6 ms·

N=1 in this study. No mention of race, vitamin D levels or BMI, all of which are very useful data to have in the context of Covid-19. All viral respiratory inf

N=1 in this study. No mention of race, vitamin D levels or BMI, all of which are very useful data to have in the context of Covid-19. All viral respiratory infections have the potential to have some side effects to varying degrees but I can't help but feel that this letter will be used to support the concept of "long covid" on an unsuspecting public. Yes, covid is terrible but it's a different strain of a coronavirus (of which 20% of common colds are too), it's not something mystical. There's a strong chance we have substantial cross immunity to it though T-Cells defence. The literature is saying that if you're under 48 the flu has a higher mortality rate. We've mostly passed through the gompertz curve of the virus mortality as described by initial research by Hope Simpson regarding the seasonality of influenza viruses. We can't base national health policy on individual health outcomes. Covid has been turned into a religion completely lacking any scientific rigour and I feel this paper will be used as a tool to add to the fear.

triyambakam 6y ago
> Covid has been turned into a religion completely lacking any scientific rigour Yeah, many people are just using the virus to animate some other message for their own goals. One example of this seems to be power and control that governments are exploiting this time to increase, more so than is warranted for the situation.
- peter422 6y ago
  Examples where you think governments are exploiting this? Governments just love reducing tax dollars by shutting stuff down!
  - ddeck 6y ago
    Numerous authoritarian goverments have used the pandemic as an excuse to expand powers and suppress dissent, often invoking emergency powers to bypass the usual law making process. Look at Hungary, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Venezuela etc. A quick search will bring up many examples.
- dboreham 6y ago
  Funny how nobody says this in relation to food safety : those power hungry bureaucrats with their nonsense E. coli meat recalls. But they _do_ say it in relation to anti-pollution regulations (e.g. smoking), and environmental protections. What's the difference I wonder... Oh yes, whether or not big business is disadvantaged. Big Meat needs strong food safety regulations otherwise everyone would buy their meat from local trusted sources.
  - Loughla 6y ago
    That's the thing, though. Large meat packing plants and other huge agribusinesses absolutely do say that about food safety. What are you on about with that?
- neuronic 6y ago
  Please lay out how any government profits from this. Consequences of COVID measures currently include, among others: - reduced tax income, vastly more debt - frustration within the population - revelation of systemic flaws All of these make a government look bad. No matter how true or untrue, the current government will be held directly responsible. I don't see any instance of emergency laws being abused in a way that was impossible or inconvenient beforehand. Terrorism has already done its part here. So where are your examples?
  - dx87 6y ago
    Governments benefited because they learned how easily people will turn on each other and support sweeping restrictions with no end date. Any time someone questioned the lockdowns back in Spring, people would claim that they were being selfish and leading to the death of millions by not blindly giving away their freedom. I've seen much more animosity based on party lines, than towards the government at large.
  - ddeck 6y ago
    >I don't see any instance of emergency laws being abused in a way that was impossible or inconvenient beforehand. A quick search will bring up many examples. Perhaps you're only considering the US? "Authoritarian governments are using coronavirus as an excuse to crush freedom of expression" [1] "Would-be autocrats are using covid-19 as an excuse to grab more power" [2] "How Authoritarians Are Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis to Grab Power" [3] "Cambodia is using coronavirus as an excuse for human rights abuse" [4] [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-free-speech-orban-india-lockdown-modi-ramzan-kadyrov-chechnya-a9528741.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-free-speech... [2] https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/23/would-be-autocrats-are-using-covid-19-as-an-excuse-to-grab-more-power https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/23/would-be-... [3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/03/how-authoritarians-are-exploiting-covid-19-crisis-grab-power https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/03/how-authoritarians-are-e... [4] https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/cambodia-is-using-coronavirus-as-an-excuse-for-human-rights-abuse-20200415-p54jxz.html https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/cambodia-is-using-coronavi...
throwanem 6y ago
> it's a different strain of a coronavirus So is classic SARS, which is known to cause a post-viral syndrome similar to the one the letter proposes. Indeed, the letter opens with a discussion of exactly that syndrome. So it seems a bit odd to be talking about mysticism and religion in this context.
- creaghpatr 6y ago
  It's a reference to the lack of scientific rigor in this particular study.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    This isn't a study. It's a letter to the editor that includes a case report. It's odd to me that anyone would mistake it for a study, actually, seeing as it says "Letter to the Editor" right at the top and has no gross morphological features in common with a research paper. No one seems to be trying to represent it as something it makes no pretense of being, except for people who seem to want to discount it without any significant consideration. That's an odd correlation to observe, but there is a lot that's odd about how people have reacted to this pandemic, I suppose.
    - creaghpatr 6y ago
      >No one seems to be trying to represent it as something it makes no pretense of being, except for people who seem to want to discount it without any significant consideration. You're kidding, right? Anecdotes like this one are dominating the media coverage, especially with regards to 'extended' symptoms of covid.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        This is a case report to professionals, and people are discussing it here as such. Invoking 'the media' to refute participants in this discussion is fallacious, because this discussion isn't based on a mainstream media report to begin with.
newacct583 6y ago
> The literature is saying that if you're under 48 the flu has a higher mortality rate. I don't think that's correct. Covid is well above influenza mortality in every cohort except children, I believe.
- zby 6y ago
  Do you have any stats for that? The stats now seem very different from what was happening in April and May. The cumulative CFR is also dropping - but obviously time cohort data must be already much lower.
  - sroussey 6y ago
    Flu mortality rate is down in same period though
    - as_keyof_typeof 6y ago
      Flu diagnosed as COVID? Lack of people going into the hospital?
- timr 6y ago
  It's probably about the same up to age 49, maybe a bit less: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...
jupp0r 6y ago
At the end of the day, this is a political decision. Science does not provide the answer on what to do, just the facts. Politics must decide whether to subject a large fraction of the population to the risk of this disease or whether to convince or coerce people to not go to football games, movie theaters and cocktail parties for a year or two. Luckily, we as individuals still have the choice of not getting infected, although the risks of everyday activities increase dramatically when there are high levels of transmission in the community.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  Yes, every day activities such as going to the grocery store or going outside. Making this a political issue ignores the very real consequences for the people who don't want to risk getting COPD for the rest of their lives. Imagine not being able to get food without taking on that risk because a core group of other people have decided to sacrifice you on the altar of the economy.
  - nimish 6y ago
    You can view it as a personal decision or a community decision. Do we restrict the community for the individual or the individual for the community? Your feelings on this aren't universal and neither are mine.
    - endemic 6y ago
      You know, we're living in a society!
    - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
      > Do we restrict the community for the individual or the individual for the community? The question is really: what legal grounds do we have for essentially indefinitely transgressing individual rights? Surprisingly, by and large, the people who are in a frenzy about "the police" want to invoke near-unconstrained police power (a consequence of states' rights to ensure public safety) to confine everyone to their houses, ban social activity, destroy livelihoods...
zby 6y ago
There are other reports of this: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/facebook-covid-support-groups https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/facebook-covid-support-g... That said - I would expect some extremely rare outcomes in a sample of 35 million people. We live in a connected world: https://www.gwern.net/Littlewood https://www.gwern.net/Littlewood I really want to see good stats. Even for, the simple you would think, case of CFR - what are the current reliable numbers here? In https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid I only see cumulative nubers - that is not very informative when we can see how the mortality now is incomparable with the mortality in April and May, we need monthly or weekly cohorts data!
vmchale 6y ago
lmao everything you say is completely wrong this is stupid as shit
- dang 6y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and we've already had to ask you once. We're trying for a different sort of community here, in which people have thoughtful and curious conversation. If you don't think that's worth trying for, that's fine, but we'd be grateful if you'd at least not damage the experiment like this. I'm sure you wouldn't litter in a city park or dump motor oil in a lake...it's kind of like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
matthewmacleod 6y ago
This isn't a study, it's a case report in a letter to the editor. What on earth are you talking about?
- rodiger 6y ago
  He's just saying that to highlight that we shouldn't be attempting to draw any broad conclusions as other commenters are.
  - nimish 6y ago
    Bingo. The plural of anecdotes isn’t data. Until there is a good study that controls for biases as well as expected side effects of severe disease like pneumonia, we can conclude nothing about the population
aphextron 6y ago
>Yes, covid is terrible but it's a different strain of a coronavirus (of which 20% of common colds are too), it's not something mystical. There's a strong chance we have substantial cross immunity to it though T-Cells defence. The literature is saying that if you're under 48 the flu has a higher mortality rate. We've mostly passed through the gompertz curve of the virus mortality as described by initial research by Hope Simpson regarding the seasonality of influenza viruses. Sure. But COVID-19 is currently in pandemic mode, having now infected at least 10% of the worlds population with zero signs of slowing down. This is not an endemic virus with a known cap on seasonal infections like the flu or colds. The area under the curve is going to be massive in comparison. That's the issue. Yes, it may have many similarities to the long term effects of other viruses. But now we will have hundreds of millions of people dealing with this, rather than hundreds of thousands. Quantity has a quality all of its' own.
- spidersouris 6y ago
  10 percent? From where did you get this number?
  - natrik 6y ago
    https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-archive-united-nations-54a3a5869c9ae4ee623497691e796083 https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-archive-united-nat...
  - aphextron 6y ago
    https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/10/05/920453483/10-of-global-population-may-have-contracted-the-coronavirus-who-says https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/1...
tao_oat 6y ago
This isn't a study, and scientists have been paying increasing attention to "long COVID" for several months now. See, for example, this feature from The BMJ from July: https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2815 https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2815 Alternatively, data from the UK in June suggests that 10% of people with COVID have symptoms that last for more than three weeks: https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-long-term https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-long-term If the number really is 10%, that's significant. This letter is merely suggesting further research; I think it's far from fear-mongering.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  just wanted to add there is also data from Bergamo that indicates long term affects for many people (and a study from Germany - see link buried in the WaPo post) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24418561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24418561
sroussey 6y ago
0.2% of cold viruses are coronaviruses. Only off by a factor of 100x. You quote scientific literature then say it’s lacking any rigor. Kinda hard to listen to the rest of the post. Do other respiratory viruses attack the blood and kidneys?Genuinely curious. My mother has Leukemia leading to kidney damage. Definitely some fear of contracting it and passing it to her. I have a friend in the “long hauler” group that is 38yo. Of the people I am one or two steps from, 45% are dead, 45% had mild issues, and 10% long hauler. So, low number of N is definitely a problem, for both my experience and the paper.
- ColanR 6y ago
  Since neither of you cited anything, webmd says parent is right. Looks like you're only off by a factor of 100x. If you're going to call someone out for inconsistencies, might want to get your data right? > Coronavirus. These tend to do their dirty work in the winter and early spring. The coronavirus is the cause of about 20% of colds. There are more than 30 kinds, but only three or four affect people. https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_causes https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_ca...
  - pmg102 6y ago
    "The coronavirus is the cause of about 20% of colds." and "0.2% of cold viruses are coronaviruses" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive statements
    - sroussey 6y ago
      That’s a good point. My mind was definitely in the mode of what number and kinds of viruses that a body is exposed to, not so much how contagious it is, but I see your point.
    - ColanR 6y ago
      I thought of addressing that, but figured it would be obvious from the tail end of what I quoted: > There are more than 30 kinds, but only three or four affect people. There aren't enough cold viruses around to allow for a 0.2% fraction.
joshocar 6y ago
It's a novel coronavirus, not just any old coronavirus. It jumped from an animal species. What you are saying is equivalent to "The Spanish flu is just the flu. Thousands of people get the flu every year and we probably have some immunity to it. No big deal."
- interestica 6y ago
  When does this one stop being novel? This naming convention just has "new coke" vibes to me. I mean, when there is an other emergent virus of this type, it will take the name "novel". Which might typically be fine, but not when the name has become part of a public lexicon. It's all just a weird convention really. If another major novel type emerges soon it will be absurd if medical historians are looking back and trying to determine which virus articles are talking about. Coronavirus Classic.
  - joshocar 6y ago
    The scientific community has a specific name they use for Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Also, timing would also be a very good indicator of what virus the author is talking about. Novel is in relation to the human races exposure to it. For example, there are modern flu virus that trace back evolutionarily to the Spanish flu, but are not novel, they are just "the flu" today. When the Spanish flu jumped to humans it was a novel flu, hence how deadly it was. Again, scientists have clear distinctions between different kinds of flu's, e.g. H1N1, H1N3.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Exactly this. People have latched on to the wrong meaning of "novel", ascribing meaning beyond just "not seen before", instead treating it something like "acts worse/differently from other coronaviruses".
logicOnly 6y ago
Handling of coronavirus was a failure of Politicians and Physicians. From the US standpoint, the shutdown should have happened in January. After the first US case, there was no purpose in locking down the boarder. Politician fail. Physicians stressed harsh lockdowns and played into the fear. This wasn't science or statistics, this was fear. Physician fail. After hundreds of coronavirus cases in the US, governors created their own lockdowns, but had no control over traveling between state lines. This created no benefit but created poor economic conditions. Politician fail. You know who has been correct but seemingly unheard during all of this? Scientists/epidemiologists. They predicted the spread perfectly but Politicians, citizens, and Physicians did not listen.
- hcurtiss 6y ago
  The projections of the scientists/epidemiologists were WILDLY inaccurate. IHME and Oxford both had major embarrassing downward revisions.
  - logicOnly 6y ago
    I don't really care about the "projections" of a few people. The bigger takeaways were our options for how to handle the pandemic and expected outcomes.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> There's a strong chance we have substantial cross immunity to it though T-Cells defence You criticise the article but then post this without any backup. > The literature is saying that if you're under 48 the flu has a higher mortality rate ditto. Show us the figures please. > N=1 in this study It's not a study.
- drcross 6y ago
  >You criticise the article but then post this without any backup. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x SARS-CoV-2-derived peptides define heterologous and COVID-19-induced T cell recognition >ditto. Show us the figures please. When I have more time I'll pull out this figure. Let me know if you find it in the meantime.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    Thanks for posting the link. OK "With regard to SARS-CoV-2, very recent studies described CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses to viral peptide megapools in donors that had recovered from COVID-19 and individuals not exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the latter being indicative of potential T cell cross-reactivity21" They seem to be saying there's value in peptide donors who had recovered from covid, a transfusion of which to those who've not had covid seem to be valuable. It does not say (AIUI) that there is "substantial cross immunity to it though T-Cells defence" in the sense of having a similar disease gives you cross immunity. If I'm wrong, which is likely, please point out the correct passage.

triyambakam 6y ago

> Covid has been turned into a religion completely lacking any scientific rigour Yeah, many people are just using the virus to animate some other message for their own goals. One example of this seems to be power and control that governments are exploiting this time to increase, more so than is warranted for the situation.

peter422 6y ago
Examples where you think governments are exploiting this? Governments just love reducing tax dollars by shutting stuff down!
- ddeck 6y ago
  Numerous authoritarian goverments have used the pandemic as an excuse to expand powers and suppress dissent, often invoking emergency powers to bypass the usual law making process. Look at Hungary, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Venezuela etc. A quick search will bring up many examples.
dboreham 6y ago
Funny how nobody says this in relation to food safety : those power hungry bureaucrats with their nonsense E. coli meat recalls. But they _do_ say it in relation to anti-pollution regulations (e.g. smoking), and environmental protections. What's the difference I wonder... Oh yes, whether or not big business is disadvantaged. Big Meat needs strong food safety regulations otherwise everyone would buy their meat from local trusted sources.
- Loughla 6y ago
  That's the thing, though. Large meat packing plants and other huge agribusinesses absolutely do say that about food safety. What are you on about with that?
neuronic 6y ago
Please lay out how any government profits from this. Consequences of COVID measures currently include, among others: - reduced tax income, vastly more debt - frustration within the population - revelation of systemic flaws All of these make a government look bad. No matter how true or untrue, the current government will be held directly responsible. I don't see any instance of emergency laws being abused in a way that was impossible or inconvenient beforehand. Terrorism has already done its part here. So where are your examples?
- dx87 6y ago
  Governments benefited because they learned how easily people will turn on each other and support sweeping restrictions with no end date. Any time someone questioned the lockdowns back in Spring, people would claim that they were being selfish and leading to the death of millions by not blindly giving away their freedom. I've seen much more animosity based on party lines, than towards the government at large.
- ddeck 6y ago
  >I don't see any instance of emergency laws being abused in a way that was impossible or inconvenient beforehand. A quick search will bring up many examples. Perhaps you're only considering the US? "Authoritarian governments are using coronavirus as an excuse to crush freedom of expression" [1] "Would-be autocrats are using covid-19 as an excuse to grab more power" [2] "How Authoritarians Are Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis to Grab Power" [3] "Cambodia is using coronavirus as an excuse for human rights abuse" [4] [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-free-speech-orban-india-lockdown-modi-ramzan-kadyrov-chechnya-a9528741.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-free-speech... [2] https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/23/would-be-autocrats-are-using-covid-19-as-an-excuse-to-grab-more-power https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/23/would-be-... [3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/03/how-authoritarians-are-exploiting-covid-19-crisis-grab-power https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/03/how-authoritarians-are-e... [4] https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/cambodia-is-using-coronavirus-as-an-excuse-for-human-rights-abuse-20200415-p54jxz.html https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/cambodia-is-using-coronavi...

throwanem 6y ago

> it's a different strain of a coronavirus So is classic SARS, which is known to cause a post-viral syndrome similar to the one the letter proposes. Indeed, the letter opens with a discussion of exactly that syndrome. So it seems a bit odd to be talking about mysticism and religion in this context.

creaghpatr 6y ago
It's a reference to the lack of scientific rigor in this particular study.
- throwanem 6y ago
  This isn't a study. It's a letter to the editor that includes a case report. It's odd to me that anyone would mistake it for a study, actually, seeing as it says "Letter to the Editor" right at the top and has no gross morphological features in common with a research paper. No one seems to be trying to represent it as something it makes no pretense of being, except for people who seem to want to discount it without any significant consideration. That's an odd correlation to observe, but there is a lot that's odd about how people have reacted to this pandemic, I suppose.
  - creaghpatr 6y ago
    >No one seems to be trying to represent it as something it makes no pretense of being, except for people who seem to want to discount it without any significant consideration. You're kidding, right? Anecdotes like this one are dominating the media coverage, especially with regards to 'extended' symptoms of covid.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      This is a case report to professionals, and people are discussing it here as such. Invoking 'the media' to refute participants in this discussion is fallacious, because this discussion isn't based on a mainstream media report to begin with.

newacct583 6y ago

> The literature is saying that if you're under 48 the flu has a higher mortality rate. I don't think that's correct. Covid is well above influenza mortality in every cohort except children, I believe.

zby 6y ago
Do you have any stats for that? The stats now seem very different from what was happening in April and May. The cumulative CFR is also dropping - but obviously time cohort data must be already much lower.
- sroussey 6y ago
  Flu mortality rate is down in same period though
  - as_keyof_typeof 6y ago
    Flu diagnosed as COVID? Lack of people going into the hospital?
timr 6y ago
It's probably about the same up to age 49, maybe a bit less: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

jupp0r 6y ago

At the end of the day, this is a political decision. Science does not provide the answer on what to do, just the facts. Politics must decide whether to subject a large fraction of the population to the risk of this disease or whether to convince or coerce people to not go to football games, movie theaters and cocktail parties for a year or two. Luckily, we as individuals still have the choice of not getting infected, although the risks of everyday activities increase dramatically when there are high levels of transmission in the community.

jschwartzi 6y ago
Yes, every day activities such as going to the grocery store or going outside. Making this a political issue ignores the very real consequences for the people who don't want to risk getting COPD for the rest of their lives. Imagine not being able to get food without taking on that risk because a core group of other people have decided to sacrifice you on the altar of the economy.
- nimish 6y ago
  You can view it as a personal decision or a community decision. Do we restrict the community for the individual or the individual for the community? Your feelings on this aren't universal and neither are mine.
  - endemic 6y ago
    You know, we're living in a society!
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    > Do we restrict the community for the individual or the individual for the community? The question is really: what legal grounds do we have for essentially indefinitely transgressing individual rights? Surprisingly, by and large, the people who are in a frenzy about "the police" want to invoke near-unconstrained police power (a consequence of states' rights to ensure public safety) to confine everyone to their houses, ban social activity, destroy livelihoods...

zby 6y ago

There are other reports of this: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/facebook-covid-support-groups https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/facebook-covid-support-g... That said - I would expect some extremely rare outcomes in a sample of 35 million people. We live in a connected world: https://www.gwern.net/Littlewood https://www.gwern.net/Littlewood I really want to see good stats. Even for, the simple you would think, case of CFR - what are the current reliable numbers here? In https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid I only see cumulative nubers - that is not very informative when we can see how the mortality now is incomparable with the mortality in April and May, we need monthly or weekly cohorts data!

vmchale 6y ago

lmao everything you say is completely wrong this is stupid as shit

dang 6y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and we've already had to ask you once. We're trying for a different sort of community here, in which people have thoughtful and curious conversation. If you don't think that's worth trying for, that's fine, but we'd be grateful if you'd at least not damage the experiment like this. I'm sure you wouldn't litter in a city park or dump motor oil in a lake...it's kind of like that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

matthewmacleod 6y ago

This isn't a study, it's a case report in a letter to the editor. What on earth are you talking about?

rodiger 6y ago
He's just saying that to highlight that we shouldn't be attempting to draw any broad conclusions as other commenters are.
- nimish 6y ago
  Bingo. The plural of anecdotes isn’t data. Until there is a good study that controls for biases as well as expected side effects of severe disease like pneumonia, we can conclude nothing about the population

aphextron 6y ago

>Yes, covid is terrible but it's a different strain of a coronavirus (of which 20% of common colds are too), it's not something mystical. There's a strong chance we have substantial cross immunity to it though T-Cells defence. The literature is saying that if you're under 48 the flu has a higher mortality rate. We've mostly passed through the gompertz curve of the virus mortality as described by initial research by Hope Simpson regarding the seasonality of influenza viruses. Sure. But COVID-19 is currently in pandemic mode, having now infected at least 10% of the worlds population with zero signs of slowing down. This is not an endemic virus with a known cap on seasonal infections like the flu or colds. The area under the curve is going to be massive in comparison. That's the issue. Yes, it may have many similarities to the long term effects of other viruses. But now we will have hundreds of millions of people dealing with this, rather than hundreds of thousands. Quantity has a quality all of its' own.

spidersouris 6y ago
10 percent? From where did you get this number?
- natrik 6y ago
  https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-archive-united-nations-54a3a5869c9ae4ee623497691e796083 https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-archive-united-nat...
- aphextron 6y ago
  https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/10/05/920453483/10-of-global-population-may-have-contracted-the-coronavirus-who-says https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/1...

tao_oat 6y ago

This isn't a study, and scientists have been paying increasing attention to "long COVID" for several months now. See, for example, this feature from The BMJ from July: https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2815 https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2815 Alternatively, data from the UK in June suggests that 10% of people with COVID have symptoms that last for more than three weeks: https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-long-term https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-long-term If the number really is 10%, that's significant. This letter is merely suggesting further research; I think it's far from fear-mongering.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
just wanted to add there is also data from Bergamo that indicates long term affects for many people (and a study from Germany - see link buried in the WaPo post) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24418561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24418561

sroussey 6y ago

0.2% of cold viruses are coronaviruses. Only off by a factor of 100x. You quote scientific literature then say it’s lacking any rigor. Kinda hard to listen to the rest of the post. Do other respiratory viruses attack the blood and kidneys?Genuinely curious. My mother has Leukemia leading to kidney damage. Definitely some fear of contracting it and passing it to her. I have a friend in the “long hauler” group that is 38yo. Of the people I am one or two steps from, 45% are dead, 45% had mild issues, and 10% long hauler. So, low number of N is definitely a problem, for both my experience and the paper.

ColanR 6y ago
Since neither of you cited anything, webmd says parent is right. Looks like you're only off by a factor of 100x. If you're going to call someone out for inconsistencies, might want to get your data right? > Coronavirus. These tend to do their dirty work in the winter and early spring. The coronavirus is the cause of about 20% of colds. There are more than 30 kinds, but only three or four affect people. https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_causes https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_ca...
- pmg102 6y ago
  "The coronavirus is the cause of about 20% of colds." and "0.2% of cold viruses are coronaviruses" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive statements
  - sroussey 6y ago
    That’s a good point. My mind was definitely in the mode of what number and kinds of viruses that a body is exposed to, not so much how contagious it is, but I see your point.
  - ColanR 6y ago
    I thought of addressing that, but figured it would be obvious from the tail end of what I quoted: > There are more than 30 kinds, but only three or four affect people. There aren't enough cold viruses around to allow for a 0.2% fraction.

joshocar 6y ago

It's a novel coronavirus, not just any old coronavirus. It jumped from an animal species. What you are saying is equivalent to "The Spanish flu is just the flu. Thousands of people get the flu every year and we probably have some immunity to it. No big deal."

interestica 6y ago
When does this one stop being novel? This naming convention just has "new coke" vibes to me. I mean, when there is an other emergent virus of this type, it will take the name "novel". Which might typically be fine, but not when the name has become part of a public lexicon. It's all just a weird convention really. If another major novel type emerges soon it will be absurd if medical historians are looking back and trying to determine which virus articles are talking about. Coronavirus Classic.
- joshocar 6y ago
  The scientific community has a specific name they use for Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Also, timing would also be a very good indicator of what virus the author is talking about. Novel is in relation to the human races exposure to it. For example, there are modern flu virus that trace back evolutionarily to the Spanish flu, but are not novel, they are just "the flu" today. When the Spanish flu jumped to humans it was a novel flu, hence how deadly it was. Again, scientists have clear distinctions between different kinds of flu's, e.g. H1N1, H1N3.
- Izkata 6y ago
  Exactly this. People have latched on to the wrong meaning of "novel", ascribing meaning beyond just "not seen before", instead treating it something like "acts worse/differently from other coronaviruses".

logicOnly 6y ago

Handling of coronavirus was a failure of Politicians and Physicians. From the US standpoint, the shutdown should have happened in January. After the first US case, there was no purpose in locking down the boarder. Politician fail. Physicians stressed harsh lockdowns and played into the fear. This wasn't science or statistics, this was fear. Physician fail. After hundreds of coronavirus cases in the US, governors created their own lockdowns, but had no control over traveling between state lines. This created no benefit but created poor economic conditions. Politician fail. You know who has been correct but seemingly unheard during all of this? Scientists/epidemiologists. They predicted the spread perfectly but Politicians, citizens, and Physicians did not listen.

hcurtiss 6y ago
The projections of the scientists/epidemiologists were WILDLY inaccurate. IHME and Oxford both had major embarrassing downward revisions.
- logicOnly 6y ago
  I don't really care about the "projections" of a few people. The bigger takeaways were our options for how to handle the pandemic and expected outcomes.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

> There's a strong chance we have substantial cross immunity to it though T-Cells defence You criticise the article but then post this without any backup. > The literature is saying that if you're under 48 the flu has a higher mortality rate ditto. Show us the figures please. > N=1 in this study It's not a study.

drcross 6y ago
>You criticise the article but then post this without any backup. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-020-00808-x SARS-CoV-2-derived peptides define heterologous and COVID-19-induced T cell recognition >ditto. Show us the figures please. When I have more time I'll pull out this figure. Let me know if you find it in the meantime.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  Thanks for posting the link. OK "With regard to SARS-CoV-2, very recent studies described CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses to viral peptide megapools in donors that had recovered from COVID-19 and individuals not exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the latter being indicative of potential T cell cross-reactivity21" They seem to be saying there's value in peptide donors who had recovered from covid, a transfusion of which to those who've not had covid seem to be valuable. It does not say (AIUI) that there is "substantial cross immunity to it though T-Cells defence" in the sense of having a similar disease gives you cross immunity. If I'm wrong, which is likely, please point out the correct passage.