4 ms·

As I understand it, (not an expert myself) - Sars-1 and Sars-2 (COVID-19) are related enough to bear the same name, thus having researched a virus for the form

by K0SM0S 7y ago

As I understand it, (not an expert myself) - Sars-1 and Sars-2 (COVID-19) are related enough to bear the same name, thus having researched a virus for the former would be incredibly informating to finding a virus for the latter. - As it stands, we know so little in that regard that we do not know if there is a possible vaccine for COVID-19. If I take an average between 3-10 years (the range of guesstimates floating around in some circles apparently), that's 2026-7 to have a definitive answer on that (it also depends a lot on the behavior of the virus, and we are only 10 weeks into this mess, we just don't know). - human testing on Sars-1 may have been impossible or rather unethical, but models on animal species are just about the way we do it for everything all the time, so having a 15-year body of research + associated datasets would have been the reasonable, cautious thing to do. Having a vaccine for e.g. mice on Sars-1 available now would help a lot. - There is no valid reason to have stopped Sars-1 vaccine research, especially given the fact that numerous experts were certain that new coronaviruses would cross again to the human race in the future (this is still true today). - Because of all this, we are now forced to rush tests on "best guesses" for vaccines, with nowhere near enough data to make a really "educated" guess, far from the usual. Meaning, increased risk to the patients in those trials, but most dramatically for all: we have cornered ourselves into making moonshots in a hurry in the quest for a vaccine. There is a possibility that we've gotten so good at molecular biology and modelling that we'll actually overcome these obstacles that we've created for ourselves, but the gist is that had we been a little more forward-thinking (including hoarding stocks for medical supplies, etc), the ultimate death count could have been orders of magnitude smaller, possibly anecdotal.

bluGill 7y ago
There is a valid reason to stop Sars-1: the researchers working on that could go on other other things. On hindsight we know differently, but there was no reason to expect this even 6 months ago. Up until late January I was saying I want a vaccine for the common cold which was more impact on my life and something these researchers could switch to. (I'd like a better treatment to prevent heart attacks even more, but it is unlikely the researchers could switch)
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  > “there was no reason to expect this even 6 months ago.” You might want to re-think that perception. I've recently heard Ralph Baric, an epidemiology Professor from UNC School of Medicine[0]. He's arguably one of the world's foremost experts on the topic — which makes it easy to at least listen to the man, you'd think... Have a look at his publications: - Dec 2015 ⇒ A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.[1] - Mar 2016 ⇒ SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence.[2] Few sentences from the abstract of the latter: > Outbreaks from zoonotic sources represent a threat to both human disease as well as the global economy. Despite a wealth of metagenomics studies, methods to leverage these datasets to identify future threats are underdeveloped. [...] Focusing on the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like viruses, the results indicate that the WIV1-coronavirus (CoV) cluster has the ability to directly infect and may undergo limited transmission in human populations. I mean... What more is there to say? You may listen to a (great but rather technical) podcast[3] featuring him, among other experts, and there's even a layman-friendly companion post made by a listener[4] (whom I fully credit and thank for sharing the knowledge). ____ [0]: https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1/ https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1... [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26552008 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26552008 [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976607 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976607 [3]: http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/ http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/ [4]: https://medium.com/@hpcngmoh/you-will-be-hard-pressed-to-find-higher-quality-virological-information-during-this-outbreak-as-a1c7b53d686a https://medium.com/@hpcngmoh/you-will-be-hard-pressed-to-fin...

by K0SM0S 7y ago

bluGill 7y ago

There is a valid reason to stop Sars-1: the researchers working on that could go on other other things. On hindsight we know differently, but there was no reason to expect this even 6 months ago. Up until late January I was saying I want a vaccine for the common cold which was more impact on my life and something these researchers could switch to. (I'd like a better treatment to prevent heart attacks even more, but it is unlikely the researchers could switch)

K0SM0S 7y ago
> “there was no reason to expect this even 6 months ago.” You might want to re-think that perception. I've recently heard Ralph Baric, an epidemiology Professor from UNC School of Medicine[0]. He's arguably one of the world's foremost experts on the topic — which makes it easy to at least listen to the man, you'd think... Have a look at his publications: - Dec 2015 ⇒ A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.[1] - Mar 2016 ⇒ SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence.[2] Few sentences from the abstract of the latter: > Outbreaks from zoonotic sources represent a threat to both human disease as well as the global economy. Despite a wealth of metagenomics studies, methods to leverage these datasets to identify future threats are underdeveloped. [...] Focusing on the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like viruses, the results indicate that the WIV1-coronavirus (CoV) cluster has the ability to directly infect and may undergo limited transmission in human populations. I mean... What more is there to say? You may listen to a (great but rather technical) podcast[3] featuring him, among other experts, and there's even a layman-friendly companion post made by a listener[4] (whom I fully credit and thank for sharing the knowledge). ____ [0]: https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1/ https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1... [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26552008 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26552008 [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976607 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976607 [3]: http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/ http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/ [4]: https://medium.com/@hpcngmoh/you-will-be-hard-pressed-to-find-higher-quality-virological-information-during-this-outbreak-as-a1c7b53d686a https://medium.com/@hpcngmoh/you-will-be-hard-pressed-to-fin...