Will Covid 19 impact 2022 season?

[adrianjordan]

I wonder if what’s happening in Australia and New Zealand right now gives an indication of how life will be in well regulated societies in the future and how it will interact with sporting events?

I certainly think the Australian approach is a good one (though I'm baffled why the latest lockdown is only 5 days) as it allows outbreaks to be contained.

[nzjrs]

An early report indicating incidence of asymptomatic reinfection (In a study of young marines), but also that infection provides itself immunity against severe cases in the youngish. Consistent with other viruses and hopefully speaks to the goal of this vaccination program should be staying focused on reducing severe infections and outcomes in the elderly.


Edit: hmm twitter embedding only the first tweet in the thread. Click to read the thread.

Somewhat related and some positive news, with enough data coming in from Israel, the vaccination program does seem to be doing just that



edit: Insofar as it relates to F1 2021 - countries really need to start moving their messaging and policy away from number of infections towards something more granular that measures severe outcomes (perhaps hospitalizations alone) in more affected age groups. Those countries that do this will likely be on surer footing for reopening and running F1 races.

[PlatinumZealot]

This!!

Sorry PZ, but what you say is completely at odds with what I was taught in university about viruses and how they survive in the human population.

Covid-19 is here to stay. Even if a mutation develops that renders that strain less transmissible, the more dominant strain will take over.

We will learn to live with it and develop more treatments for it, but it will be with us for a long, long time.

Hehe. A close aquantance of mine is a professor of immunology/virology. Just do the necessary reasearch and you will see. Nothing to argue beyond what was posted. Just facts.

[Just_a_fan]

This!!

Sorry PZ, but what you say is completely at odds with what I was taught in university about viruses and how they survive in the human population.

Covid-19 is here to stay. Even if a mutation develops that renders that strain less transmissible, the more dominant strain will take over.

We will learn to live with it and develop more treatments for it, but it will be with us for a long, long time.

Hehe. A close aquantance of mine is a professor of immunology/virology. Just do the necessary reasearch and you will see. Nothing to argue beyond what was posted. Just facts.

Most experts commenting publicly think it will become endemic. Please do provide your facts that show how they are wrong.

The reason it will become endemic is because we won't remove it totally for the entire human population - this won'tbe exterminated like smallpox. As countries return to normal social interactions, asymptomatic carriers will keep it moving around. One country might remove it one year but, as it appears that immunity is short lived, reinfection from people entering the country will cause new cases. That is how many seem to see it in the future. But please do show where they are mistaken.

[nzjrs]

This!!

Sorry PZ, but what you say is completely at odds with what I was taught in university about viruses and how they survive in the human population.

Covid-19 is here to stay. Even if a mutation develops that renders that strain less transmissible, the more dominant strain will take over.

We will learn to live with it and develop more treatments for it, but it will be with us for a long, long time.

Hehe. A close aquantance of mine is a professor of immunology/virology. Just do the necessary reasearch and you will see. Nothing to argue beyond what was posted. Just facts.

Just take the L PZ.

I think you've either misunderstood what has been said to you by your friend (here are some definitions: or you or them have fallen prey to the ZeroCovid belief. In any case, you haven't supported or explained your position well enough for us to really judge, so please post some more sources.

[Big Tea]

As touched on in the post above, there seems to be suggestions that people who have had the 'early' virus can be re-infected by what we are calling the South Africa variant (p.2)
although it seems not to be as bad as an initial infection (from Zoe and other sources. )

[hUirEYExbN]

....

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The 20% more critically ill is interesting, any ideas why?

[PlatinumZealot]

Just take the L PZ.

I think you've either misunderstood what has been said to you by your friend (here are some definitions: or you or them have fallen prey to the ZeroCovid belief. In any case, you haven't supported or explained your position well enough for us to really judge, so please post some more sources.

Nope. Never said anything about herd immunity. Just stating how it is possible for it to disapper in two ways.

And what is this win / lose thing?
I have won my fair share of battles but who's counting

Yes. So tranmission you are talking about is simply by persons failing to follow protocols. And the virus keeps getting handed around to infect new persons.

Once protocols are followed by all countries however, in theory (and big in theory) it should go away and not return to the populations.

The Flu is different. Even if the Flu is eradicated say in a period, it will return again via birds, to the population some other time.

This is the main difference. You can see that we are fortunate that the case is not the latter one.
Corona virus is much more in our hands because if this fact. (no closely interaction with its zootonic reservior).

Why does that fact need to contract what is said? It doesn't. If we are stubborn bastards coronavirus will be around for a long, long time.

[Scorpaguy]

I believe “stubborn bastards” to be the key word in the above post (speaking of the human population in general...not PZ).

[Just_a_fan]

Just take the L PZ.

I think you've either misunderstood what has been said to you by your friend (here are some definitions: or you or them have fallen prey to the ZeroCovid belief. In any case, you haven't supported or explained your position well enough for us to really judge, so please post some more sources.

Nope. Never said anything about herd immunity. Just stating how it is possible for it to disapper in two ways.

And what is this win / lose thing?
I have won my fair share of battles but who's counting

Yes. So tranmission you are talking about is simply by persons failing to follow protocols. And the virus keeps getting handed around to infect new persons.

Once protocols are followed by all countries however, in theory (and big in theory) it should go away and not return to the populations.

The Flu is different. Even if the Flu is eradicated say in a period, it will return again via birds, to the population some other time.

This is the main difference. You can see that we are fortunate that the case is not the latter one.
Corona virus is much more in our hands because if this fact. (no closely interaction with its zootonic reservior).

Why does that fact need to contract what is said? It doesn't. If we are stubborn bastards coronavirus will be around for a long, long time.

So, if everyone of nearly 8 billion people around the globe follow the various protocols the virus will disappear? Hmm, how likely do you think that is? Really? People even now in the heart of the pandemic aren't following protocols. They sure as heck won't do so once we're "on the way out" of it. That's a dead certainty.

I'm not convinced by the requirement for other animals to be in the system for the pandemic to continue.

What about the other coronaviruses that infect humans? They're all zoonotic. And 4 of them remain in the world wide human population. HCov-OC43, for example, is involved with the common cold but also can cause more serious pneumonia and it appears to have jumped in to humans from cattle sometime around 130 years ago. And 130 years later it still with us.

HCov-NL63 appears to have in to humans from bats several hundred years ago. And it's still around infecting people today. It generally adversely affects young children and the old. It infects humans by binding to ACE2 - the same receptor site that SARS-CoV-2 (Covid) uses to infect humans, interestingly.

And even if one allows for your suggestion that Covid must have a non-human reservoir, that reservoir appears to be bats as that appears to be the original source before the species jump occurred. And bats are extremely common, found worldwide and, importantly, can fly making them rather difficult to control. Not that we could successfully control them of course. Nor should we. Killing millions / billions of bats just to prevent Covid would be unconscionable.

It's worth noting that SARS-Cov-2 has been with us for approximately 1 year. In that time, hundreds of variants have emerged as the virus has mutated as it has moved through the human population. Some of those mutations have been more notable than others. The "UK variant" went global in a matter of days.

To think it will disappear in a short time frame is naïve. Hopefully, it will get to a level where the health systems can deal with it whilst remaining viable for all other requirements. Then we will be in a similar position to what we have with seasonal flu.

[nzjrs]

Nope. Never said anything about herd immunity. Just stating how it is possible for it to disapper in two ways.

SMH, Do people read the links? I mean it was a many tweet thread where he teased out the distinction between different things people mean when they say the virus going away, reservoirs, all sorts of interesting stuff. Why do I bother posting links my god.

It was an attempt at being charitable - I thought you might have misunderstood the distinctions and possibilities outlined in that thread given that you haven't cited anything to support the position of your friend and that he seems to be at odds with most.

[nzjrs]

The 20% more critically ill is interesting, any ideas why?

If I had to, I'd guess 'percentage effects'/'law of smaller numbers' (less total people in ICU, more as a percentage as the elderly that previously were the are more likely to have died), or counting clinical classification changes (more critical beds free, move people into them), or some mixture thereof.

[Big Tea]

The 20% more critically ill is interesting, any ideas why?

If I had to, I'd guess 'percentage effects'/'law of smaller numbers' (less total people in ICU, more as a percentage as the elderly that previously were the are more likely to have died), or counting clinical classification changes (more critical beds free, move people into them), or some mixture thereof.

Possibly the prevalence of the 501y v2 variant? or possibly lack of room or resource to cope as they have been 'washed out'? or the horrifying possibility of not all victims being discovered before dur to the sheer volume

Edit, Also the possibility that far fewer are being ill enough to be reported and the % is the same but unrecorded.???

[PlatinumZealot]

Nope. Never said anything about herd immunity. Just stating how it is possible for it to disapper in two ways.

SMH, Do people read the links? I mean it was a many tweet thread where he teased out the distinction between different things people mean when they say the virus going away, reservoirs, all sorts of interesting stuff. Why do I bother posting links my god.

It was an attempt at being charitable - I thought you might have misunderstood the distinctions and possibilities outlined in that thread given that you haven't cited anything to support the position of your friend and that he seems to be at odds with most.

Yes, I read the links as always.

My acquaintance is an experienced professor in the field of virology/immunology/genetics. Written many papers.

She gave some possibilities on why the virus can disappear overnight. This is was just an interesting fact she was giving in a conversation, while explaining the mechanics of how this can happen. This is due to the DNA make up of the virus. Even with variations she said it is still possible to "wake up one morning, and the new virus cases just start falling off mysteriously"

She also gave some facts on why she believes it will not stay with us forever. She says the reservoir is too remote and isolated. (Chinese Bats). So combine this with the measures we have been taking and if we behave ourselves it should disapear.

Ever wondered how swine flu disappeared? A number of reasons. We had no
High tech Vaccine either. And keep in mine this one was mayne more aggressive.

[nzjrs]

Ever wondered how swine flu disappeared? A number of reasons. We had no
High tech Vaccine either. And keep in mine this one was mayne more aggressive.

I think your misunderstanding is best explained with respect to the example you gave; Swine Flu H5N1

The CDC website has a nice 10 year history reflecting on H1N1 since 2009 https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resour ... demic.html

Since the introduction of the influenza A H1N1pdm09 virus in 2009, H1N1pdm09 has circulated seasonally in the U.S. causing illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths.