Why do medical personnel seem to get hit harder with this?
Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
41–50 of 55 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#42Why does almost everyone I talk to report having a flu like illness in January that tested negative for flu?
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#43I’d like to see the rumor that people can’t develop an immunity to this put to bed. Surely we have enough data at this point.
Is that the rumor? Last I had heard, the best science is essentially a guess, but the thinking is that people will develop some kind of immunity. We know this happens with other coronaviruses, and we have found antibodies in people who have recovered from the disease. I don't really know how we can definitively and ethically say "yes, people do develop some immunity to the virus" without deliberately attempting to reinfect people. Maybe an in vitro study would add to the evidence, but in vitro studies frequently don't scale up to whole humans.
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#44What are the current projections of test-kit availability vs. need for different regions? E.g., when do we expect that doctors can test everyone that suspect of having covid19?
We actually need more testing than that. Yes, we should be testing every suspected case, but we should also be mass testing everybody, or, at least random samples of everybody. We need to know where this virus is and is not and what the extent of asymptomatic carriers is. Information is the only weapon we currently have against this virus, and we have shockingly little.
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#45What is the sensitivity and specificity of the Coronavirus tests?
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#46Why don’t we get any information on if the shutdowns are working? Why is nyc still so bad?
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iirc, it's about ACE2 inhibitors used in many BP drugs: they mess up with ACE receptors and the virus has an easy way in.
So should we treat corona with the opposite of an ace inhibitor?
You're asking a mechanic what technique we should use in this brain surgery. As a mechanic, I'd say that a good wrench is a safe proven choice.
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#48The origin of the virus. The mainstream media assumes the virus was created in a natural process of mutation and jumping species, while there's this little paper [1] in Nature Medicine from 2015 where authors (virologists) confirm that they created a novel, human-transmisible coronavirus, based on a new virus they discovered among bats. Some of the authors of the paper are from Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and…
SARS-CoV2 shows no signs of genetic manipulation. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 The absence of a confirmed source does not put disproven conspiracy theories about its origin on the same footing as actual science.
That article is misdirection. It says that we have not been able to find anything in the genome that proves modern gene editing technology was used.
Well, so what? People aren't generally making that claim. The only thing disproven is a straw man.
Nothing in the article rules out the possibility of a lab creating the virus via conventional breeding, by passing the virus through human cells and/or by infecting cells simultaneously with human viruses. Nothing in the article rules out the possibility of a lab accident; indeed there have been several lab accidents in China that released dangerous viruses.
Look at this research:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18077725
It is 2008 research from the lab in Wuhan. They created a virus by combining SARS-CoV with HIV, targeting the human ACE2 molecule as receptor. These features match those of our current pandemic. (India reported the HIV link, and the use of ACE2 is widely known)
We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility. Note also that China is actively trying to point people away from this line of inquiry. We should resist that effort.
It's worth remembering that the very term "conspiracy theory" was first used to deflect attention from an actual conspiracy. It was a very successful psy-op, and it lives on to this day.
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#49A discussion of how regulatory structures contributed to problems in the US (lack of tests, number and variety of providers and services, and so forth).
Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This was created in a lab" has been the whisper of conspiracy-theorists. How likely is it? And a vial broke and it got released like in a Marvel comic?
Coronaviruses are actually created in labs as part of virology research (see my original link). It just seems that, in light of links that people posted, it did not escape/was released from the Wuhan lab - the strain that created the pandemic originated via natural processes.
Nah, see my comment above. Those links only tell us that we did not find evidence of the use modern gene-editing technology in the virus. It's misdirection with a straw man.
The lab was breeding viruses the old-fashioned way long before modern gene-editing technology was invented. Bat coronaviruses would be mixed with other viruses and repeatedly passed through human cells. That leaves no evidence in the genome. It looks just like natural selection.
The virus labs in China have had several other dangerous accidents that let viruses get out. Those previous accidents were gotten under control. With this one, we weren't so lucky. I think the lesson is clear: don't screw around making deadly viruses when your biohazard containment is substandard. Maybe just don't attempt it under any conditions.