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

The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 309 posts

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#161

Post by JonathonW »

Izkata wrote: post #107
JonathonW wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grandparent comment misspelled atheism; parent comment is being obnoxious about it.

I read it as aversion to the "New" part of "New Atheism", a term I don't think I've heard of before.

New Atheism refers to a specifically anti-religious/anti-theist viewpoint-- see Dawkins, Sam Harris, etc.

I am not familiar enough with H.G. Wells's religious leanings (or lack thereof) to make any kind of comparison between Wells's views and those of New Atheism's proponents, although I will note that War of the Worlds was written early enough that Wells may not have been atheist yet.

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#163

Post by throwaway122378 »

danaliv wrote: post #71
etiam wrote: post #3

Maybe this could be an explanation for the most unexpected dip in COVID-19 infection around January. Does data for rhinovirus infections get collected to such an extent that it would be possible to compare curves?

I thought the January dip was from the end of holiday travel.

The dip was correlated to Trump leaving office.

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#164

Post by tremon »

gher-shyu3i wrote: post #101
WhompingWindows wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the tiniest creatures God in his wisdom put upon this earth" The writing is nice but flawed. Since War of the Worlds, we have advanced tremendously and no longer need intelligent design or creation myths to explain microorganisms. Reproducible, testable science demonstrates that in the primordial oceans, self-replicating molecules which were slightly better at self-replicating produced globules of matter capable of…

Science does not and will not be able to explain the origin of life. The statement still holds. It's very arrogant of us to assume otherwise.

That depends on whether your question to the origin of life begins with "How" or "Why".

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#165

Post by kurthr »

Add me to the list of people who think this sort of reporting is dangerous to the public health.

It's well known that a primed immune system (in non-immunocompromised individuals) will combat viral infections more readily. The innate immune system (as opposed to the adaptive genetically diverse B/T-Cell antibody system) is a Thing and this is why people were discussing giving standard vaccines (including Flu, BCG, and others) before there were COVID specific vaccines. Saying that the "common cold" (which isn't a single virus, but a set of conditions), can "boot out" COV2 is silly gibberish and completely unsupported by evidence. Furthermore infecting people with unknown "colds" could in fact infecting them with (or covering up) "pre-symptomatic" COVID.

Sorry, but you need to bring the actual Bigfoot/Nessi in for people to believe outrageous claims at this point. Wearing "protective amulets" against them is more likely to cause problems that promote solutions.

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#166

Post by KoftaBob »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #44
insickness wrote: post #2

"From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth. By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither…

"the tiniest creatures God in his wisdom put upon this earth" The writing is nice but flawed. Since War of the Worlds, we have advanced tremendously and no longer need intelligent design or creation myths to explain microorganisms. Reproducible, testable science demonstrates that in the primordial oceans, self-replicating molecules which were slightly better at self-replicating produced globules of matter capable of…

It's always those that are the least confident in their atheism that feel the need to constantly defend it.

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#167

Post by __s »

behringer wrote: post #157
gher-shyu3i wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's beyond the realm of space and time. We can't go back before t=0 when the universe was created.

Until we know the nature of the universe, that may not be correct.

It may not be correct, but it may be correct

Your statement "If it has an answer" only holds if you say that any truth science can't prove doesn't exist

But this isn't true. See Halting problem etc. There are things for which the answer can exist & yet be undeterminable

This is fine. I prefer to look at it this way: science is searching out a subset of knowable truths. The origin of the universe is interesting only insofar as we can dredge up relevant information, but coming up with an origin story or not isn't what proves the validity of science

Science isn't about getting all the answers, it's about getting the answers right & at it's best admitting when we got the answers wrong

When someone asks "If God doesn't exist what created the universe?" I say "I don't know, I don't care"

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#168

Post by _joel »

gavinhoward wrote: post #125
Tagbert wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have a significant population of unvaccinated people, that provides the breeding ground for the virus to multiply and mutate into new strains that may bypass the current vaccine induced immunity which would require yet another round of vaccines.

Vaccinated people are still breeding grounds for a virus; they can still be carriers. Vaccines just give people the antibodies to not be affected by a virus.

But they are vastly less likely to shed if they have been vaccinated, therefore less transmission.

https://theconversation.com/can-vaccinated-people-still-spre...

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#169

Post by danaliv »

GavinMcG wrote: post #144
guscost wrote: post #30

All human coronavirus diseases, including COVID-19, are colds. Always have been. This one from 1890 might have been caused by OC43: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889–1890_pandemic

I think this misunderstands what a "cold" is. Merely being a respiratory infection doesn't make something a cold. We call something a cold when it's 1) a mild upper respiratory infection that 2) is viral, but 3) is not specifically attributable. There are colds caused by influenza viruses, but because "the common cold is defined on the basis of its clinical presentation, a mild influenza infection can accurately be d…

Ah, so in other words, a cold is a syndrome.

Re: The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out

#170

Post by techrat »

gher-shyu3i wrote: post #101
WhompingWindows wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the tiniest creatures God in his wisdom put upon this earth" The writing is nice but flawed. Since War of the Worlds, we have advanced tremendously and no longer need intelligent design or creation myths to explain microorganisms. Reproducible, testable science demonstrates that in the primordial oceans, self-replicating molecules which were slightly better at self-replicating produced globules of matter capable of…

Science does not and will not be able to explain the origin of life. The statement still holds. It's very arrogant of us to assume otherwise.

Is the theory of gravity still something to be considered only a theory?
Post reply on HN