lack of masks in Sainsbury's

[Blah Blah]

I agree with all of that. Whilst a more deadly mutation could be less likely than a less deadly one, we don't to miss the first emergence of such a change, hence all the ongoing monitoring and research.

[TE44]

Yes I'm sorry, probably was a bad idea to try and exolain what I meant after a day of feeling stressed. Having to deal with the usual bigger pic and our relation to it and people who believe they have a right to harrass people who do have a reason for being unable to wear a mask. Anyway my point I was trying to make, was the Rtpcr test, has much controversy around it, whether this RNA genetic material is related to sarsCov2. Time and time again this has been brought up. When I read the link Blah blah put up I quoted the part where the difficulty in isolating was acknowledged. I pointed this out as like when I think Mexiico put out a paper regarding a glycoprotein, which was given like a warning,this causes lots of fear, it hits headlines. The comflict between scientists is a reality we cannot ignore. I apologise again for going off on a tangent, and not being clear.also for trying to explain howbigger picture intermingles with beliefs. No Blah blah I absoluty was not asking you to agree with my opinion, I was merely trying to explain mine, I know, not well.

[Penguin68]

The comflict between scientists is a reality we cannot ignore.

I think at this stage 'conflict' is a loaded word. There is still very little known for certain about what appears to be an evolving virus. As, frankly, is 'scientist' (a loaded word).

Additionally you have both 'hard' science in operation, and statistical modelling - what we can be absolutely certain about is that we can't at the moment be absolutely certain about anything (and in science that is actually almost a requirement).

Governments are driven at the moment by the precautionary principle (with the USA and Brasil clearly outliers here). So they are being very conservative as regards any public health upsides and very open to accepting the possibility of public health downsides. I suspect they will be shown to have been over-cautious - but (in terms of death toll) that's what we might want. Economies can recover, generally, and over time - dead people can't.

[Effra]

@ Blah Blah

What amazes me about Covid19 is the extremely wide range of symptoms and the long terms effects.

Loss of taste/smell, lung impairment plus sustained organ damage to liver, heart, kidneys and brain.

No other virus I am aware of creates such wide-ranging and long-term effects. Someone more cynical than I might speculate that this suggests that it was engineered by cutting and splicing various bits of DNA from other sources. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I'd be interested in your take on this in relation to progressive mutation, from a source in nature, to what we now have with Covid.

[Penguin68]

Loss of taste/smell, lung impairment plus sustained organ damage to liver, heart, kidneys and brain.

Many of the long-term - and most devastating - effects are the consequence of cytokine storms (when the body's own immune system turns on it). These were certainly also a consequence of the pneumonia's triggered by the Spanish flu - although far fewer people survived this to suffer consequential long term effects. The ability to trigger cytokine storms is by no means unique to Covid-19.

So we may be seeing - in 'symptoms' - the results of quite different assaults on the body - for the vast majority of those infected the impacts are quite benign (indeed in perhaps a third of cases unnoticeable) - for a few, where storms are triggered, these can instead be devastating.

If this was 'designed' (and I don't remotely think it was) it was very badly designed. Unless by millennials wanting to get their inheritance early and free up the housing market. Or hospital administrators wanting to clear out the bed blockers.

[TE44]

Penguin68, I agree, uncertainty is definitely a feeling that is less loaded and fits with so much of what we are seeing outside as well as within a science perception. How many people will die due to economic break down remains to be seen. As well as the numbers of deaths related to mental health etc.

I have had a word with myself ( after not being able to understand my own post, ha ha)

And will attempt to stop jumping off course. Definitely easier to speak face to face. Thanks for your clear view.

[Blah Blah]

There is no evidence that this virus was lab created, and bear in mind there are plenty of governments in the world who would love to be able to prove it was. And I second the point on badly designed, if intent is being looked for, as in the case of conspiracy theories. Viruses are complex science and part of the problem is in trying to help a public understand some essence of that complexity.

As for range of symptoms, the ACE2 receptors that this virus latches onto are found in many parts of the body, so it is not easy to know who might suffer from what in absolute terms. Cytokine Storms are also unpredictable but there are some patterns emerging in terms of risk. Older people have more ACE2 receptors than younger people, so that is likely to be one explanation in the major divergence across age. People who are very overweight tend to have poorer respiratory health, meaning that inflammation of the lungs will be more significant. But it also seems that higher rates of stroke are being observed in covid carrying patients who have no other symptoms. Again, work is being done to understand what is going on there. It could take years to fully understand the range and risk level of a whole range of conditions that present in parallel with covid.

And there is research emerging that patients who had the virus at the peak in April, have already lost 50% of any immunity. That means any idea of herd immunity without a vaccine is looking very unlikely. We have yet to see and measure the results of people being infected for a second time. This is also why second waves can be worse (infection rates aside), as those already recovering with weakened immune systems, become reinfected. All of these things are good reasons to be cautious even if hindsight proves to show we were overly so.

One of the many complications in vaccine development, is finding vaccines for viruses that leave low imprints on immune system memory. Basically speaking, with most viral and bacterial infections, the body successfully fights them off, and then remembers for next time, how to produce that antibody to do the same job. A vaccine is designed to do the same thing, teach the body how to produce an antibody and leave a long term memory of that.

So how do you produce a vaccine for these low imprint viruses? The development at Oxford, by the team led by Prof Sarah Gilbert, uses a harmless weakened adenovirus (found in chimpanzees) that provokes a known strong immune response, which they have genetically modified with the genetic sequence of the surface spike protein found on the covid virus. It is what we call a pseudovirus, and it contains the information the virus needs to provoke the right immune response, but does not contain the information the source virus has that causes the resulting illness. This is why they are safe to test and work on.

In theory, this would induce an immune response, that would be remembered for the next time the virus infects the body. If it works, then this vaccine could reduce covid to the level of a regular chest infection, with modifiable vaccines available for those at most risk if it changes from time to time. It is a development process that this team have used before for flu, Zika, MERS and Ebola. Low immune response viruses are their area of research.

And there are basically three stages to testing a new vaccine. In the first stage, the vaccine is given to a small sample of healthy people (around 1000) to test for any side effects, and to measure if it produces a good immune response. If it passes that stage, then in the second stage, the vaccine is expanded to people of all ages and the observation there, it to look for the same results as stage one across age groups. Children would be tested at the end of that phase, only once all adult data is showing a safe response. Phase three is the stage at which a vaccine is tested for final use and involves testing in multiple locations (and countries) and tests reinfection rates too. And that means going to somewhere where the virus is spreading unchecked, so as critical as the world is of Brazil for example, it is the perfect location to test a phase three vaccine. There are then additional phases to test those left out of earlier phases, like pregnant women, or those with serious underlying conditions. All of these stages take time and can't be rushed. Announcements that we could have a vaccine by Christmas, were always foolish and deliberately misleading.

And even though most vaccines fail at any of these stages, any news of a vaccine going to stage three is worth keeping an eye on. Governments are also pre-ordering huge batches of stage three vaccines for that reason, just in case. Scaling up any vaccine that works is going to be an additional challenge though.

[Blah Blah]

And yes TE44, if this virus were the only thing out that that has to faced, that would be fine. But it is not, and there will be indirect consequences for all the reasons you state. For governments, it is a question of balance (with one eye on re-election). For the individual it is also a question of balance, and what is personally at risk for you.

A pandemic is like war. We can't stop the destruction, only mitigate it, until it ends.

[seenbeen]

Effra Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> @ Blah Blah

>

> What amazes me about Covid19 is the extremely wide

> range of symptoms and the long terms effects.

>

> Loss of taste/smell, lung impairment plus

> sustained organ damage to liver, heart, kidneys

> and brain.

>

> No other virus I am aware of creates such

> wide-ranging and long-term effects. Someone more

> cynical than I might speculate that this suggests

> that it was engineered by cutting and splicing

> various bits of DNA from other sources. I am not a

> conspiracy theorist but I'd be interested in your

> take on this in relation to progressive mutation,

> from a source in nature, to what we now have with

> Covid.

The cells of your body have receptors on them in order for hormones etc. to get in the cell and do their job. The virus covid 19 is structured in such a way that it can latch on to the ACE2 receptor on cells which are in many parts of the body then it can hijack the cells' mechanism and replicate itself and spread

The covid 19 is VERY similar in mode of cell entry to the first Covid in 2002

'Recently, it was shown that a metallopeptidase, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), efficiently binds the S1 domain of the SARS-CoV S protein. SARS-CoV replicated efficiently on ACE2-transfected but not mock-transfected 293T cells. Also, anti-ACE2 but not anti-ACE1 antibodies blocked viral replication on Vero E6 cells, indicating that ACE2 is a functional receptor for SARS-CoV [80] which was also identified by a further study [81].' (a paper from 2005)

From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC548145/ about halfway down the first page- 'Target Cell Receptors'.

As this SARS-CoV (as it was called) happened in 2002 and there was absolutely tons of research done on it since- including trying to find a vaccine without success- I'm not surprised that there are conspiracy theories abounding as for one thing the Chinese will not allow anyone into the Wuhan biological facility to inspect.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-china-bars-safety-experts-from-wuhan-lab-brbm9rwtm

And you are right about gene splicing etc it's been going on since at least 1992 when I did some myself and biotech has moved on exponentially.

See this video at about 36 minutes