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Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

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Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#81

Post by rich_sasha »

seppel wrote: post #71
_greim_ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't remember where I read it, but the idea was that using existing vaccine tech to knock out pretty much any virus is a major financial undertaking. Now multiply that by 100x, or however many common-cold-causing viruses exist. Keyword being existing . Future advances may change the landscape significantly, and not just for colds. For that, we need a stable society, competent governance, and investment in foundation…

> Can't remember where I read it, but the idea was that using existing vaccine tech to knock out pretty much any virus is a major financial undertaking. Now multiply that by 100x, or however many common-cold-causing viruses exist. It seems quite strange to me that this should be multiplicative. There should be some economics of scale, especially for viruses from the same family. (It is also quite strange to me that t…

It sounds like candidate vaccines were designed within weeks, or small few months. It is the testing that take a long time.

It would be cool if we could test a method, rather than a vaccine, and next time just whip up a vaccine with the tested method and apply it quickly.

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#82

Post by rich_sasha »

anotheryou wrote: post #57
rich_sasha wrote: post #11

If it does become endemic, the question is, what disease would it cause? The deadly Spanish and Hong Kong flu viruses didn't disappear, but rather evolved to cause yet-another seasonal flu after a few seasons. If the Covid virus does the same and causes yet-another-cold, who cares? Whereas if we're fighting Covid-the-disease for decades to come, well, God help us!

Can someone explain? It basically self selects for survivability because living people spread better? And if so, how does the old strand die out in our world?

I think roughly this, but it is a bit more complex.

Basically, mutations of the virus that cause it to spread more make it more likely for the strain to persist. Usually this means, virus becomes more benign, doesn’t kill people quickly and instead causes some minor illness, which gives the patient more opportunities to spread it.

But it’s not a given. It could for example mutate to become more deadly, but with a longer infectious period. This is what happened to myxomatosis in rabbits in Australia.

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#83

Post by jessaustin »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #70
skim_milk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a common misconception here. Common cold viruses are very frequent targets of research - not with the end goal of creating an actual vaccine for a specific cold virus but for covering blind spots in our insight and processes that can be weaponized to create a vaccine when an outbreak happens. I'd say that our system is working - developing several working vaccines for a novel virus in under a year is p…

I'm not aware of a single working Covid-19 vaccine, which ones would that be? There are promising candidates, sure, but I don't think any have already been shown to be both effective and safe, which I'd say is required for one to be working, on the timescales that are needed, and I wouldn't know how one might do that so quickly. The current forerunners might well not work out, though I hope at least one of them will…

The one constant in all reporting and discussion about potential SARS-CoV-2 vaccines is wishful thinking. I don't blame the pharma execs for that; talking up their stocks is their job. Everyone else, though, could do with a great deal more skepticism. We'll be lucky to have a commonly-available, somewhat-effective vaccine next year. If you had listened to the cheerleaders in June, you would be shocked to learn we don't have multiple such vaccines now.

Regular mask wearing and careful avoidance of problematic public situations is already more effective than any vaccine for this virus will ever be.

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#84

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

evan_ wrote: post #39
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon it's harder to get people to always practice safe sex than it is to wear masks.

people are having sex a lot less frequently than they are breathing air, though

Fortunately HIV isn't communicable by sharing air. Despite that truvada costs $2000/month[] in the us. And, unless I'm mistaken, it needs to be taken for life, or until a proper cure is found and hopefully that doesn't cost $2,000,000. Truvada costs more than the median us salary. I'd rather risk covid19. Death would come much faster than an agonising death from untreated aids.

[] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#85

Post by adventured »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #84
evan_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people are having sex a lot less frequently than they are breathing air, though

Fortunately HIV isn't communicable by sharing air. Despite that truvada costs $2000/month[] in the us. And, unless I'm mistaken, it needs to be taken for life, or until a proper cure is found and hopefully that doesn't cost $2,000,000. Truvada costs more than the median us salary. I'd rather risk covid19. Death would come much faster than an agonising death from untreated aids. [] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w…

> Truvada costs more than the median us salary.

While your points about the obscene cost of Truvada are spot on, your point about US incomes is not.

For 2019 the median US income was $36,000 [1] (not ~$20,000). The median US full-time income was around $52,000 [2]. The median family income was $86,011 [3] and the median household income was $68,703 [4].

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

[3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N

[4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#86

Post by Izkata »

alex_young wrote: post #9
Kiro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the general consensus that the virus would be eradicated if everyone wore a mask? Is it enough?

If that drops r below 1 long enough it would have to right? This seems especially hard to do though, since compliance would need to be nearly universal. You could potentially wipe out influenza and the common cold at the same time too though potentially.

In addition to the others, there'd be a long tail of few infections before it's actually wiped out, and during that period I expect too many people to just stop caring about masks for it to actually get eradicated.

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#87

Post by anoncake »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #36
pmoriarty wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"while it's deadlier than the flu, it's not that much deadlier" From just a week ago: "Covid deaths three times higher than flu and pneumonia" [1] And that's taking in to account all the lockdown, mask-wearing, and social distancing measures. Without those it'd be even worse. [1] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54463511

There's also the issue that cases of flu are remarkably low this year because of all the mask wearing, social distancing &c. Comparing apples to apples, coronaplague is about 10 times as deadly as annual flu.

> coronaplague

Go ahead, make people not take you seriously.

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#89

Post by anoncake »

lsllc wrote: post #75
wtetzner wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A major shift in thinking and priorites has to happen globally, on many different fronts to make humans less vulnerable to this kind of disease in the long-run. I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I don't think the current mitigations can reasonably be long-term solutions. Think about how the lockdowns have caused small businesses to close down, people to lose their jobs, etc. We count deaths caused by COVI…

Anecdotally: in my years on this planet, I've never known anyone who committed suicide (thankfully). However in the last 3 months, I've had both a friend and a relative kill themselves unexpectedly, both laid off since March, unable to work, financial issues, no hope and one just recently in an area just gone back into lockdown. It is very much easier for those of us who are able to WFH taking Zoom meetings in PJs wi…

We are killing people to save others. It's the trolley problem, except we don't even know how many we save and how many we kill.

Re: Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?

#90

Post by jjeaff »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #21
dehrmann wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand, fair. One the other, when have we seen life not adapt?

Mice can get through small holes, but they won't adapt to fit through pin holes.

I suppose the virus could adapt to spread more easily via surfaces. Or, it could become more virulent, such that fewer particles have to get through the mask to cause infection.
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