SARS was far less easy to infect other people. Also, you could only spread the virus if you showed symptoms, unlike COVID. There's a high percentage of COVID asymptomatic infected people who have helped community spread. COVID is a total different ball game vs SARS.
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COVID/Coronavirus non-political DISCUSSION thread
- Thread starter hawkeye_a
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SARS was far less easy to infect other people. Also, you could only spread the virus if you showed symptoms, unlike COVID. There's a high percentage of COVID asymptomatic infected people who have helped community spread. COVID is a total different ball game vs SARS.
And that's why it is so dangerous, in terms of damage to a wide population. It can spread like wildfire amongst asymptomatic people and make the environment extremely dangerous for those unlucky enough to be vulnerable (who aren't just old people, it appears to affect different people in random ways).
Thanks for that (and everyone else who also commented on my musings). I should have done a bit of searching before posting. I knew I had read up a fair bit on it back in the early days, but had forgotten a lot.
One other thing-I had a conversation with a really good friend of mine (use to be one of my best friends, but life has kept us both busy enough that we just don't talk that often anymore). He's a smart guy with a PhD in bioinformatics, about to start his 4th year in med school, and was just offered a postdoc at Los Alamos National Labs that starts right after he finishes med school next spring (I'm digressing, but they apparently just got a brand new LECO GCxGC-TOF-MS that they have no idea how to interpret the data from, and I'm at least cursorily familiar with the older LECO GC-TOFs).
In any case, I talked to him a fair bit probably back in May about how the spike protein on SARS-CoV-2 is different enough from SARS-CoV-1 that a lot known prior doesn't apply. None the less, he made the comment that it was a real shame that research interest in SARS-CoV-1 was basically dead after 2005 or so, when a lot of progress had really been made up to that point. Fields like bioinformatics have grown by leaps and bounds even in the last 10 years (since I first heard the term), and if research had continued even a bit on SARS using tools available now, his opinion was that we might have been leaps and bounds ahead of where we are now with COVID. It wouldn't be directly transferable by any means, but it would be a more solid start than we had by basically having to pick up serious research on coronaviruses where it left off.
Another idle musing, though, while I'm trying to get to sleep but am wide awake. Seasonal coronaviruses are really not a big deal (unless you have a lot of other stuff going on that makes you susceptible to any upper respiratory infection). Given that I've gone my entire life usually having 2-3 colds a year(I actually missed the one I usually have in March/early April-probably thanks to all the other infection control stuff going on) I have no doubt that I've had at least one if not all of the common coronaviruses at some point or another. If someone has a cold, at least for a normally healthy person, do what you need to do to treat the symptoms, drink a lot of water, rest, and you'll be fine in a week or so. It's irrelevant most of the time whether it's coronavirus, rhinovirus, or something else. My fiancée (a pediatric nurse) says that they DO screen when kids do end up in the hospital from one, but it's primarily because some of their rooms are double and they want to be sure they're not putting two different viruses in the same room.
MERS was a really, really terrible coronavirus disease, but also from a virus standpoint was a "bad" virus in that it had such a high mortality rate. A virus that kills its host too fast or at too high of a rate can't sustain itself, so MERS went away. SARS also was less than perfect in that it didn't spread as easily, so went away. SARS-CoV-2 has seemed to hit the "magic spot" of easy transmission, not so deadly that it kills too many of its hosts (I say that not to downplay it, but just to say even though it's really, really bad most people who have it do live), and also can spread without showing symptoms. This is pure speculation on my part, but for all we know the bat-human jump with these coronaviruses may be a regular thing-just that most of them either never take hold or are so similar to other seasonal ones that we don't care.
As I said, that's just my trying to sleep, stream of conscious rambling as this thing starts to take over the US again.
On a positive point, though, Kentucky's mask mandate has been in place about 17 days now (give or take a few), and so far for this week daily cases are trending somewhat lower than they were this time last week. It's too early to tell if that's indicative of an overall trend or if it's just a week-to-week anomoly or reporting lab, but the early signs are encouraging. 14 days seems to be the "magic number" (even though I know it can be a lot shorter or possibly a little longer) of seeing if a new measure is actually working.
I heard that the bat (or whatever)/human jump is not the full story - it looks more like it is a hybrid of TWO different coronaviruses.
This doesn't mean "OMG it was engineered!", but it's not a simple straightforward species jump. It's mutated further than that. Whether that was a natural occurrence (it DOES happen from what I heard) or not doesn't really matter. It is what it is, we need to deal with it. Why it happened isn't really relevant as far as fighting it goes.
This doesn't mean "OMG it was engineered!", but it's not a simple straightforward species jump. It's mutated further than that. Whether that was a natural occurrence (it DOES happen from what I heard) or not doesn't really matter. It is what it is, we need to deal with it. Why it happened isn't really relevant as far as fighting it goes.
One thing I did not realize is how fast the infection can apparently work (unless I have a mis-impression) a matter of a couple of days, not 5-7 days when I think of the common cold. Can anyone say how fast flu develops in comparison?
I believe normal flu is contagious for some days before symptoms develop as well.
Probably not AS contagious because you won't be sneezing and coughing to propel droplets, but likely still contagious via hand contact, kissing, etc.
Companies working on a vaccine and are confident they will be a success, are mass producing them now. Rather than waiting until after everything has been passed safe to start mass producing. It greatly speeds things up. The UK are doing this, so has nothing to do with the US.
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There is always a chance that a vaccine released early without testing could cause potential harm.
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Yes, this wouldn't be something that a company would normally do, as ramping production is expensive on something that may not work.
At the same time, once a vaccine is approved, it will be a big benefit to the world to already have an established supply chain without having to wait another couple of months for all of that to happen.
I expect that the priorities on order of vaccination will be front line workers, followed by high risk, followed by everyone else. Even having enough initial supply to cover healthcare workers would be a HUGE benefit.
Multiple successful vaccines are a good thing, too, since there's less of a chance of disruption in the supply change. That's not unprecedented-there were two Polio vaccines released with a few years of each other. The Salk vaccine was(is) more effective, but the oral Sabin vaccine was used a lot initially in first world countries, and is still used extensively in mass-vaccination campaigns in 3rd world countries for both its lower cost, and more importantly how easy it is to administer. My mom still talks about how they all received the oral vaccine when she was in elementary school, and they gave it to them by putting a drop on a sugar cube. It works well also by just dropping it directly in someone's mouth.
Yeah, because of the enormous worldwide damage covid19 is doing, more money & effort than ever before is being thrown at it.
Yep-I haven't seen that anywhere.
Fast-tracked testing is a different story from "no testing."
There's always the possibility that it could show issues years down the road, but at the same time now we have good evidence that even "recovered" COVID patients will likely also have long lasting serious issues.
My general concern moving forward when we reach the ‘fall season’ for others, is what our local media is referring to as a ‘super storm‘, where C-19 combines with some other type of respiratory illness, which One infectious disease doctor in my state (Who has been completely accurate with his podcasts throughout this term) said it could be brutal to overcome, no matter what your age, however; even more detrimental if you already have other history of issues with asthma, heart problems, ect.
And then add in if it mutates into a different strain where it could be lethal given the unknowns once schools are in session, these next few months will be very ‘telling‘ in a lot of ways.
And then add in if it mutates into a different strain where it could be lethal given the unknowns once schools are in session, these next few months will be very ‘telling‘ in a lot of ways.
Agreed, this coming fall and winter months when we normally see an increase in norovirus, influenza, seasonal colds, and pneumonias.
Combined that with the C19 and we will will definitely have more people looking ill than ever before.
I am getting the flu & pneumonia vaccine as soon as it comes out.
Unmasked! The effect of face masks on the spread of COVID-19
Confronted with a novel, aggressive coronavirus, Germany implemented measures to reduce its spread since March 2020. Requiring people to wear face masks in public places has, however, been a subject of controversy and isolating the effect of mask-wearing on the spread of COVID-19 is not simple...
voxeu.org
Interesting read.
Heart issue ends season for Red Sox's Rodriguez
Red Sox lefty Eduardo Rodriguez won't pitch this season after being diagnosed with heart inflammation that team doctors believe was caused by the pitcher's battle with the coronavirus.
A 27 yr old, pro baseball pitcher, now career is in trouble.
But coronavirus doesn't affect young, healthy people.....Heart issue ends season for Red Sox's Rodriguez
Red Sox lefty Eduardo Rodriguez won't pitch this season after being diagnosed with heart inflammation that team doctors believe was caused by the pitcher's battle with the coronavirus.www.espn.com
A 27 yr old, pro baseball pitcher, now career is in trouble.
I don't think young people are going to see that article, but even if they do I don't think they're going to stop living normally. I don't know, but that's just a guess...
Maybe some young people are careful. I don't know any, but it just depends on the person. Personal choice.
I follow the rules. Social distance from strangers, etc
I also have a really cool mask. Looks awesome
I follow the rules. Social distance from strangers, etc
I also have a really cool mask. Looks awesome
No, you're not too good with sarcasm. We all know young & healthy people can get the virus. So I don't don't need you of all people to point anything out to me.
But did you know there are asymptomatic cases amongst young people, or did you just assume all young people get sick? That's the real question...