Genetic mutation study finds new coronavirus spread swiftly in late 2019

[stevenl]

1 hour ago, Krataiboy said:

Or maybe because of it.

No, in that case it would be all over, and not spreading the way it has now, more or less from east to west.

[DrTuner]

Here:

 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v2.full.pdf

 

That is exactly what I suspected what might have happened in Thailand. The D614G started in EU after the original strain had gone through Asia.

 

[JCP108]

I was in the U.S. until the beginning of February. Was living in a small town with a large university (50k students) with a large percentage of students who travel and many to and from China. In late December, I got sick with upper respiratory symptoms first that then moved into my lungs. I had the most productive cough ever in my entire life. Coughing up tons of thick <deleted>. Was getting worse and worse and went to the MD in middle of January and was diagnosed with pneumonia for first time in my life. Took supportive treatment and two antibiotics (I know not effective against viruses)...and, recovered. 

[Krataiboy]

1 hour ago, Krataiboy said:

"A major challenge to defeating viruses is that a vaccine or drug might no longer be effective if the virus has mutated," Balloux said. 

 

You can't help laughing. We can't even find a cure for the corona viruses which cause the common cold, let alone their nasty big brother who gives us COVID 19.

 

Why? Because viruses have an inconvenient habit of mutating. This explains why flu shots either stop working or become less effective over time. 

 

All the more reason not to wait for Big Pharma to rush to our rescue with their latest batch of expensive snake oil.

 

It's time to lift the lock-down, end the curfew and bin the social distancing for everyone except the vulnerable elderly. We need fresh air, and exercise, and social interaction for mental as well as physical health.

 

Mixing with our fellow humans once more is also the best way to boost immune systems weakened by months of enforced isolation. This will improve our chances - already very high unless we are elderly - of repelling or shaking off the virus with serious harm.

 

The "old normal" beats any vaccine.

 

 

 

 

 

Penultimate line should, of course, read "without serious harm". 

 

Sorry.

[Brigand]

I too think I could have caught it early November as I distinctly remember the flu symptoms I had, as they were a little different to what is normal for me ... high fever, dry cough and difficulty swallowing but the symptoms only lasted like about 4-5 days and then done. I just passed it off as a seasonal flu episode with a swift recovery. However, the truth is starting to out about this virus and they are tracing it (and cases) back to then and earlier plus I'd wager a bunch of money it was circling way before any government knew about it and it would have taken a while to get past China's lies and disinformation/cover up.

 

With the human population increasing at roughly a conservative figure of 150k a day, which sounds a lot as the population after WW1 was only about 2 billion, then the math is about right to what we have now a hundred years later ... but this is not sustainable with ever larger amounts of people being crammed together and our actions resulting in releasing all sort of stuff like this, then we can expect a lot more of these viruses in the future and nature will eventually cull us down to size. As for eradicating disease we have only managed that with small pox and we still keep lots of samples of that hanging around for further study ... plus it's more profitable to do anything else other than cure them and seasonal vaccine to something like this one is a big money-spinner for big pharma. Population control and the fact that there are simply too many people on the planet is the elephant in the room which no environmentalist or greenie-teenie warrior wants to accept, confront or even talk about. 7-8 billion people on the planet and they all want/aspire to a western style culture lifestyle with a job in the city, a car, a house/apartment, holidays each year, presents/festivals, social security with ever expanding GDP ... and on and on. No way! Total La-La Land. Everyone should go watch Micheal Moore's Planet of the Humans on YouTube as it will open your eyes to what's really going on and he was (until he called out the lefty eco bandwagon) the darling of the left.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Brigand
Typos + extra info

[JCP108]

9 minutes ago, Brigand said:

 

 

With the human population increasing at roughly a conservative figure of 150k a day, which sounds a lot as the population after WW1 was only about 2 billion, then the math is about right to what we have now a hundred years later ... but this is not sustainable with ever larger amounts of people being crammed together and our actions resulting in releasing all sort of stuff like this, then we can expect a lot more of these viruses in the future and nature will eventually cull us down to size. As for eradicating disease we have only managed that with small pox and we still keep lots of samples of that hanging around for further study ... plus it's more profitable to do anything else other than cure them and seasonal vaccine to something like this one is a big money-spinner for big pharma.

This is a very good point. I'm not so much a doomsday conspiracy theorist...but, look at these charts and plot the lines you see out just a few more years...

 

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/world-population-charts-today-future/

 

If Covid-19 doesn't finish us off (probably not though clearly it's going to be super disruptive to game-changing), we are now too many and too densely packed for us to reasonably avoid future infections that will sweep the planet. Even if somehow we completely dodged that type of bullet, adding 150k+ net people on the planet (which is already strained in regards to pollution load and depletion of natural resources along with lack of sustainable food production systems) is going to probably make the whole thing roll over on itself during our lifetimes. 

 

At least those of us here will get to eat yummy Thai food and complain about the drivers and IOs as it all unravels. 

[DrTuner]

Expanding human population is one of the key factors for creating pandemics. They encroach forests and come into contact with wildlife that was previously living secluded in their habitat.

 

It's a huge problem and getting worse: https://populationmatters.org/

[partington]

5 hours ago, Krataiboy said:

"A major challenge to defeating viruses is that a vaccine or drug might no longer be effective if the virus has mutated," Balloux said. 

 

You can't help laughing. We can't even find a cure for the corona viruses which cause the common cold, let alone their nasty big brother who gives us COVID 19.

 

Why? Because viruses have an inconvenient habit of mutating. This explains why flu shots either stop working or become less effective over time. 

 

All the more reason not to wait for Big Pharma to rush to our rescue with their latest batch of expensive snake oil.

 

It's time to lift the lock-down, end the curfew and bin the social distancing for everyone except the vulnerable elderly. We need fresh air, and exercise, and social interaction for mental as well as physical health.

 

Mixing with our fellow humans once more is also the best way to boost immune systems weakened by months of enforced isolation. This will improve our chances - already very high unless we are elderly - of repelling or shaking off the virus with serious harm.

 

The "old normal" beats any vaccine.

 

 

 

 

 

1. The common cold is caused by hundreds of different viruses, most of which (70%) are not coronaviruses at all. This is part of the reason why no single vaccine can be made against the "cold".

 

2. Many vaccines work and work well.

The quote "A major challenge to defeating viruses is that a vaccine or drug might no longer be effective if the virus has mutated,"  does not mean that it won't work or that there is no point in looking for a drug or vaccine, it means researchers are aware there is that possibility. They can tailor vaccines to the parts of the virus that mutate less often, or to two or more different regions of the virus because it is unlikely that both regions will have mutated simultaneously. 

 

3. Vaccines have eradicated important human diseases. They are not snake oil. 

 

4. Mixing with fellow humans does not boost immune systems, it increases exposure to contagious pathogens. Exposure to pathogens causes an immune response to occur. If the immune response does not neutralise  the infective agent you can die. The number of deaths is controllable by isolation. This is sensible. Humans can acquire herd immunity to diseases by killing off a certain number of humans (see black death) or by vaccination.

 

Vaccination is worth trying because it always involves fewer deaths.

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by partington

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, partington said:

4. Mixing with fellow humans does not boost immune systems, it increases exposure to contagious pathogens. Exposure to pathogens causes an immune response to occur. If the immune response does not neutralise  the infective agent you can die. 

Well you could spin that another way, if you mingle and get every disease known to man from the others and don't die, your B&T - cells now have a large memory bank recognizing the pathogens, so in effect it did boost the immune system.

[Kinnock]

On 5/6/2020 at 9:11 PM, Logosone said:

I had a very strange persistent cough, I remarked to the woman how this cough was very strange, because it did not go away for so long. Dry cough. Just shrugged it off as well and it went away. I had exposure to Chinese.

Same for me.  I rarely get sick, but in early December I had a fever and persistent, dry cough for a week.  Just took to my bed for a couple of days, then moaned about how I was dying for another couple of days.

[Kinnock]

1 hour ago, partington said:

1. The common cold is caused by hundreds of different viruses, most of which (70%) are not coronaviruses at all. This is part of the reason why no single vaccine can be made against the "cold".

 

2. Many vaccines work and work well.

The quote "A major challenge to defeating viruses is that a vaccine or drug might no longer be effective if the virus has mutated,"  does not mean that it won't work or that there is no point in looking for a drug or vaccine, it means researchers are aware there is that possibility. They can tailor vaccines to the parts of the virus that mutate less often, or to two or more different regions of the virus because it is unlikely that both regions will have mutated simultaneously. 

 

3. Vaccines have eradicated important human diseases. They are not snake oil. 

 

4. Mixing with fellow humans does not boost immune systems, it increases exposure to contagious pathogens. Exposure to pathogens causes an immune response to occur. If the immune response does not neutralise  the infective agent you can die. The number of deaths is controllable by isolation. This is sensible. Humans can acquire herd immunity to diseases by killing off a certain number of humans (see black death) or by vaccination.

 

Vaccination is worth trying because it always involves fewer deaths.

 

Quote:  

"3. Vaccines have eradicated important human diseases. They are not snake oil". 

 

Well, eradicated ONE disease - smallpox, and that took over 20 years.

 

No other disease has been eradicated by vaccination.

 

TB - effective vaccine since 1921, yet 1.3 million deaths last year, polio - not yet eradicated due to wars and Bronze Age religious objections.

 

Yes - measles, mumps, rubella, polio, TB and maybe HPV have been limited in developed markets, but not eradicated, so SARS-CoV-2 will not be eradicated by vaccination in our lifetimes.

 

And the anti-vaccine tinfoil hat brigade will reduce the effectiveness of any COVID vaccine.

[Crazy Alex]

15 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

TB - effective vaccine since 1921, yet 1.3 million deaths last year, polio - not yet eradicated due to wars and Bronze Age religious objections.

TB took out four times what CV19 has, yet no one called for shutting down the world's economy for TB. Only for CV19. Interesting. What happened to these people that say they're about saving lives? I guess TB deaths don't matter for some strange reason.

[candide]

1 hour ago, Crazy Alex said:

TB took out four times what CV19 has, yet no one called for shutting down the world's economy for TB. Only for CV19. Interesting. What happened to these people that say they're about saving lives? I guess TB deaths don't matter for some strange reason.

False equivalence!

 

 TB is mainly present in a limited number of countries with particular characteristics (mainly poor countries). In developed countries, the risk level is very low. Moreover, there are known ways to prevent it or cure it. Unfortunately, some countries don't have enough resources to fight it efficiently. They should get more help.  But hey! It's fine to cut WHO funding so that there will be less money available to help them, right?

[Kinnock]

15 minutes ago, candide said:

False equivalence!

 

 TB is mainly present in a limited number of countries with particular characteristics (mainly poor countries). In developed countries, the risk level is very low. Moreover, there are known ways to prevent it or cure it. Unfortunately, some countries don't have enough resources to fight it efficiently. They should get more help.  But hey! It's fine to cut WHO funding so that there will be less money available to help them, right?

Yes, quite right, only poor people die of TB, so that's OK.

 

And having well understood and effective ways to control TB is a great reason to do nothing. 

 

Whereas a novel virus with no effective, sustainable control apart from herd immunity is worth spending millions on because it mainly effects overweight old people in rich countries.

 

Makes complete sense to me, and while we're all sitting at home posting our favourite albums on Facebook, the poor can eat cake.

[candide]

25 minutes ago, Kinnock said:

Yes, quite right, only poor people die of TB, so that's OK.

 

And having well understood and effective ways to control TB is a great reason to do nothing. 

 

Whereas a novel virus with no effective, sustainable control apart from herd immunity is worth spending millions on because it mainly effects overweight old people in rich countries.

 

Makes complete sense to me, and while we're all sitting at home posting our favourite albums on Facebook, the poor can eat cake.

The poster I replied to was wondering why there was no shutdown about TB. That was the aim of my reply. I never wrote it was OK that only poor people die from it, or that more funds shouldn't be granted to fight it.

BTW, do you think that cutting WHO funding will have a positive or negative impact on fighting TB?

Edited May 7, 2020 by candide

[Crazy Alex]

3 hours ago, candide said:

False equivalence!

 

 TB is mainly present in a limited number of countries with particular characteristics (mainly poor countries). In developed countries, the risk level is very low. Moreover, there are known ways to prevent it or cure it. Unfortunately, some countries don't have enough resources to fight it efficiently. They should get more help.  But hey! It's fine to cut WHO funding so that there will be less money available to help them, right?

You're right, it's just poor people. And why do you think WHO is the only way to help?

[Kinnock]

5 hours ago, candide said:

The poster I replied to was wondering why there was no shutdown about TB. That was the aim of my reply. I never wrote it was OK that only poor people die from it, or that more funds shouldn't be granted to fight it.

BTW, do you think that cutting WHO funding will have a positive or negative impact on fighting TB?

You're right of course that in the shorter term cutting WHO funding may impact on their efforts to tackle TB - but in the longer may be beneficial if it results in leadership changes at WHO.

 

If OXFAM is correct, and the economic impacts of the misguided COVID panic measures will force another 500,000 people into poverty, then this is bound to increase cases of diseases linked to poverty such as TB.

 

Poor leadership by WHO resulted in the economically damaging and ultimately pointless lockdowns.

 

The incorrect statement by Tedros that the Case Fatality Rate was 3.5%, the assurance in January that China had it under control, the praise for China responses to COVID and the lack of any warnings by WHO about the wider health impacts of the lockdowns were all examples of criminal negligence.

[overherebc]

On 5/6/2020 at 8:55 PM, Pravda said:

I got sick end of November 2019, and I got better for about a week than got sick again.....

 

I am curious how many members here were sick around that time?

I got one of the heaviest doses of flu around end of Dec'. Stayed home til after 1st Jan and when I went for a beer around 3rd/4th about 4 or 5 others still had or had had the same.

Everyone just put it down to 

'that time of year'. It was a stinker of a dose of flu though.

Hand towels instead of hankies it produced so much snot and throat phlegm.

[rabas]

19 minutes ago, overherebc said:

I got one of the heaviest doses of flu around end of Dec'. Stayed home til after 1st Jan and when I went for a beer around 3rd/4th about 4 or 5 others still had or had had the same.

Everyone just put it down to 

'that time of year'. It was a stinker of a dose of flu though.

Hand towels instead of hankies it produced so much snot and throat phlegm.

With so much snot it might not have been COVID-19, whose top symptoms are dry cough and fever. So continue to be careful. Only 4% of COVID-19 patients have a runny nose and 0% sneeze. Every time I sneeze I'm thankful.

 

In late 2018 my wife, I, and 2 nieces had a killer flu. My wife was tested and it was Influenza H1N1-2009, which still comes around.

[overherebc]

5 minutes ago, rabas said:

With so much snot it might not have been COVID-19, whose top symptoms are dry cough and fever. So continue to be careful. Only 4% of COVID-19 patients have a runny nose and 0% sneeze. Every time I sneeze I'm thankful.

 

In late 2018 my wife, I, and 2 nieces had a killer flu. My wife was tested and it was Influenza H1N1-2009, which still comes around.

I've heard a few on uk tv who said it was like having broken glass in your throat when coughing.

I'm sure I didn't have Covid19 though. I don't usually take anything for colds or flu, just let it run its course but Dec/Jan I did take paracetamol at night just to try and knock me out.

Edited May 8, 2020 by overherebc

[candide]

8 hours ago, Crazy Alex said:

You're right, it's just poor people. And why do you think WHO is the only way to help?

So I guess that you agree that evoking lockdowns about TB did not make sense.

 

On short term, yes. Time is needed to implement an alternative solution. It takes time to build an alternative organisation, infrastructure, training, logistics etc... Additionally, economies of scope are made by using the same organisation.

So abruptly cutting funds during an health and economic crisis, in the presence of aggravating conditions (I guess TB + covid-19 is not a good cocktail) is likely to result in more deaths.

But it will just be more poor people dying for one year or two, right?

[candide]

6 hours ago, Kinnock said:

You're right of course that in the shorter term cutting WHO funding may impact on their efforts to tackle TB - but in the longer may be beneficial if it results in leadership changes at WHO.

 

If OXFAM is correct, and the economic impacts of the misguided COVID panic measures will force another 500,000 people into poverty, then this is bound to increase cases of diseases linked to poverty such as TB.

 

Poor leadership by WHO resulted in the economically damaging and ultimately pointless lockdowns.

 

The incorrect statement by Tedros that the Case Fatality Rate was 3.5%, the assurance in January that China had it under control, the praise for China responses to COVID and the lack of any warnings by WHO about the wider health impacts of the lockdowns were all examples of criminal negligence.

Right, only more poor people dying on short term.... (likely for internal political reasons)

 

In your biased assessment of the WHO, I am not surprised you forgot to mention one of the most important prescription made by the WHO, which is about testing. A protocol for makings test kits was published by the WHO on January 17 and made available to all, since then, the WHO always encouraged its members to implement a testing policy (an advice Trump failed to follow, surprise!)

 

Now about your lockdown argument. It's not the WHO which decides and implement policies, it's national governments. Government's are responsible for lockdowns, not the WHO.

Lockdowns are more needed in case of insufficient preparedness. By being able to implement a 'test, trace and isolate' policy, some countries have been able to avoid nationwide lockdown (SK) or to shorten lockdown duration (Germany). These countries were able to quickly respond because they acted quickly (SK) or anticipated (Germany). Other countries, such as the US, UK and France failed. And despite the fact they had enough time to prepare and produce test kits (and other products). The US, UK and French governments (among others) are responsible for this failure, not the WHO.

[digger70]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:08 PM, superal said:

There has to be a limit on the worlds population . A quick Google shows 25000 people die every day from starvation or 9 million a year . 11 % of the globe are undernourished .

A new bad Virus can Help bringing down the worlds population to an reasonable limit.

[garygooner]

On 5/7/2020 at 8:08 AM, nobodysfriend said:

How do they want to develop a vaccine against that ...?

 

and people who were infected already , can become reinfected ...

 

May become more lethal ... anyway , it is far from over , it changed the world forever .

 

The revenge of the pangolin ...

 

I knew a woman who looked just like that.... Never trusted her! 

[marquis22]

I had flu like illness first week in December after a week long trip to Philippines. It lasted longer than the common cold with trachea infection but less body aches and pain from previous flu.

[DrTuner]

There's updates to this from Japanese researchers:

https://osf.io/j2by8/

 

Quote

The SARS-CoV-2 originally isolated in Wuhan, China was a non-converted GAU type and so were all the specimens reported in China till the de facto termination of an emergency state in March.

 

This GAU-to-GGU conversion was first detected in the specimen in Spain (MT292580) and next in the United States; one from New England (MT276323) and two from Florida (MT276329, MT276330) collected on February 28; one each from New Hampshire (MT304484) and Georgia (MT276327) on February 29 (Fig. 2a).

 

Interestingly, the mutated specimens were sampled in the distant cities in the USA; Washington (MT415895), Connecticut (MT350239), California (MT304491) on March 1, 2020; implicating that the D614G conversion might confer the virulence of SARS-CoV-2 in Europe and America

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by DrTuner

[Sametboy2019]

Early Jan. Fever, cough and the worst headache ever.

Couldnt move for 3 or 4 days and felt weak for about 10 days. Cough lasted 2 weeks which made the headaches worse.

[Elkski]

I flew through Shanghai dec 26.  Got sick jan 2-7 with flu like.  I made a post about  it in real time. As I was debating starting a zpac of antibiotics.   I coughed so much I had 6 pack abs. How did thai GF not get  it?  We slept in same room and  bed.  I think versions of this have been in Thailand many years and they do have herd immunity  or its som tom.  

[DrTuner]

I'll add to the study timeline:

 

The timeline of lockdowns from BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52103747

 

 

And the warning from Wuhanese nurse that the virus had mutated in January:

 

 

It just matches. 

[rkidlad]

Missus had a really bad chesty cough when we travelled to Europe at the end of December. I had a bit of a sore throat but usually do after a long plane ride. Mate who lives in Israel had a really bad chesty cough in December. Gave it to his his missus and kids and one of them got pneumonia. 

 

Would love to be able to get an antibody test.