Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[DGuller]

By the time Covid hosts are dead, they stop being infectious some time ago.  There is definitely evolutionary pressure to not kill the host 5 seconds after exposure, but evolution doesn't care about what happens to you after your immune system kicks in enough to stop you infecting others.  To the extent that higher viral loads help the transmission during the initial stage of the infection, there may actually be an evolutionary pressure to make the virus more deadly.

[Berkut]

Also, what is the reproductive time frame of a virus anyway?

I can't imagine there could be much significant evolutionary pressure on a trait that doesn't manifest itself for a couple hundred generations later...

[Tamas]

Yeah I guess if this evolutionary "pressure" exists it's probably measured in decades.

But then again we can just strike lucky can't we?

I think it seems now almost certain that omicron has an easier time spreading/infecting than delta right? So the fact that at the very least it hasn't shown any signs of being more dangerous/lethal, and possibly it is less so, must be a good thing.

[Zanza]

The virus replicates billions of times in a single host within days and can mutate easily in these billions of replications. If there is a mutation with higher fitness, it will express itself fast. That's why we've seen so many variants and why even the globally dominant variant has already changed multiple times since the initial outbreak. It clearly does not take decades. The evolutionary pressure of the virus is much higher as its replication rate is on a completely different scale than humans or other higher organisms.

[alfred russel]

Also, what is the reproductive time frame of a virus anyway?

I can't imagine there could be much significant evolutionary pressure on a trait that doesn't manifest itself for a couple hundred generations later...

file this under, "tell me you don't understand evolution and natural selection without telling me you don't understand evolution and natural selection."

[Valmy]

I've read multiple virologists being annoyed that this myth exists.  They said that there is no evolutionary pressure to make the virus less lethal.

Ah, well inadvertently spreading misinformation is kind of my role as a clueless person.

[Sheilbh]

Genuine question - there was huge entrepreneurial state action around vaccines. Countries were spending money on buying big stocks to de-risk, helping set up manufacturing, there was a clear focus from regulators on being procedurally flexible/helpful to review vaccines and get them approved quickly.

Why hasn't that stuff happened with the anti-viral treatments? There's one from Merck (approved in the UK but not as far as I'm aware rolled out) that causes a 50% reduction in the number suffering severe cases, there's one from Pfizer where they had to stop the trial for ethical reasons because the results were so good. But it just feels like there's far less energy around the treatments, which seems crazy given that, especially in combination with people who have a high level of protection from the vaccines, it seems like they could make a huge difference.

[jimmy olsen]

This is the first really big wave that has put pressure on the health care system here in S. Korea.

7k cases a day now.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting from Professor Francois Balloux - an epidemiologist who I started following in the very first wave:

Prof Francois Balloux
@BallouxFrancois
Today's South African COVID-19 numbers are in, with a overall decrease in case numbers, despite a substantial increase in the number of tests performed, and a dramatic decrease in test positivity (-28% from yesterday; -45% from two days ago).
1/
The Omicron outbreak in SA with its extraordinary fast rise, and apparently nearly equally fast fall, is one of the most mind-boggling things I've ever seen during my career as an infectious disease epidemiologist.
2/

Again early days and it may turn into another Delta - but there's points here that this might be a little different.

[Zanza]

Genuine question - there was huge entrepreneurial state action around vaccines. Countries were spending money on buying big stocks to de-risk, helping set up manufacturing, there was a clear focus from regulators on being procedurally flexible/helpful to review vaccines and get them approved quickly.

Why hasn't that stuff happened with the anti-viral treatments? There's one from Merck (approved in the UK but not as far as I'm aware rolled out) that causes a 50% reduction in the number suffering severe cases, there's one from Pfizer where they had to stop the trial for ethical reasons because the results were so good. But it just feels like there's far less energy around the treatments, which seems crazy given that, especially in combination with people who have a high level of protection from the vaccines, it seems like they could make a huge difference.

I also find that baffling. The Merck medicine is apparently less effective than earlier thought, but still reduces risk of heavy cases by 30%. When the ICUs are overflowing, that seems to be a huge difference.  Our government bought a small number of this, but I don't get why there isn't more public debate about it.

[Grey Fox]

I think it's because the moment you have an effective treatment the pro-pandemics will grow in number and demand the end of all restrictions.

[Iormlund]

I was expecting a lot from monoclonal antibody research. But while Regeneron seems to work, it does have certain problems. It has to be administered early in the infection and suffers from the same weaknesses as the vaccines (mutations).

I suspect that vaccines have been deployed successfully so absurdly fast that viral treatment development just seem a failure in comparison.

[Syt]

Seems we'll have a 40k+ demonstration of anti-vaxxers every weekend now in Vienna, locking down parts of the Inner City and flooding public transport with non-mask wearing assholes.. On the plus side, the majority seem to travel in from outside of Vienna, so the city's inhabitants are, by and large, smarter than this.

Last weekend the FPÖ health speaker (she studied medicine, but quit at the very start of her residency) claimed that the ICUs are full not of Covid victims, but people suffering from vaccine side effects.

[Razgovory]

Seems we'll have a 40k+ demonstration of anti-vaxxers every weekend now in Vienna, locking down parts of the Inner City and flooding public transport with non-mask wearing assholes.. On the plus side, the majority seem to travel in from outside of Vienna, so the city's inhabitants are, by and large, smarter than this.

Last weekend the FPÖ health speaker (she studied medicine, but quit at the very start of her residency) claimed that the ICUs are full not of Covid victims, but people suffering from vaccine side effects.

Why does Warhammer attract these crazy assholes?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Seems we'll have a 40k+ demonstration of anti-vaxxers every weekend now in Vienna, locking down parts of the Inner City and flooding public transport with non-mask wearing assholes.. On the plus side, the majority seem to travel in from outside of Vienna, so the city's inhabitants are, by and large, smarter than this.

Last weekend the FPÖ health speaker (she studied medicine, but quit at the very start of her residency) claimed that the ICUs are full not of Covid victims, but people suffering from vaccine side effects.

Why does Warhammer attract these crazy assholes?