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Does this imply that the COVID-19 virus will morph into the common cold virus?

by peter_retief 6y ago

vibrio 6y ago
No. Mo more than a tiger will morph into a house cat.
- RalfWausE 6y ago
  Well, with a few hundred to thousand generations and a bit selective breeding i see no real problems here... just ask Fido about his wolf-great-great-great-(and so on)-grandfather ;-)
  - vibrio 6y ago
    Yes, many things are theoretically possible. In relative terms Coronavirus isnt that mutagenic. Every year for many years millions of people get seasonal coronaviruses there hasn’t been a “morph” (whatever that means). The SARS and SARS/CoV-2 crossovers did come from somewhere and it was bats which are REALLY good at being virus incubators. We are not. I guess in the environment we all are now in I’d prefer a message not be spread of a seasonal cold turning into a deadly respiratory disease based on such an apparently unlikely hypothetical. Or Let’s worry about things like swine and avian flus, which are orders of magnitude better at “morphing” yet much of the population still refuses to vaccinate annually.
    - vibrio 6y ago
      Just realized I got the original morph direction wrong. Please pardon.
      - peter_retief 6y ago
        That is possible, also viruses can make bacteria deadly, check this https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090417195827.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090417195827.h...
Mvandenbergh 6y ago
There's some speculation that OC43 was actually responsible for the very bad 1889 "Russian Flu" and that there's nothing particularly special about SARS-CoV-2 except that there's no widespread exposure to it.
goodcanadian 6y ago
Well, no, but . . . The "common cold" is a blanket term for several viruses that cause similar symptoms. My understanding is that most are rhinoviruses. A mild influenza virus will also give "cold" symptoms. And, as talked about here, there are a handful of coronaviruses as well. It currently appears that Covid-19 is more dangerous than other circulating coronaviruses, but it is important to keep in mind that the "common cold" can already kill people in vulnerable groups. It is possible that the biggest issue with Covid-19 is that it is novel. No one has much immunity to it, so it spreads rapidly and causes worse symptoms than it might if we had more latent resistance. So, once enough people have been exposed to the virus, it might result in it being no worse for the general population than any other bad flu. That doesn't mean that it won't kill people, but it won't spread as easily, and people who do get it might have better immune responses. So, in the long run, without a vaccine, it will probably just fizzle out, eventually. However, that will either take many years (if ever) or a lot of deaths.

Does this imply that the COVID-19 virus will morph into the common cold virus?

vibrio 6y ago

No. Mo more than a tiger will morph into a house cat.

RalfWausE 6y ago
Well, with a few hundred to thousand generations and a bit selective breeding i see no real problems here... just ask Fido about his wolf-great-great-great-(and so on)-grandfather ;-)
- vibrio 6y ago
  Yes, many things are theoretically possible. In relative terms Coronavirus isnt that mutagenic. Every year for many years millions of people get seasonal coronaviruses there hasn’t been a “morph” (whatever that means). The SARS and SARS/CoV-2 crossovers did come from somewhere and it was bats which are REALLY good at being virus incubators. We are not. I guess in the environment we all are now in I’d prefer a message not be spread of a seasonal cold turning into a deadly respiratory disease based on such an apparently unlikely hypothetical. Or Let’s worry about things like swine and avian flus, which are orders of magnitude better at “morphing” yet much of the population still refuses to vaccinate annually.
  - vibrio 6y ago
    Just realized I got the original morph direction wrong. Please pardon.
    - peter_retief 6y ago
      That is possible, also viruses can make bacteria deadly, check this https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090417195827.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090417195827.h...

Mvandenbergh 6y ago

There's some speculation that OC43 was actually responsible for the very bad 1889 "Russian Flu" and that there's nothing particularly special about SARS-CoV-2 except that there's no widespread exposure to it.

goodcanadian 6y ago

Well, no, but . . . The "common cold" is a blanket term for several viruses that cause similar symptoms. My understanding is that most are rhinoviruses. A mild influenza virus will also give "cold" symptoms. And, as talked about here, there are a handful of coronaviruses as well. It currently appears that Covid-19 is more dangerous than other circulating coronaviruses, but it is important to keep in mind that the "common cold" can already kill people in vulnerable groups. It is possible that the biggest issue with Covid-19 is that it is novel. No one has much immunity to it, so it spreads rapidly and causes worse symptoms than it might if we had more latent resistance. So, once enough people have been exposed to the virus, it might result in it being no worse for the general population than any other bad flu. That doesn't mean that it won't kill people, but it won't spread as easily, and people who do get it might have better immune responses. So, in the long run, without a vaccine, it will probably just fizzle out, eventually. However, that will either take many years (if ever) or a lot of deaths.