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You seem to be ignoring my point. The death rate is not because there's something special about the virus itself that makes it highly lethal. It's just that it'

You seem to be ignoring my point. The death rate is not because there's something special about the virus itself that makes it highly lethal. It's just that it's novel, so our bodies have to work harder to learn how to fight it off, and the frailest people don't have the fortitude to do that. Ergo, as it becomes endemic, and all of our immune systems learn how to respond to it, it's completely reasonable to expect that it will become benign to most people. (After all, it already is pretty benign to many/most people, compared to the original SARS and MERS). Repeating "we don't know" is an easy response, and something you can say in response to anything like this, but it's not really addressing the logic I'm presenting. You really have to demonstrate why this virus is substantially different to all the other respiratory viruses that have become endemic and mostly benign, which you've not attempted to do. You just keep saying "we don't know". Sure, but we actually have some solid historical precedent, and this virus is so-far showing no signs of being any different from all those before it.

0-_-0 5y ago
You're ignoring my argument why this virus is different, and just repeating the same argument that it's like the flu. In addition, nothing in your argument implies that the "end is near", only that there is an end.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  I can't see anything you've written about why this virus is different; that's what I've been asking you to do, but you haven't addressed it, from what I can see. Nevertheless, on the way in which it is widely regarded as being different, I just addressed that in a reply to another commenter here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27290964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27290964 For what it's worth I'm not really saying it's "like the flu" - more that we should expect it to be like other coronaviruses, unless there's significant evidence to the contrary.
  - 0-_-0 5y ago
    I wrote "So far the increase in the virues' virulence with new mutations wasn't correlated with decrease in deaths as far as I know" which suggests the virus is not evolving to be less deadly as you suggest. In fact the British variant was both more virulent and more deadly than the original COVID strain: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n579 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n579 This contradicts your position that COVID evolves just like the flu does. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
    - tomhoward 5y ago
      This is why I said you were ignoring my point. I specifically didn’t claim that the virus is “evolving to be less deadly”. My point was that human vulnerability is due to it being novel, and that as more people’s immune systems become attuned to it (whether via contracting the virus, vaccination or being exposed to fragments in the environment), it will become less novel and less deadly to those exposed to it. Therefore, we should still expect the fatality rate to be steady among those who have never been exposed to it, but that will start dropping off quickly as immunity becomes more widespread, which is what we're seeing. Based on everything we know, a “new” “novel” virus would most likely hit us via a jump from another species, not through continued evolution of this virus. As for higher fatality rates from B.1.1.7 or other strains - reports about this are contradictory [1], and notably the headlines about it being no worse than other strains are always much smaller/less-prominent that the those trying to terrify us about it being much worse. [1] https://www.contagionlive.com/view/sars-cov-2-b117-variant-more-transmissible-not-more-deadly https://www.contagionlive.com/view/sars-cov-2-b117-variant-m...

0-_-0 5y ago

You're ignoring my argument why this virus is different, and just repeating the same argument that it's like the flu. In addition, nothing in your argument implies that the "end is near", only that there is an end.

tomhoward 5y ago
I can't see anything you've written about why this virus is different; that's what I've been asking you to do, but you haven't addressed it, from what I can see. Nevertheless, on the way in which it is widely regarded as being different, I just addressed that in a reply to another commenter here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27290964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27290964 For what it's worth I'm not really saying it's "like the flu" - more that we should expect it to be like other coronaviruses, unless there's significant evidence to the contrary.
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  I wrote "So far the increase in the virues' virulence with new mutations wasn't correlated with decrease in deaths as far as I know" which suggests the virus is not evolving to be less deadly as you suggest. In fact the British variant was both more virulent and more deadly than the original COVID strain: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n579 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n579 This contradicts your position that COVID evolves just like the flu does. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    This is why I said you were ignoring my point. I specifically didn’t claim that the virus is “evolving to be less deadly”. My point was that human vulnerability is due to it being novel, and that as more people’s immune systems become attuned to it (whether via contracting the virus, vaccination or being exposed to fragments in the environment), it will become less novel and less deadly to those exposed to it. Therefore, we should still expect the fatality rate to be steady among those who have never been exposed to it, but that will start dropping off quickly as immunity becomes more widespread, which is what we're seeing. Based on everything we know, a “new” “novel” virus would most likely hit us via a jump from another species, not through continued evolution of this virus. As for higher fatality rates from B.1.1.7 or other strains - reports about this are contradictory [1], and notably the headlines about it being no worse than other strains are always much smaller/less-prominent that the those trying to terrify us about it being much worse. [1] https://www.contagionlive.com/view/sars-cov-2-b117-variant-more-transmissible-not-more-deadly https://www.contagionlive.com/view/sars-cov-2-b117-variant-m...