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How the novel coronavirus has evolved

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Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#131

Post by Izkata »

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 got cold outside. The curves match other respiratory viruses - or put another way, it's flu season.

This was one of the running theories back in the spring, but it was hard to tell for sure until seeing it spike back up this fall exactly as one would expect if this were the case.

> - Masks aren’t as effective as we think

Also this, I think - masks are good at catching droplets from talking or coughing, but sometime between summer and now it's suddenly become commonly known that this virus can hang in the air for an extended period indoors when there isn't good ventilation - being truly airborne like that means it can just slip around the edges of the mask as you breathe. Even disregarding that it was known back in March that fabric masks only reduced the amount of virus that could get through the mask, it didn't actually completely stop the virus as people nowadays seem to want to believe.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#132

Post by randomsearch »

soulofmischief wrote: post #76
randomsearch wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone else think that 80/20 sounds too neat, especially when you consider that the definition of superspreaders is subjective? It suggests confirmation bias and reminds me of when biologists etc assume normal distributions but when you did into the detail you find normal is actually not normal.

Power laws aren't rigid, domain-specific variables create local fluctuations even in models like population or wealth distribution. It's just a general baseline which we can use to model certain characteristics of a system.

Maybe. It's often easy to choose a model and squint to make it fit. You have to be very very careful when performing empirical method, it's extremely easy to taint data and end up fitting models that you shouldn't have. It's not enough to simply fit a power law and say "it works" - that's bad science.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#133

Post by salawat »

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…

It's not a "trope". Several papers ended up getting censored, and local samples getting destroyed. I was around and combing through the news stream at that time. Project Evidence was the group of people collating the circumstantial evidence around it, and I've seen a notable dearth of material that doesn't smell of some level of having been contrivance to put the field of virology squarely outside the crosshairs of the public's ire, or having been motivated by plausible geopolitical motivations or face saving measures.

If you look at the locality of happenstance, the lab escape is more than worth looking into. Just because search engines are bombing anything with regard to it to the bottom of search results, and press farms are working hard at propagating the zoonotic origin without touching on any of the impracticalities inherent to making that full set of connections feasible does not mean the information is not out there to be found.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#135

Post by soulofmischief »

randomsearch wrote: post #132
soulofmischief wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power laws aren't rigid, domain-specific variables create local fluctuations even in models like population or wealth distribution. It's just a general baseline which we can use to model certain characteristics of a system.

Maybe. It's often easy to choose a model and squint to make it fit. You have to be very very careful when performing empirical method, it's extremely easy to taint data and end up fitting models that you shouldn't have. It's not enough to simply fit a power law and say "it works" - that's bad science.

It's more utilitarian than that. The power law is a tool for inquisition, you need to verify your assumptions when possible. If you can't, the power law is one of many models which you can apply to seek insight into a system.

A good heuristic for knowing which model to apply is tantamount in absence of a testable environment.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#136

Post by blackrock »

salawat wrote: post #133
hef19898 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not a "trope". Several papers ended up getting censored, and local samples getting destroyed. I was around and combing through the news stream at that time. Project Evidence was the group of people collating the circumstantial evidence around it, and I've seen a notable dearth of material that doesn't smell of some level of having been contrivance to put the field of virology squarely outside the crosshairs of t…

> local samples getting destroyed

I think you’re just engaging in conspiracies here.

It’s possible that China’s central CDC ordered the local samples to be destroyed, because the local facility was not authorized or equipped, to handle infectious diseases properly.

Think of it this way. Do you want junior high school kids, handling contaminated biowaste, where the probability or risk of infection is very high.

And this was at the very beginning, when the science behind this virus and disease was not fully known.

It’s safer to throw the samples into a fire furnace, than to risk transporting it or storing it, where its leakage could further infect more people.

Re: How the novel coronavirus has evolved

#137

Post by brian_cloutier »

twic wrote: post #41
brian_cloutier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature has a decent article on this: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6 Apparently we have little idea whether D614G is more infectious but that is hard to believe given that it has so thoroughly outcompeted other strains.

Hard to believe, but true - because it didn't outcompete other alleles, it was just in the right place at the right time, as has been carefully documented: https://twitter.com/ballouxfrancois/status/13316691180015370... Still, assuming that massive success is due to competitive advantage rather than random chance is extremely on-brand for HN.

The founder effect doesn't seem capable of explaining the spread of D614G given that it has replaced other varients in every place it has been introduced to, and that it has even doubled back and outcompeted other variants even when those variants were introduced far before D614G. I'll read this paper, though, to get a better idea of what they're claiming; thanks for the link.

You have assumed I'm ignorant when you could have attempted to understand why I believe the things I do which seems at least as big a mistake as the one you accused me of making.

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