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Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#61

Post by GregarianChild »

bredren wrote: post #55
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be some very special political reason for keeping borders with UK open, so even Fauci seem to approve it. I wonder what is it?

Any new precedent for completely closing borders between developed nations for any reason is bad. Because it creates a “we did this before.” Even if the scale or details of circumstance are different—such as Clinton’s pardoning of his brother in minimizing Trump’s choices. Another reason is exceptions cause outrage. And there may be many instances of diplomatic or other government travel that needs to happen or happe…

Could you elaborate by which moral principle you come to the conclusion that a vague slippery slope and even more vague outrage is more important than stopping a pandemic with hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths?

Most moral systems of my acquantance are based on a hierachy of values that puts saving human lives over just about anything.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#62

Post by irq11 »

Jabbles wrote: post #38
irq11 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not remotely clear that this strain is easier to transmit. It’s entirely hypothesis and speculation. We have seen strains quickly accelerate because of founder effect several times in 2020, and particular strains dominate in particular regions. The experimental studies that are needed to confirm a claim of evolutionary advantage have not been done, and the observational evidence is weak. Those who would panic ab…

It is a hypothesis with a small prior, yes. But when considering the data - that the strain has grown faster than all others in the UK at the time - the likelihood becomes significant. Not certain, but not worthy of your casual dismissal. You dismiss their observational evidence as weak, but offer no further analysis. Please do so.

“Hypothesis with a small prior” is a fancy way of saying “speculation”.

There are literally dozens of strains on nextstrain that have rapidly grown to be the predominant strain in a region. That alone is not a strong indication of anything other than founder effect.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#63

Post by nickthemagicman »

GregarianChild wrote: post #49
sigil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could we be doing differently beyond what we already should be doing? Are you referring to things like border closing?

Copy Taiwan. No country has been dealing better with Covid than Taiwan. No lockdown, and > 200 days without new Covid case [1]. Taipei had daily direct flights from Wuhan, and the Diamond Princess mooring near Taipei. They told the world early on [2] how they did it. Summary: Border closure, contract tracing, testing and controlled quarantine for those testing positive . It's worth reading [2] to realise how swiftly,…

So essentially big brother the country for a disease where the average case fatality is a person who is 80 years old with 2 co-morbidities.

Where under 55 years old age group (80% of the population) had more deaths by car accident than Covid deaths.

Doesn't sound rational to me.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#64

Post by vixen99 »

jtxx wrote: post #47
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be some very special political reason for keeping borders with UK open, so even Fauci seem to approve it. I wonder what is it?

I’ve been thinking about this as well, they also kept their borders open to US citizens despite most countries closing them. Perhaps Brexit closing trade doors with the EU could be resulting in a stronger relationship between the US & UK?

Britain has closed one trade door but opened a new one with the EU. Specifically they have reached a “zero tariff-zero quota deal”. Not ratified by the British Parliament but no one supposes this won't be done in the next few days before the final break with the EU on the 31st December.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#65

Post by qwerty1234599 »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #51
fpgaminer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAV: So, when someone gets visibly sick, they tend to get isolated from other people. That makes it more difficult for the virus to spread. So over time there's a slight advantage to variations of a virus that don't make as many people sick. I'm sure there are other factors, but that's a big one. So most viruses tend to harm the host less over time. We saw the opposite effect during the Spanish Flu. As I recall at…

> But COVID-19 also has a _very_ large incidence of asymptomatic transmission Does it? Meta-analysis concluding secondary attack rate in households from asymptomatic transmission around 0.7%. > Household secondary attack rates were increased from symptomatic index cases (18.0%; 95% CI, 14.2%-22.1%) than from asymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI, 0%-4.9%) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle.…

Yes it does. The disease would have been eradicated a long time ago if it didn't have asymptomatic transmission. (see: SARS and MERS)

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#66

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

qwerty1234599 wrote: post #65
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But COVID-19 also has a _very_ large incidence of asymptomatic transmission Does it? Meta-analysis concluding secondary attack rate in households from asymptomatic transmission around 0.7%. > Household secondary attack rates were increased from symptomatic index cases (18.0%; 95% CI, 14.2%-22.1%) than from asymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI, 0%-4.9%) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle.…

Yes it does. The disease would have been eradicated a long time ago if it didn't have asymptomatic transmission. (see: SARS and MERS)

So you're saying the studies are all wrong based on your a priori reasoning that interventions so far have failed?

Make a convincing study to disprove them.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#67

Post by nickthemagicman »

ALittleLight wrote: post #27
sigil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could we be doing differently beyond what we already should be doing? Are you referring to things like border closing?

I feel we (US) should absolutely be closing the border to the UK, Japan, Italy and whoever else has the new strain/variant. Why would we wait on this when the evidence suggests the new version is more infectious?

The average case fatality is a person who is 80 years old with 2 co-morbidities.

The under 55 years old age group (80% of the population) has on average more deaths by car accident than Covid deaths.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#68

Post by rolph »

yread wrote: post #52
rolph wrote: post #2

Mutation is simply a loaded term for variation, nothing horrible or shocking is happening. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25538675 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

Note that here we're not talking about a single mutation but 17 non-synonymous (they change the protein) mutations with 3-4 with known effects on the interactions of the resulting proteins

yes, and this is also not a surpise, this is part of the character of this virus, the sequence is unstable due to size and due to RNA instability.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#69

Post by prox »

Threeve303 wrote: post #46

What happens if the world gets into a situation where the virus mutates rapidly and we find the vaccines becoming less effective? We assume the drug companies will be able to adapt the vaccine quickly to the new variants. If this happens then it creates a few problems.. One problem is having to continuously distribute a new vaccine to people indefinitely. Another problem is only certain countries are capable of manuf…

The virus mutates all of the time. Each time it enters a cell and then makes copies of itself. Sofar the consensus seem to be the mRNA vaccines should proof effective.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#70

Post by hh3k0 »

bob33212 wrote: post #59
Threeve303 wrote: post #46

What happens if the world gets into a situation where the virus mutates rapidly and we find the vaccines becoming less effective? We assume the drug companies will be able to adapt the vaccine quickly to the new variants. If this happens then it creates a few problems.. One problem is having to continuously distribute a new vaccine to people indefinitely. Another problem is only certain countries are capable of manuf…

Mutations that spread quicker are also less deadly.

That is a good rule of thumb, however, by no means a tautology.
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