Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Iormlund]

I think it was Iorm, I believe he mentioned there were veterinary vaccines for some types of coronavirus that researchers were taking as reference for the development of a vaccine for Covid 19.

I was quoting the guy who's leading the vaccine research effort in Spain. He said that if we had finished a recombinant vaccine for SARS back in the day, we would have needed maybe 2 months to change the targeted protein and that's it.

[The Brain]

I presumed there are no cold vaccines because a) it's so rare for a cold to kill anyone or make them seriously ill, that it's not worth the time and effort to develop one, and/or b) the 'cold' IIRC is actually a huge number of unrelated viruses, so developing vaccines against most or all would be a monumental effort.

Yeah the yearly cold is a bewildering soup of different viruses. A third of colds don't even have a known underlying cause. Making a vaccine is therefore technically difficult plus it's not debilitating enough to warrant a serious effort. Because nothing focuses the mind like an impending hanging there are now vaccines that have been injected into volunteers but they have to be observed for a time to see if they are effective and nobody keels over dead. I bet the Chinese will fast track their candidate by injecting it into say, Uighurs then infecting the test subjects with the virus and just observe if it works. Informed consent is for weaklings.

My fear is actually that the vaccine will turn out to be only 50% effective at preventing infection hence the virus will just smoulder on.

Is unit 731 still in operation btw?

In China/Mandchuria or in Japan?

Anywhere would be disturbing.

[Sheilbh]

Not getting much better from a higher angle.

Social distancing makes it look like a low budget authoritarian regime though. Needs more extras.

It really shows the benefit of taking a shot from low-down though, it looks far more crowded and threatening

[The Larch]

I think it was Iorm, I believe he mentioned there were veterinary vaccines for some types of coronavirus that researchers were taking as reference for the development of a vaccine for Covid 19.

I was quoting the guy who's leading the vaccine research effort in Spain. He said that if we had finished a recombinant vaccine for SARS back in the day, we would have needed maybe 2 months to change the targeted protein and that's it.

That was because SARS was over so soon that a vaccine was not fully developed when it blew over so research on it was abandoned, right?

[Iormlund]

That was because SARS was over so soon that a vaccine was not fully developed when it blew over so research on it was abandoned, right?

Yep.

[Duque de Bragança]

I presumed there are no cold vaccines because a) it's so rare for a cold to kill anyone or make them seriously ill, that it's not worth the time and effort to develop one, and/or b) the 'cold' IIRC is actually a huge number of unrelated viruses, so developing vaccines against most or all would be a monumental effort.

Yeah the yearly cold is a bewildering soup of different viruses. A third of colds don't even have a known underlying cause. Making a vaccine is therefore technically difficult plus it's not debilitating enough to warrant a serious effort. Because nothing focuses the mind like an impending hanging there are now vaccines that have been injected into volunteers but they have to be observed for a time to see if they are effective and nobody keels over dead. I bet the Chinese will fast track their candidate by injecting it into say, Uighurs then infecting the test subjects with the virus and just observe if it works. Informed consent is for weaklings.

My fear is actually that the vaccine will turn out to be only 50% effective at preventing infection hence the virus will just smoulder on.

Is unit 731 still in operation btw?

In China/Mandchuria or in Japan?

Anywhere would be disturbing.

What about Wuhan? 

[The Brain]

I presumed there are no cold vaccines because a) it's so rare for a cold to kill anyone or make them seriously ill, that it's not worth the time and effort to develop one, and/or b) the 'cold' IIRC is actually a huge number of unrelated viruses, so developing vaccines against most or all would be a monumental effort.

Yeah the yearly cold is a bewildering soup of different viruses. A third of colds don't even have a known underlying cause. Making a vaccine is therefore technically difficult plus it's not debilitating enough to warrant a serious effort. Because nothing focuses the mind like an impending hanging there are now vaccines that have been injected into volunteers but they have to be observed for a time to see if they are effective and nobody keels over dead. I bet the Chinese will fast track their candidate by injecting it into say, Uighurs then infecting the test subjects with the virus and just observe if it works. Informed consent is for weaklings.

My fear is actually that the vaccine will turn out to be only 50% effective at preventing infection hence the virus will just smoulder on.

Is unit 731 still in operation btw?

In China/Mandchuria or in Japan?

Anywhere would be disturbing.

What about Wuhan? 

Why, what do you know?

[Sheilbh]

Lockdown extended for three weeks (at least).

Looking at UK slides - especially hospital data (they've stopped providing ICU data which is annoying) and it definitely looks like we're now on a downward slope on the leading indicator:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/879824/COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides_-_16_04_2020.pdf

For the last few days that number's gone down 2%, 1% and 3%. Two weeks ago it was increasing at a rate of about 10%, I think last week it looked flatter but was still going up, now it definitely looks like it's declining. Of course it's going to take a while for that to filter through.

Edit: Also if the trend continues it looks like this'll be the first time we're under 4,000 hospitalised in London since March.

Edit: Incidentally today, again, there's been a big point made of the fact that hospitals are still open for other emergencies and people shouldn't stay at home if they need medical help because they don't want to cause pressure or feel the hospital is unsafe. Weirdly on a national level the NHS has four time free beds as normal. I wonder how much of an issue this is - it must be a real problem the number of times different people are re-iterating the NHS is still open

[Josquius]

Rumours are circulating that some NHS trusts are explicitly instructing doctors not to put corona as a cause of death

Missing out care homes is particularly horrid. There's one in my home town which has seen at least a dozen deaths.

Edit: Incidentally today, again, there's been a big point made of the fact that hospitals are still open for other emergencies and people shouldn't stay at home if they need medical help because they don't want to cause pressure or feel the hospital is unsafe. Weirdly on a national level the NHS has four time free beds as normal. I wonder how much of an issue this is - it must be a real problem the number of times different people are re-iterating the NHS is still open

I do wonder whether we can make some gains out of this situation when its done in reducing the amount of people going to A+E with small cuts or their GP with a slight cold.

[Syt]

Dr Oz on Hannity: "Schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3%, in terms of total mortality. Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but that might be a trade-off some folks would consider."

[Tonitrus]

And who is the guy who looks pretty bad on camera?

The head of the NHS? Not sure.
[/quote]

Matt Hancock, the health secretary.
[/quote]

He must have been one of a few...I've seen similar photos with the Prince up there too.

[Valmy]

Dr Oz on Hannity: "Schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3%, in terms of total mortality. Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but that might be a trade-off some folks would consider."

How is that appetizing? We we planning on eating those 2% to 3%?

In any case there is so little time left in the school year it doesn't seem worth it.

[celedhring]

Dr Oz on Hannity: "Schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3%, in terms of total mortality. Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but that might be a trade-off some folks would consider."

How is that appetizing? We we planning on eating those 2% to 3%?

In any case there is so little time left in the school year it doesn't seem worth it.

I guess he thinks Soylent Green is a policy treatise and not a dystopian movie?

[MadImmortalMan]

Rumours are circulating that some NHS trusts are explicitly instructing doctors not to put corona as a cause of death

In the beginning, Wuhan had a strange spike in pneumonia...


The opposite seems to be happening in the US. If you get stabbed in the face and bleed out, but test positive for the virus, your death will be added to the tally for Xijinpingwinniethepoohwuhanflu.

[Sheilbh]

Thursday night claps are getting louder round me - one neighbour can ululate, one of the kids now has a tambourine and cars are joining in