Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

Snoopy wrote:

Negative. Austrian officials reacted quite late. Icelandic and Scandinavian authorities warned on 05MAR20 that lots of infected are coming home from Tyrol. Nothing happened for 8 days…

Peter has been spot on with claiming that lots of people brought back the virus from skiing. Ischgl seems to have been a focal point for the spread of SARS2-CoV for all of Europe!

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/coronavirus-ausbruch-in-ischgl-die-brutstaette-a-8f56e5a2-635f-473a-96e9-300b6cbf4180 (in German)

There probably isn’t a lot of commonality in the antibodies, but ultimately I don’t know. I can make up plausible explanations for why having the flu before COVID-19 would be a good or a bad thing. You would need a virologist to give an informed opinion, and probably an experiment to be sure.

Lucius wrote:

Question for the docs: It’s been said that the antibodies that the immune system produces to fight off covid-19 are similar to the antibodies produced to fight off the common flu virus strains. Does this mean that a flu vaccine “trains” the immune system and therefore has a better chance fighting off the covid-19?

Unfortunately, no. The flu vaccine is useful because it prevents you from getting Covid-19 and Influenza at the same time, which is very well possible.

At this point I know of no direct protective effect from any existing vaccine (or any medicine, while we are at it) against Coronavirus. Coronaviridae and Influenza (flu) are about as related as chimpanzees and crocodiles (the animals were chosen at random and do not represent the relative danger of the two kinds of virus, rather, their genetic distance).

Here’s a relatively recent review article about an interesting question. If you go to Google Scholar you and search for viral coinfection you are likely to find much more. Enjoy!

I just read an “excellent interview with a leading German virologist, Prof. Hendrik Streeck”:
https://m.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/gesundheit/coronavirus/virologe-hendrik-streeck-ueber-corona-neue-symptome-entdeckt-16681450.html from the university of Bonn.

His team found some “new” symptoms among Covid-19, notably

• Two thirds of Patients experience a temporary loss of their sense of taste and smell, for up to several days

• 30% of patients experience diarrhoea

• he further quoted a Chinese study which showed that 91% of patients experience only mild symptoms, such as a dry cough, or none at all

• SARS2-COV is genetically 80% identical with the SARS-1 virus of the early 2000s. It is much less dangerous though because it mainly replicates in the throat, whereas SARS mainly replicated in the lung and thus caused much more severe pneumonia

• A number of those who died would have died anyways, they died with Coronavirus instead of from it

• He expects the total number of deaths in 2020 (from all causes) to be at the same level as in the last years in Germany

That is quite an interesting article @kwlf

We still need an explanation for why some people seem to be almost unaffected by Sars-CoV-2, while others become terminally ill. I am wondering if this can be explained by the implication of multiple pathogens. Also, how did the Chinese immediately knew that this one Coronavirus they identified was the cuplrit (this is a genuine question out of curiosity, I don’t want to suggest anything with it)?

It seems like we should study more than just positive PCR tests for Sars-CoV-2 in those falling ill with Covid-19. And also in those getting infected but not developing critical symptoms. Would the “Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)” techniques mentioned in the article allow for a better “big picture”?

I thought there is some evidence that chloroquine might be effective at limiting the course?

https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/020620/could-an-old-malaria-drug-help-fight-the-new-coron

and else where.

Everyone sold out some time ago so the rumour mill has obvioulsy done its job.

That’s a very interesting post Medewok. The German situation is especially puzzling, with so few deaths. What is Germany doing differently?

The study which is now driving UK govt policy is this one from Imperial College local copy. It is pretty scary reading.

Not at all surprising to read that article about skiing. It’s been blindingly obvious from reading ski social media that this would distribute the virus well, with so many people desperate to squeeze in the last trip, while mixing closely with so many others.

One of the rags here is claiming that Amazon will stop shipping everything except essentials. That is really hard to understand. But this is likely bogus; nothing on their website. Ebay would be the big winner if Amazon stopped shipping.

Funnily enough no problem getting “proper food” (the sort of thing which you have to heat up and mix before you can eat it, like people used to do in the 19th century). It is the quick stuff that’s running short.

An interesting report from China suggesting that blood type and severity of covid 19 disease are related
Apparently type A being more susceptible and type 0 less.
From my experience with hepatitis C where blood type incidence are correlated it seems reasonable to accept the study
Sorry I could not find the source.

I fully appreciate it will not happen, and I am not suggesting it should, but, as a thought to dealing with this in another world;

- we know the key is herd immunity, when herd immunity rises to a sufficient level it will stop the virus in its tracks, (subject to whether you can catch it twice, and / or how long the immunity lasts, which we dont yet know),

- so you ask everyone say between 25 and 50 without any medical conditions to be given the virus, and self isolate for x weeks,

- it would appear almost none will become severly ill (perhaps none), or require to be hospitalised in any number,

- you thus achieve a state of herd immunity within the population very quickly (and given that probably the vast majority would become infected anyway, albeit in a much longer period of time),

As I say, I am not suggesting it, but wonder if it would work effectively.