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| Science & Technology |
| The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form |
| 2020-04-20 |
| h/t Instapundit [The Week] ...Among the many things we don't yet understand about this new coronavirus is how deadly it is or how many people have been infected. "Fatality rates depend heavily on how overwhelmed hospitals get and what percentage of cases are tested," And we have two schools of thought - battling to the death, and calling each other names - based on these two aspects: "lower the curve" vs "herd immunity - lockdown is a totalitarian plot". People just don't understand mixed strategies. and those numbers keep getting revised in hard-hit areas, McNeil reports. People who die of the disease at home or in overwhelmed hospitals are not counted, but people with few or no symptoms are never tested, so "if you don't know how many people are infected, you don't know how deadly a virus is." The changing fatality rate is one reason the models keep fluctuating, Actually, it's not the models (there's only one) - it's the estimates of the model's parameters. McNeil says, but "there may be good news buried in this inconsistency: The virus may also be mutating to cause fewer symptoms. In the movies, viruses become more deadly. In reality, they usually become less so, because asymptomatic strains reach more hosts. Even the 1918 Spanish flu virus eventually faded into the seasonal H1N1 flu." After killing 50 million people. So don't throw away your masks, gloves, and hand-sanitizer yet. While we don't know the fatality rate or level of contagion, the "refrigerated trucks parked outside hospitals tell us all we need to know: It is far worse than a bad flu season," McNeil writes. How the pandemic ends depends on the virus' lethality, medical advances, and how individuals behave, he adds. "If we scrupulously protect ourselves and our loved ones, more of us will live. If we underestimate the virus, it will find us." An NYT reporter. Obviously a totalitarian propagandist. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #1 While the symptoms of Wuhan disease do resemble those of known diseases like the common cold or the flu we should keep in mind that this is something new that is also still rapidly evolving. I do hope there aren't any nasty surprises waiting for some of the survivors of the acute infection years in the future. Even a variation that causes a milder acute infection might still be extremely dangerous. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2020-04-20 16:58 |