts speak to the exact opposite.
I agree; I'm not somebody who would have voted for him, but he's had some really tough decisions to make, and whether or not he's made the right call or dragged his heels at times, he's clearly been prepared to upend his own ideological leanings when needed and I respect him and the government for that.
I am baffled that somebody could observe the actions of the UK government and come to this conclusion. They seem to have been determined to do the worst possible thing to the very last moment, then abruptly about-face when that position was unsustainable.
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Three days ago he said it would be inhumane to cancel Christmas. Today he said the data from the last 72 hours forced a change. Johnson is an oaf, but covid has kept him fairly serious. His waffling bumbling act was dropped.
He thought it was however perfectly humane to cancel all of the other religious holidays, and though that doesn't speak to his bumbling act, it speaks volumes about his character.
[deleted]
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#29Shouldn’t new strains be more contagious but less deadly?
It’s entirely possible for a mutation to make the virus more deadly and more contagious at the same time, exploit a window of opportunity in an unprepared population, then “burn out.”
Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain
#30As has been pointed out in an earlier article about the "new strain"[1]: "Let's not be hysterical. It doesn't mean it's more transmissible or more infectious or dangerous." That there are new strains of COVID-19 has been covered over, and over, and over, and over again on the This Week in Virology podcast[2] (which usually has 4 to 6 virologists on it every week discussing COVID-19 news), and they've always had the s…
> but there is no evidence that these mutations
Parroting NN Taleb: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Haven't we learned from coronavirus that we need to use the precautionary principle in the face of new information that is not fully understood. I don't know where you are from, but I locally heard a string of "there is no evidence of" starting in about January of 2019. There was no evidence that the virus would leave China (it did). No evidence that shutting down travel from infected areas would help (see Vietnam). No evidence of community transmission (it has happened in most of the globe). No evidence that masks help prevent transmission (appears to reduce transmission rates).
I am starting to think as soon as someone asserts "there is no evidence" for something related to the coronavirus, it is a foregone conclusion.
In any case, nobody can assert with absolute certainty that the coronavirus cannot mutate into a more severe or more transmissible virus, especially in the face of a the long human history of being (literally) plagued by mutating viruses.
A critical mutation is a possibility and we should be extremely cautious and vigilant against it. Even if we erroneously overreact 10 times to false mutations, the 11th time might be the one the matters. And the cost of those 11 overreactions will be much less than the cost of letting it go wild.