Monday Covid Update: 17,970 new cases and 178 deaths

[AussieBob]

21 hours ago, Chaimai said:

Spot on.................and the Delta variant caught them out.

If the Thonglor hiso/Hua Hin/Bangkok market/Songkran clusters had just been the original 'Wuhan variant', they would have had it back under control by know.

Looking forward to seeing the curve flatten then that will indicate how many months (towards recovery) have been lost.

Yep - they assumed they had it under control and that things would not change so quickly.

Obviously they have not studied 'The Art of War' - which is pretty much General 101 in the West.

[AussieBob]

21 hours ago, Smithydog said:

I agree AussieBob. Unfortunately the Delta version has reset many expectations on all sides of the debate. Like some sci-fi movies, what really scares me is what the virus may next turn into. Will it grow legs and start walking around on its own?

Maybe we won't become the Planet of the Apes but the Planet of the Virus Beings!

It is a big worry - makes me wonder yet again if it is really a natural virus or a synthetic virus that escaped. It certainly has shown itself to be exceptionally adaptable to the human genomes, and also seems to be good at evolving in order to evade anti-bodies over an extremely and unheard of time period (months not years).   

[AussieBob]

20 hours ago, HolyCowCm said:

I think they are still stalling by back peddling with smoke and mirrors talking about other vaccines as bringing in only some amounts of them, but at the end of the day it looks to be still moving forward with Sinovac and AZ for the majority of all. The Pfizer was a gift from t he USA and from the reaction from the public we can all see what the real majority really wants if taking a vaccine. Will be interesting how this all unfolds. But one ting fore sure is that they will never be respected or loved in their lifetime, well, except only by the ones in their close circles.

Very true mate - they are doomed electorally, which also worries me - as if Covid was not enough.  Will they take the political path and rebuild for another time, or will they demand to stay in power and refuse to accept defeat. Time will tell. 

[JamesE]

3 minutes ago, AussieBob said:

extremely and unheard of time period

Nah, it's actually pretty typical for a coronavirus. The antibodies we make are pretty wimpy which is why you can get a common cold year after year after year. Plus, as you say, coronaviruses are very adaptable. Variant development for many viruses depends a lot on the kind of virus. SARS-CoV-2 being an RNA virus doesn't have anything to check against to see if it's an accurate copy so is more prone to making genetic mistakes when it replicates in our cells. And the numbers are huge. A typical COVID infection results in a viral load of between 1 and 100 billion virus particles. If a mistake in the genetic copy is made only once in a million replications that's still between one and 100 thousand potential new variants per infection. Times just over 600K infections per day. It's actually pretty amazing that there aren't more variants out there.

[AussieBob]

13 minutes ago, JamesE said:

Nah, it's actually pretty typical for a coronavirus. The antibodies we make are pretty wimpy which is why you can get a common cold year after year after year. Plus, as you say, coronaviruses are very adaptable. Variant development for many viruses depends a lot on the kind of virus. SARS-CoV-2 being an RNA virus doesn't have anything to check against to see if it's an accurate copy so is more prone to making genetic mistakes when it replicates in our cells. And the numbers are huge. A typical COVID infection results in a viral load of between 1 and 100 billion virus particles. If a mistake in the genetic copy is made only once in a million replications that's still between one and 100 thousand potential new variants per infection. Times just over 600K infections per day. It's actually pretty amazing that there aren't more variants out there.

There is some validity in what you said, but there is also some inaccuracy. According to the attached research the 'normal' coronaviruses have a slow mutation rate:

One interesting facet of coronaviruses is that they have the largest genomes of any known RNA viruses (≈30 kb). These large genomes led researchers to suspect the presence of a 'proofreading mechanism' to reduce the mutation rate and stabilize the genome. Indeed, coronaviruses have a proofreading exonuclease called ExoN, which explains their low mutation rates (~10^–6 per site per cycle) in comparison to influenza (≈3 × 10^–5 per site per cycle

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) by the numbers (nih.gov)

This is all based on very little research, but the basics are correct. Coronaviruses have a much lower rate of mutation than influenza type viruses, but the Covid coronavirus has a mutation rate much higher than other coronaviruses as evidenced in bat populations and previous 'bad' coronaviruses MERS and SARS. 

[JamesE]

2 hours ago, AussieBob said:

Coronaviruses have a much lower rate of mutation than influenza type viruses, but the Covid coronavirus has a mutation rate much higher than other coronaviruses as evidenced in bat populations and previous 'bad' coronaviruses MERS and SARS. 

This part is very interesting. What SARS-CoV-2 has been able to do is make the jump from bats or sneezy pangolins or whatever and establish itself in a new host: Us. Flu still has to jump from a host (pigs or birds) every year, MERS still shows up in camel-human transmission, and SARS made the mistake of not being transmissible until after it became symptomatic. I wonder if the high rate of mutation is an effect of jumping hosts and trying to fit in better. There are going to be some great books to read in about 10 years.

[AussieBob]

11 minutes ago, JamesE said:

This part is very interesting. What SARS-CoV-2 has been able to do is make the jump from bats or sneezy pangolins or whatever and establish itself in a new host: Us. Flu still has to jump from a host (pigs or birds) every year, MERS still shows up in camel-human transmission, and SARS made the mistake of not being transmissible until after it became symptomatic. I wonder if the high rate of mutation is an effect of jumping hosts and trying to fit in better. There are going to be some great books to read in about 10 years.

Mate - you are dead right - and that is the core issues - and that is not being addressed much by the media, while the Authorities etc. are all busy with the vaccinations and trying to stop the outbreaks. 

How exactly did the covid coronavirus jump from bats to humans? 

Why is it mutating so quickly and effectively?

They have still not found the host animal (like panglions with SARS or camels with MERS)  and that is after extremely extensive researching - both hosts for SARS and MERS took much less time to establish. China is spending a lot of time and resources trying to establish the host animal - as is many labs all around the world - they have not succeeded.  That therefore then brings into play the only other alternative - there was no intermediatery host.  Which if true leads to only two conclusions - the virus jumped directly to humans as you said, or it was synthetically made in a lab.

If it was as you suggest and a 'direct jump' took place - that is extremely unlikely and goes against all known science - but there is always new science that was previously unknown.  If it was a direct jump somehow, then it is a concern - the virus is exhibiting an extremely high and successful mutation rate and maybe it will keep mutating successfully for many years unless somehow they can somehow 'break the chain'. 

If it was 'man made' and it accidently escaped somehow from a lab, then the same scenario plays out - it will have the inbuilt tools and methods to keep mutating, and it will probably keep doing that successfully for many years.

I sure hope that above conjecture is all wrong, because if either a 'jump' or 'made' outcome occurred, Covid might take many years to be under some sort of control.  If it can keep mutating and causing new infection waves every 4-6 months and current vaccines or antibodies cannot stop it, this aint over by a long shot.  I hope we are both very wrong and they find some obscure little mammal in the hills of Wuhan and they are able to identify and isolate the 'source gene' and they can start to fine tune the vaccines and cut its knees off.

[JamesE]

5 minutes ago, AussieBob said:

Mate - you are dead right - and that is the core issues - and that is not being addressed much by the media, while the Authorities etc. are all busy with the vaccinations and trying to stop the outbreaks. 

How exactly did the covid coronavirus jump from bats to humans? 

Why is it mutating so quickly and effectively?

They have still not found the host animal (like panglions with SARS or camels with MERS)  and that is after extremely extensive researching - both hosts for SARS and MERS took much less time to establish. China is spending a lot of time and resources trying to establish the host animal - as is many labs all around the world - they have not succeeded.  That therefore then brings into play the only other alternative - there was no intermediatery host.  Which if true leads to only two conclusions - the virus jumped directly to humans as you said, or it was synthetically made in a lab.

If it was as you suggest and a 'direct jump' took place - that is extremely unlikely and goes against all known science - but there is always new science that was previously unknown.  If it was a direct jump somehow, then it is a concern - the virus is exhibiting an extremely high and successful mutation rate and maybe it will keep mutating successfully for many years unless somehow they can somehow 'break the chain'. 

If it was 'man made' and it accidently escaped somehow from a lab, then the same scenario plays out - it will have the inbuilt tools and methods to keep mutating, and it will probably keep doing that successfully for many years.

I sure hope that above conjecture is all wrong, because if either a 'jump' or 'made' outcome occurred, Covid might take many years to be under some sort of control.  If it can keep mutating and causing new infection waves every 4-6 months and current vaccines or antibodies cannot stop it, this aint over by a long shot.  I hope we are both very wrong and they find some obscure little mammal in the hills of Wuhan and they are able to identify and isolate the 'source gene' and they can start to fine tune the vaccines and cut its knees off.

I love a good conspiracy as much as anybody but we're just not smart enough (yet) to customize viruses. I do think the lab played a role, though. Some of the pictures I saw a couple months ago showed people with no face masks or shields, no gloves, nothing, handling and sampling bats and getting bit. I'm totally leaning in the direction of the lab being the source.

Direct jumps happen all the time. Ebola, Marburg, the flu, all of them are zoonotic events whenever there's an outbreak. I don't know what the most recent other virus that became endemic in humans could be. There are only a handful of pathogens that are (were).

You're also right about the new mutations. We've got a way to go before this s#!tshow is over.

[HolyCowCm]

6 hours ago, AussieBob said:

Very true mate - they are doomed electorally, which also worries me - as if Covid was not enough.  Will they take the political path and rebuild for another time, or will they demand to stay in power and refuse to accept defeat. Time will tell. 

Me and my family's take on it is they don't care and will do anything to hold the power no matter what. They have already shown this.. They see themselves as the torch holder to protect themselves (Junta), the elite and the ????? Gonna take a lot to force them out by the good Thai people.

 

[AussieBob]

3 hours ago, JamesE said:

I love a good conspiracy as much as anybody but we're just not smart enough (yet) to customize viruses. I do think the lab played a role, though. Some of the pictures I saw a couple months ago showed people with no face masks or shields, no gloves, nothing, handling and sampling bats and getting bit. I'm totally leaning in the direction of the lab being the source.

Direct jumps happen all the time. Ebola, Marburg, the flu, all of them are zoonotic events whenever there's an outbreak. I don't know what the most recent other virus that became endemic in humans could be. There are only a handful of pathogens that are (were).

You're also right about the new mutations. We've got a way to go before this s#!tshow is over.

I agree - it is unlikely to be 'customised', and more likely to have been because they were repeatedly bitten.

 

[AussieBob]

36 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Me and my family's take on it is they don't care and will do anything to hold the power no matter what. They have already shown this.. They see themselves as the torch holder to protect themselves (Junta), the elite and the ????? Gonna take a lot to force them out by the good Thai people.

I think the critical factor will be whether they are 'supported' by certain very influential people. I mean the people that Thaksin asked and when told he was not supported - he resigned. 

[HolyCowCm]

7 minutes ago, AussieBob said:

I think the critical factor will be whether they are 'supported' by certain very influential people. I mean the people that Thaksin asked and when told he was not supported - he resigned. 

Expect the odds not in the people's favor and what they want and the changes.