How the novel coronavirus has evolved • Hacker News Board

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#121

Post by sean2 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #118

Is there any real concrete — or at least scientifically backed — reasons why we’re continuing to see numbers rise, in spite of more lockdowns in place and more people (supposedly?) wearing masks vs. in previous waves where the spread and deaths seem lower than now? This is especially baffling considering how much more prepared we are (or should be?) and how much more we (should) know about the virus now vs. before. I…

I have no credentials or scientific evidence, but I never questioned the rising cases with each wave since I assume its just a property of the exponential nature of the virus spread: in march, say you had 5 people unknowingly carrying corona-virus arrive in your city and each of them spreads it to 5 more people in a two week period, your outbreak is 50 people (seems small now). But now in December, your city has about 350 people spreading the virus but only to 1.5 close contacts in a two week period, you'd expect the next outbreak to be 500 people.

I think hospitalizations are still a somewhat consistent percentage of cases, and will increase as the number of cases go up.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#122

Post by craftinator » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #118

Is there any real concrete — or at least scientifically backed — reasons why we’re continuing to see numbers rise, in spite of more lockdowns in place and more people (supposedly?) wearing masks vs. in previous waves where the spread and deaths seem lower than now? This is especially baffling considering how much more prepared we are (or should be?) and how much more we (should) know about the virus now vs. before. I…

> Is there any real concrete — or at least scientifically backed — reasons why we’re continuing to see numbers rise, in spite of more lockdowns in place

Anthony Fauci summed this up pretty well a few days ago in a press release. He basically said that the USA is really bad at following rules, which we are, and that with the recent holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving) and because of the cold weather (people stay indoors more, share the same air, air being recycled and heated in HVAC systems to reduce energy consumption), that numbers would rise. And so they are. I think these human explanations are the main source of the rise in numbers.

Another interesting one was in a WHO release a few weeks ago, that people seem to be experiencing "mask fatigue", or what is more generally known as "caution fatigue", where people, after having to be cautious for a long time, and not experiencing the source of that caution personally, just lose their ability to pay attention to the problem. It's the same reason the TSA inserts fake firearm pictures into the x-rays of luggage, and the same reason the military regularly inspects guard posts in key locations.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#123

Post by xony » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

this is a great lesson for mankind, next time isolate the country before it spread

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#124

Post by craftinator » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

gcanyon wrote: post #43

jstanley wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on why a lockdown would select for a more virulent strain?

Not an evolutionary biologist, but I think it's better to think of it as potentially killing off an earlier, less virulent strain. Putting it in concrete terms, if you have two versions of the virus, X which for each infected person tends to infect 1.8 others, and Y which tends to infect 2.8 others, then after ten days there might be more people infected with Y than X, but X would still be around. Now if everyone tak…

> Putting it in concrete terms, if you have two versions of the virus, X which for each infected person tends to infect 1.8 others, and Y which tends to infect 2.8 others, then after ten days there might be more people infected with Y than X, but X would still be around.

This is actually an observed effect in many transmittable illnesses; over time, they become more transmittable, and less deadly. Extremely deadly forms kill their hosts, ending the ability to reproduce via transmission, and the more transmittable strains reproduce effectively. This type of optimization leads to things like the common cold and flu. The scary thing about COVID19 is that it has a very long lead time between infection and symptoms, if they develop at all, meaning it can circumvent some of those "normal" optimization peaks; it can be both very deadly, and very transmittable, because of the latency in the signal.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#125

Post by anoncake » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #110

timbit42 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virus hasn't yet mutated enough to make the vaccine not work against it.

We don't know that for sure, and it has 7 different (known) strains already. Why would this be any different than the flu in that regard? Besides, we already know there are a lot of ridiculous anti-vaxxers out there who will refuse the vaccine regardless. And a lot of those people are elderly or at risk! The longer this situation goes on, the less palatable shutting down huge chunks of society seems to me to be. If t…

> Why would this be any different than the flu in that regard?

You're asking why a virus would mutate more slowly than a virus that mutates extraordinarily fast.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#126

Post by abhinav22 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #45

abhinav22 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the note, I suspected as much but I do appreciate your elaboration on the topic. I don’t agree with the approach (I would say for submissions that don’t have as many upvotes that somebody who took the time to write a thank you note reflects they actually read the article and it was worth the effort to write a note (which takes more effort than an upvote). This can be a important signal for others. It al…

Imagine if half the comments in a thread were "thanks" or "this!" It would make the discussion worse, even if it makes individuals happier.

Fair enough I guess

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#127

Post by xorcist » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #118

Is there any real concrete — or at least scientifically backed — reasons why we’re continuing to see numbers rise, in spite of more lockdowns in place and more people (supposedly?) wearing masks vs. in previous waves where the spread and deaths seem lower than now? This is especially baffling considering how much more prepared we are (or should be?) and how much more we (should) know about the virus now vs. before. I…

It's hard. Few of the later measures taken against coronavirus are grounded in very strong scientific evidence. It isn't easy conducting randomized trails in an ongoing pandemic.

What you see practiced in hospital and intensive care units is what works.

The rest have spotty evidence at best. Hopefully something good will come out of this and we will see more research on public health. Look at the recent Danish on general public face mask use as a good example.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#128

Post by tim333 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

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.

There's a long and interesting article on that kind of stuff

>This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic It’s not R. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overloo...

about the number k which is a more mathematically sophisticated take along those lines. Obviously reality is a bit more complicated than 80 20.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#129

Post by lizardking » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 3:40 AM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #85

jlokier wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This also happened to me. I had minor symptoms, but they didn’t feel like anything worse than bad allergies. My wife is in health care and is tested twice a week so I figured if she doesn’t have it then I must not have it either. That was until I lost my sense of smell. At the time I got my positive result back from the lab I had been experiencing covid symptoms for 9 days. I was doing nothing to shield the other 3 members of my household and none of them got it either.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#130

Post by tempestn » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 5:31 AM UTC

abhinav22 wrote: post #24

tempestn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A comment that just says "thank you this was a good post" is basically an up-vote in the form of a comment; it doesn't add any substance to the conversation. That would be a polite response in another context, but on HN the goal of the guidelines as I understand them is to keep the signal to noise ratio high - basically to increase the density of useful information and insightful argument in comments. In order to do…

Thank you for the note, I suspected as much but I do appreciate your elaboration on the topic. I don’t agree with the approach (I would say for submissions that don’t have as many upvotes that somebody who took the time to write a thank you note reflects they actually read the article and it was worth the effort to write a note (which takes more effort than an upvote). This can be a important signal for others. It al…

What I try to do in those cases is find something to say about the content itself. Could even include the 'thanks' that way if you wanted. Like, "Thanks, I didn't realize that ." That way you're at least contributing by drawing people's attention to an interesting part of the original article.