3 ms·

It will be different this time!!(says the media) <- no it won't. I like to base my findings on history and previous pandemics and how they were dealt with. The

It will be different this time!!(says the media) <- no it won't. I like to base my findings on history and previous pandemics and how they were dealt with. The swine flu of 1918-1919[1] which was more deadly(IFR rate 2% [2]) than covid-19(IFR rate 1.15% [3]) did in fact go away, it was the last major pandemic the world has endured and once herd immunity is reached the virus will no longer have any "tinder" to burn through as either the vaccine or catching the virus to get antibodies will stop the virus in its tracks. But what about mutations? coronaviruses mutate more slowly compared to the flu virus[4], and sequencing and testing is already underway for vaccines for the new variants[5]. Lastly the thing no one is really talking about is people die every year during flu season. The really old, the really sick etc, so I suspect that a good amount of deaths with covid are non-preventable and would have happened anyways due to the flu, which by the way is pretty much non-existent this year[6] <- with that link look at one year ago and you will see a stark change in the activity of the flu, its incredible as every state has the lowest activity the CDC measures. [1] - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoratio... [2] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220305117 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122... [3] - https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-fatality-ratio-is-about-one-point-15-percent https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-... [4] - https://rtmagazine.com/disorders-diseases/infectious-diseases/influenza/covid-mutates-slower-flu-who/ https://rtmagazine.com/disorders-diseases/infectious-disease... [5] - https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-sars-cov-2-variants-how-can-vaccines-be-adapted#Adapting-vaccines-to-match-variants https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-sars-cov-2-var... [6] - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm#ILIActivityMap https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm#ILIActivityMap

lamontcg 6y ago
The 1918 pandemic didn't "go away" until 1957, it circulated as seasonal influenza. The mutation rate of this coronavirus is also 1/4 per base pair and 1/2 per whole genome of influenza. That is fairly comparable to influenza (given that viral mutation rates span many orders of magnitude they're practically the same). The variants with the mutations in spike which have higher binding affinity to ACE2 suggest that the virus also has "room to mutate". OTOH, there are 20-ish epitopes on the spike protein and would need to mutate a bunch to achieve complete immune escape. Depending on what wild-assed-guess you take as to which of those is more important you'll come up with the likelihood of if it'll mutate to achieve immune escape or not. Anyone who says they know the answer -- no matter how many degrees they have and books and papers they've published -- is lying (they may wind up being correct, but to assert they know the answer right now is a lie). Since HCoV-NL63 has been endemic to the human race for likely centuries and similarly binds ACE2 my guess is that this coronavirus will also become endemic. Given the H1N1 is now seasonal influenza and that HCoV-NL63 is a common cold coronavirus this is likely what is going to happen to SARS-CoV-2 now: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6530/741 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6530/741

lamontcg 6y ago

The 1918 pandemic didn't "go away" until 1957, it circulated as seasonal influenza. The mutation rate of this coronavirus is also 1/4 per base pair and 1/2 per whole genome of influenza. That is fairly comparable to influenza (given that viral mutation rates span many orders of magnitude they're practically the same). The variants with the mutations in spike which have higher binding affinity to ACE2 suggest that the virus also has "room to mutate". OTOH, there are 20-ish epitopes on the spike protein and would need to mutate a bunch to achieve complete immune escape. Depending on what wild-assed-guess you take as to which of those is more important you'll come up with the likelihood of if it'll mutate to achieve immune escape or not. Anyone who says they know the answer -- no matter how many degrees they have and books and papers they've published -- is lying (they may wind up being correct, but to assert they know the answer right now is a lie). Since HCoV-NL63 has been endemic to the human race for likely centuries and similarly binds ACE2 my guess is that this coronavirus will also become endemic. Given the H1N1 is now seasonal influenza and that HCoV-NL63 is a common cold coronavirus this is likely what is going to happen to SARS-CoV-2 now: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6530/741 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6530/741