Another deadly virus is just around the corner: coronavirus, as predicted by evolution…
Since it was predicted, what had been done to prevent it?
We have all sorts of experts visiting TSZ, such as immunologists, population geneticists, biochemists, and the like…
What have they done in this field? How about ID?
What are you doing personally to protect yourself, and your family, from another possible epidemic?
I have lived through SARS, wearing full protective gear for many days. My wife was doing initial screening at the hospital entrance, while few months pregnant…
Is same, or worse, yet to come?
Ignoring it seems to work for me!
What’s the evidence that coronavirus has evolved?
Mining coronavirus genomes for clues to the outbreak’s origins
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/mining-coronavirus-genomes-clues-outbreak-s-origins
How does ID determine whether it was designed?
The hysteria on the news, or all together?
I saw it in the literature from at least 2015-2016, maybe even older…
Is it the same strain?
Signature in the cell
Rumor had it escaped or was released from a secret lab, perfect time for ID to show its value . All hat and no cattle?
I’m doing nothing. I think it will start to reverse in the spring, like many of the illnesses that surf around in cold, wet weather where we also huddle unhygienically indoors. It may then take off in S America, Australasia etc. Its mortality seems comparable to that of flu, an annual scourge of the elderly and compromised that doesn’t generate a comparable hysteria.
If it was designed, as a ‘weapon’, it’s a pretty shit one.
Interesting one for the anti-vaxxers though. Suppose a vaccine were developed. Vaccinate your kids, or let ’em take their chances?
I get offered a flu vaccination each year but I don’t take it. Over the five years since it was offered, I’ve caught flu a couple of times whereas friends who have the vaccination end up with mild flu and then catch the new strain anyway. Ryanair seems to be the chief culprit in spreading colds and flu.
I’ve certainly never bothered with flu vaccine, though I am moving inexorably into the danger zone of ‘elderly’ 🤣
I haven’t had ‘flu since 1988, when I was working in London and confined with the hordes in the Tube. I tend to get a mild cold perhaps once in 2 years, while my wife is off her feet 2-3 times a year. So I’m backing my immune system!
Not what I hear. People are being confused by being told that flu is a much bigger threat. Yes, currently, but only because the flu is much more widespread right now. Chances of dying from flu if infected are about 1/2,000.
The best estimate of the chances of dying if infected by Covid-19 coronavirus is about 2%. That’s 40x higher. At that rate if it affects 1/3 of the human population it will kill over 40,000,000 people.
SARS was even more lethal than that — about 10% chance of dying. But it was much worse at spreading than either coronavirus or regular flu. So it never went pandemic.
Joe Felsenstein,
Yes, it’s hard at this stage to be definitive. People with the virus may not have died yet. Flu stats are much more reliable because it’s a common, annual issue with more data.
Mortality with coronavirus seems to vary with locality – outside of Hubei province, the death rate is quoted at 0.4%, which I think is comparable to flu’s 0.13%, given sample-size effects.
The disparity between Hubei and elsewhere in mortality (2.9% vs 0.4%) set me to thinking about possible causes. It may be that there is an age-related differential in transmission at the epicentre. Or, as a respiratory illness, it may be related to air quality. Wuhan is currently sitting at 104, ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’ for the PM2.5 index, with a 48-hour peak 50% higher. Manchester, for comparison, is at 8 – though the rain probably helps!
Allan Miller,
Well, a couple of things. There are probably a lot more people who got infected, who didn’t show many signs, if any, so they never got reported, they just stayed at home-which would definitely lower the fatality rate.
Secondly, kids seem to be the least affected by it oddly. It seems less developed immune systems maybe are better?
Thirdly, I think several things could be happening in Wuhan. Health care quality is certainly a factor. It also is possible that people get infected more than once, with the second time being worse-that might be what happened to the health care workers. Its true air quality is not great, and there are a LOT of smokers in that group.
I agree, I think the warmer weather will take care of a lot of it. I am crossing my fingers. I could tell you a lot more, but….
I doubt it
How so.?
Should apply to both, no?
What if not?
How’s it determined deaths were due to coronavirus ? By symptoms alone?
Then I’m wrong. But it’s certainly the pattern for most related viruses. There’s probably no single cause, but a summer combination of reduced virus survival, less time huddled together, open windows, enhanced vitamin D (possibly C too; more fresh produce) and enhanced blood flow do seem to restrict this family of illnesses mostly to winter.
What happened to SARS? Is that virus still around?
Allan Miller,
Doesn’t the virus also survive longer in the cold because the shell stays harder, and as it warms up it breaks easier? I read about some guy who made a mask covered in salt. Apparently the crystals break the shell of the virus and kills it
That I don’t know. My guess would be that higher temperatures reduce the ‘half-life’ of viral DNA/RNA, particularly where the genome is single stranded, so infectivity falls off on a steeper curve.
Allan Miller,
I don’t remember where I read it, but that was the explanation given for why they don’t last as long in the summer. The shell breaks easier.
better safe than sorry i think
Good point!
What about freezing winters’ effect on the viruses? Could it apply?
Good question!
It seems coronavirus is not new but could the reemerged one be different? More deadly, perhaps?
I’ve heard that when H1N1 was around, some companies worked on the vaccine but I have not heard anything since then…
How about strengthening one’s immune system as a prevention?
Of course
Really? I had spend many days wearing full gear, fit tested masks, face shields and, or goggles…
Was that an over-reaction?
People who didn’t follow this procedure died; i.e. front-line docs and nurses…
So the question still remains, no? What has been done by both?
Isn’t Swamidass an immunologist?
If J-Mac was designed, he was designed as a joke.
You mean a DNA joke? 😉
Funny, but I’m known to be sort of a clown…
I can’t seem to shake if off since the elementary school… I guess I was too bored ;-P
It must be genetic because my son is the same… lol
But, hey! Life is too short to spend it being bored, angry or dull… and you only got one, I presume… 😉
To be more precise SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
So, coronavirus meets the criteria of SARS and it is referred to as COVID-19 because it shares 80% of its genome with the SARS virus from 2003…
Lab samples of RNA need to be stored at -20c or lower*** to avoid degradation. So very low temperatures could conceivably help them, though it’s hard to see how people would pick frozen virus up.
*** Correction – -80C for RNA, -20C for a copy stored in complementary DNA.
Thanks. So, the notion that cold winters kill viruses is just a fable, I assume?
J-Mac,
Yes, my understanding was also the same, the cold can let the virus survive for a long time out in the open, but when its warmer you can’t contract it from touching surfaces as easily.
I also happen to be in quarantine, so …
Seems to me, as a non-epidemiologist, that this is more about transmission & spread, i.e. extension and connection (contact), than it is about either “evolution” or “ID.”
Thus to say, as a competent and balanced scientist like Joe Felsenstein above, that “it was much worse at spreading”, our general human concern currently, for our own present and near future health, is not “evolution vs. ID.” It is surely rather about this virus spreading rather quickly out across the planet, as it almost surely looks to me, as an amateur, non-natural scientist, a mere common human being, to be doing.
Our response to it is a different issue than what was (with strangeness indicators: “wearing full protective gear for many days”; that was very rare for “most normal people” during SARS) asked in the OP.
Academic biological “mutations” are one thing on a “strictly scientific” level. Exposure on a personal life level to virus even with a low mortality rate at current levels is potentially something “meaningful” in a different way. Are there such thing as meaningful mutations?
It is not alive (or is it?). It is just a virus, that can kill. May the Lord of life be with us!
“It’s all fun and games until Italy cancels Carnavale.” – recent tweet
More than 200 cruise ship visits to Japan cancelled over coronavirus.
Coronavirus plunge wipes more than $200 billion from Big Tech stocks
this is what we know… for now…
Coronavirus challenges $45 billion cruise industry…
Gregory,
The two issues with a contagious disease, is how well it spreads and how lethal it is. Total lethalness and it will die with the hosts, Totally benign and it doesn’t matter if it spreads around the globe. I guess there must be an optimum of lethalness and ability to spread that is a worst case.
A third thing is carriers… I’ll come in again.
There’ always a silver lining!
What’s so abnormal about it?
Have you even been to a hospital or a hospital lab?
Maybe you didn’t have to visit any health facilities during the SARS outbreak…
Doesn’t that entity also reign supreme over death?
through vaccination?
Sure 🙂
Gregory,
I don’t think you fully grasped the intent of this OP…
Thanks. I’m going to ask a microbiologist when I see him… He loves to talk about that stuff … 😉
I’m doing prevention, if anybody cares:
Garlic, zinc, good sleep, sun exposure, vit D, airing my house regularly, all blinds are open during the day, exercise-skiing, walks
frequent hand washing…
Fasting once a week and intermittent fasting…
BTW: Coca Cola treatments for stomach flu and specific GI issues… I can’t patent it, can I ??? 😉
It’s complicated, I think. Freezing winters also affect our movement patterns and clustering, which can have either a positive or a negative effect on infection. But viruses are quite ‘dry’, so I don’t think they will be particularly affected by freezing. Freezing winters kill insect pests, and might have an effect on bacteria (though I freeze my sourdough culture with little effect!) but I don’t think viruses are too bothered.
Not sure that fasting would help.
Vitamin C is useful – not that I’m a fan of food-faddiness, or a vit-C nut like Linus Pauling, but fresh produce with minimal processing is generally preferable, since C is reduced by cooking and storage. C helps the immune system, and improves the epithelial barrier. Virus survives less well on skin than on tissue or face-mask, surprisingly.
You think? You don’t really know…
What about transfer and things like that people wearing gloves not touching their faces as much?
Aren’t some viruses, like west nile, transferred by mosquitoes?
Have you ever heard of autophagy?
Sure! I forgot about that but it’s because my wife is “obsessed with it”… We consume it in so many forms of food and drink that I don’t even have to think about it anymore 🙂
Do you know why?