Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–29 of 29 posts

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#21

Post by nradov »

TrevorJ wrote: post #16
m0llusk wrote: post #12

Influenza virus has a structure that makes mutations easy with mixing and matching common in hosts. Coronavirus has built in error checking and functions by generating a large protein that is split up to assemble new virus. This means that the rate and scale of mutation will always be less than influenza, though the assertion that it will stay and be endemic is almost certainly true.

The data seem to indicate this is not the case.

The influenza virus mutates faster than SARS-CoV-2 on a per infection basis. But over the past two years we've had far more people infected with SARS-CoV-2 so the total number of mutations worldwide has been high. Over time we expect the rate of new mutations to decrease as more people gain some level of immunity and the virus approaches it's evolutionary maximum potential. We already see that the Delta variant is fairly stable and is successfully out competing all other variants in the wild.

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#22

Post by Factorium »

TrevorJ wrote: post #15
hajile wrote: post #5

Hasn't this been the obvious answer for almost two years now? The disease transmits to a huge pool of animals where it can mutate and transmit back. That alone is a problem too big for people to solve.

You would think so, but I have yet to see any evidence that public policy has shifted to deal with this reality. Notably absent is any messaging around things people can do to lower their incidence of severe symptoms, such as getting vitamin D levels checked, and maintaining a healthy weight.

None of those things sell vaccines or justify totalitarian state control.

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#23

Post by dougmwne »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #20
Tagbert wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… and, due to the nature of this type of virus, no human efforts to control it would have been fully effective. We can throw blame around and, in hind sight, we can see how many agencies and people could have acted differently and it might have had some affect but ultimately this pandemic was already underway and anything short of 100% lockdown enforced by armed guards would not stop it.

that was pretty much the idea behind original lockdown but no rapid testing or red/green zoning got implemented.

Once the virus got out of Wuhan it was probably impossible to contain it. By the time the first news hit, it had already spread around the world. First world countries may have been able to copy China's lockdown but the rest of the world would have never been able to contain it and it would have kept seeping in through frozen food chains. This was a practical inevitability and blaming governments or the WHO is just an attempted to rationalize an irrational natural event. That's why I think natural origin is the most likely explanation. There's too much temptation to assign blame to evil gain-of-function researchers or hypocritical public health funding.

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#24

Post by pbaka »

unmole wrote: post #17
swader999 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace Jews with Unvaxinated: "On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi legislation barred Jews from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated “Aryan” zones. The government required Jews to identify themselves in ways that would permanently separate them from the rest of the population." https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/co…

Could Jews attain Aryan status by taking shots?

No, but a large number had chosen to convert to Christianity (at least publicly, if not in private), having foreseen what was gonna happen. See source n° 17 under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jewish_conversion_t....

Some others desperate few choose to survive by collaborating with the Nazi machine in its horrible endeavors.

The parents of George Soros for example were forced to do both.

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#25

Post by mrfusion »

xyzzy21 wrote: post #18

Well duh. This is what all Coronavirus species do and have done for millennia. The idea that COVID could be "conquered" and eliminated is about as stupid as thinking Prohibition of alcohol cold ever work, the War on Drugs could ever work, or the War on Terror could ever work. At best hubris and Dunning-Kruger; at worst pro-totalitarian scare tactics.

I guess all of our wars against natural phenomena don’t work out (including human nature). Have we ever won one?

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#26

Post by Gravyness »

xyzzy21 wrote: post #19
benlumen wrote: post #2

“We had a chance in the beginning of this pandemic,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said Tuesday. “This pandemic did not need to be this bad.” Like in February 2020 when the WHO was downplaying the risk on a daily basis? Do they think we don't remember? They are absolutely culpable. I distinctly remember Tedros preaching that "racism" (questions about China) was more dangerous than the viru…

No that quote is 100% wrong scientifically and logistically. But we humans, even today, often compare ourselves to Gods with infinite power even though that is no where close to possible.

What, you can't predict what 7 billion people will do? Amateur! If only people listened to me, the know-it-all, then everything would have gone great! And the previous 12 times I have been wrong were just me experimenting to get this right or just enemy's propaganda, whichever I can prove easier, this time it will work, trust me!

Fake news haven't been created just because people love to lie, it has been created because people love to listen to conforting lies. Plato's cave in a nutshell.

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#27

Post by raxxorrax »

zethus wrote: post #4
benlumen wrote: post #2

“We had a chance in the beginning of this pandemic,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said Tuesday. “This pandemic did not need to be this bad.” Like in February 2020 when the WHO was downplaying the risk on a daily basis? Do they think we don't remember? They are absolutely culpable. I distinctly remember Tedros preaching that "racism" (questions about China) was more dangerous than the viru…

Are you implying that the WHO's statements in the first few months of 2020 removes the credibility of the claim that the pandemic did not to be this bad? I'm with you that it should have been sooner than March 11, 2020 to declare COVID-19 as a pandemic, but the response of almost every country in the world in following year was lackluster at best to prevent widespread mutation opportunities.

You would come to the exact same result if the response had been even more rigid (depends on locality I guess). You could argue that any lockdown just delayed the inevitable. And some already said that this is the only goal until a vaccine is found.

Now since we have some and many people had the ability to get vaccinated, it is almost sensible to drop all rules again.

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#28

Post by raxxorrax »

TrevorJ wrote: post #15
hajile wrote: post #5

Hasn't this been the obvious answer for almost two years now? The disease transmits to a huge pool of animals where it can mutate and transmit back. That alone is a problem too big for people to solve.

You would think so, but I have yet to see any evidence that public policy has shifted to deal with this reality. Notably absent is any messaging around things people can do to lower their incidence of severe symptoms, such as getting vitamin D levels checked, and maintaining a healthy weight.

I heard smoking helps too.

Re: WHO: Covid will mutate like the flu and is likely here to stay

#29

Post by AzzieElbab »

dougmwne wrote: post #23
AzzieElbab wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was pretty much the idea behind original lockdown but no rapid testing or red/green zoning got implemented.

Once the virus got out of Wuhan it was probably impossible to contain it. By the time the first news hit, it had already spread around the world. First world countries may have been able to copy China's lockdown but the rest of the world would have never been able to contain it and it would have kept seeping in through frozen food chains. This was a practical inevitability and blaming governments or the WHO is just a…

by the time the news hit, all international air-travels could have been shutdown(not just from China), all possible super spreader events could have been shutdown, rapid testing could have been approved, smarter zoning could have been implemented, early mask mandates would have also helped. All would have been possible with smarted government(s) and honest functional WHO. Also, I completely disagree about natural origin of virus since complete lack of evidence, no animal in the wild had been identified as carrier. I do not care whether gain-of-function researchers are evil or benign, but at this time all evidence point to them being guilty
Post reply on HN