Idk why I’m writing this post but I just received my positive COVID test. I’ve been quarantining for the last 13 days due to a roommate testing positive. Now, I’m stuck in isolation for 10 more. I just feel fucking defeated. The world is ending. The state is collapsing. Everybody’s dying of a pandemic. We are so fucking abandoned. And I can’t even leave my room for the little bit of personal contact still allowed during COVID.

Thanks for being a place that I can come scream into the void, chapochat. I feel like less of a tinfoil hat wearing lunatic when I’m surrounded by my fellow lunatics.

  • qublic69 [none/use name]
    1·
    4 years ago

    If the European strain arose in China and colonized Europe

    That is not an if.

    doesn’t change the fact that it’s 10x more contagious

    No. It is ten times more infectious within cell cultures.

    It is not ten times more contagious; that is fundamentally not how infectious diseases work.
    That would require people somehow coughing and meeting people maybe ten times as much.

    Biospace is not a journal. That preprint article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7310631) is likely reputable but it makes no claims about contagion.

    Some hack journos took 10x infectivity and ran that as 10x more contagious, and here a random news article debunking it.

    The cause of these differences is due to policy, culture, and geography, and in that regard New Zealand is nothing like the USA.

    • lvysaur [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      That is not an if.

      I was using 'if' in the rhetorical sense. I literally said you were right.

      No. It is ten times more infectious within cell cultures.

      Yeah, it's 10x more infectious in cell cultures, and the areas that had the virus also mysteriously have 10x fewer deaths (100x fewer in Asia where they do masks). Definitely a nothingburger

      is likely reputable but it makes no claims about contagion.

      Ok, you're legitimately correct here, I took that article at its word and I was wrong. The actual paper says the following:

      We observed that retroviruses pseudotyped with SG614 infected ACE2-expressing cells markedly more efficiently than those with SD614

      However, SG614 did not bind ACE2 more efficiently than SD614, and the pseudoviruses containing these S proteins were neutralized with comparable efficiencies by convalescent plasma.

      These results show SG614 is more stable than SD614, consistent with epidemiological data suggesting that viruses with SG614 transmit more efficiently.

      So you're right, it's not more contagious, it's just more stable during the process of infection (less likely to break off or something). The end effect is that it is 10x more infectious. Again, I was technically wrong, but how does this change literally anything about my larger point, which was that the Euro strain causes 10x more deaths?

      They also seem to agree that this strain is more fit and explains the higher deaths/capita:

      This mutation with glycine at the residue 614 (G614) was previously detected to increase with an alarming speed

      The G614 genotype was not detected in February (among 33 sequences) and observed at low frequency in March (26%), but increased rapidly by April (65%) and May (70%) (Fig. 1b), indicating a transmission advantage over viruses with D614

      New Zealand is nothing like the USA.

      Ok, now do Australia. Why are the cunts at 31 deaths while the bongs, their literal twins, are at 630 (per million)?

      • qublic69 [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        The points on which I object are that simplistic 10x idea (how does that even operate over time, since viruses grow exponentially?)
        And that countries in Asia-Pacific mostly avoided deaths because it was a weaker strain; rather than effective crisis response.

        (Nature paper below concerns data until 3rd of July)

        So the first aspect is case fatality/mortality rate.
        This figure is a decent summary of that topic: https://www.nature.com/articles/s10038-020-0808-9/figures/1

        There are roughly 3 genetic clusters of the virus. If you look at the worst performing countries (highest points) we can see that the red/blue clusters (that contain G614) are about 3x more deadly. (or 2x when comparing means instead)
        More important is the amount of spread within those clusters. Within the red cluster for example, there is one country with about 15% case fatality rate, and another around 0%.
        The point is, the virulence of it hardly even matters, because countries that do well completely wreck this virus anyway.

        As you can see from that figure, the viral gene profile of Australia is mostly the same as the USA. (except that Australia has encountered a somewhat greater variety of mutations)
        And the prevailing blue cluster in the USA is clearly milder than the red one in Brazil, Italy, or Iceland.

        You're not entirely wrong about the bigger picture, it is just extremely misleading to use that 10x number, and to ignore the fact that variation between countries is so much larger than between strains.
        This even clearer in this next figure from the same paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s10038-020-0808-9/figures/2

        The second part is the total number of infections that are allowed to happen, that one would expect to increase with contagion.

        And to that end: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30820-5 (with data until March 20th)

        It shows that G614 (and total 3 out of 4 mutations define the 'G clade') originated in China; but that 4th 'G clade' mutation likely first occurred in Italy. (not that it really matters, these mutations were basically inevitable)
        This 'G clade' soon dominates over the 'D clade'. There likely is increased contagion/transmissibility, but there are multiple mechanisms by which relative fitness could operate.
        If it were possible to conclude increased contagion from the available data, that paper would already be doing so with great enthusiasm.

        And again this paper shows that "G clade" exists in both Australia and USA in comparable ratios at the same time.
        D614 initially dominated in both, but was soon displaced by G614.

        And yet Australia did okayish, while the USA did not.
        There are many ways to try and explain that; but viral strain (while I cannot entirely rule it out here) seems unlikely to be that significant.

        I mean really, do people forget the insane lengths that China went to?
        Who cares if they were even spraying disinfectant; it could have been straight up steam machines and saved thousands of lives just by scaring the shit out of people.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBlV4tTRxFY
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLdwCdyiDCw
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_paSG16bWg
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWqCUpKTUa8

        Sorry, I don't know when to quit.
        And have too much time on my hands apparently.