Short of a Vax, how does covid end?

@wildgrass said
You'll have to ask Eladar from the OP about definitions, but obviously there is a distinction between a 'virus' and a 'pandemic'. I was responding to the post about how to get Covid to go away, and that slowing the spread only "prolongs" it (whatever that means). Hygiene, behavioral changes, and vaccines are the general strategies to controlling outbreaks and eradicating th ...[text shortened]... resents yet another genetic product in the still-growing family tree of this remarkable 1918 virus."

"Viruses don't magically go away after a population infects itself and develops immunity. They just don't (there's an entire scientific discipline studying this). Polio, smallpox and Spanish flu are all good examples."

The Spanish Flu is not a good example. Nobody is saying magically but you. This is the science forum. We don't believe in magic here. The population got infected and developed immunity. Then it went away.

@metal-brain said
"Viruses don't magically go away after a population infects itself and develops immunity. They just don't (there's an entire scientific discipline studying this). Polio, smallpox and Spanish flu are all good examples."

The Spanish Flu is not a good example. Nobody is saying magically but you. This is the science forum. We don't believe in magic here. The population got infected and developed immunity. Then it went away.

It's still here.

@Eladar
Well, your poo pooing the death count in the US is over. We are now over 260,000 dead which you said is hogwash, fake news.

@Metal-Brain
So when are you going to volunteer to get C19 so you can have vaccines injected in your arm?

@sonhouse said
@Metal-Brain
So when are you going to volunteer to get C19 so you can have vaccines injected in your arm?

If he is moronic enough to refuse wearing face masks or do social distancing or wash his hands etc, he may soon find he might not need to 'volunteer' to get C19.

@wildgrass said
It's still here.

Is it still killing 5% of people that get it? People obviously developed immunity to it so that pandemic "went away". I didn't say the virus went away, but the pandemic unquestionably went away.

It didn't go away by magic. That is just a straw man argument put forth by you. Nobody here believes in magic, including you.

@metal-brain said
Is it still killing 5% of people that get it? People obviously developed immunity to it so that pandemic "went away". I didn't say the virus went away, but the pandemic unquestionably went away.

It didn't go away by magic. That is just a straw man argument put forth by you. Nobody here believes in magic, including you.

If by 'it' you were referring to the pandemic not the virus, then I apologize. But in the same argument you were talking about viral immunity. You don't get immunity to a pandemic. So you can see how this wording might be confusing.

Yes, sure. With Spanish flu, I think 35-40% of people were infected over 2.5 years. We could definitely do that. Spend 2.5 years getting sick. Infect 1/3 of our population and hope that was enough to slow the spread (although it probably won't be).

In the US alone, 120-270 million unnecessarily infected with a disease that has an equivalent kill rate to polio. I don't think this path is justifiable, and it would basically guarantee that the virus would become endemic.

@wildgrass
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/09/01/1918-flu-pandemic-end/

This piece talks about what happened with today's version of the original Spanish flu which is apparently still with us but it mutated to a lesser virulent form.

That may be what would happen to today's covid pandemic but we hope to short circuit that course of events by introducing a man made vaccine.

But even given a 90-95% effective vaccine, there would be mutations that those vaccines would not cover and we can still have an extension of the present day covid crisis but maybe on a less lethal scale.

The fight against these deadly viruses is an ongoing permanent war of mutations and finding vaccines for them.

Maybe in a thousand years of continued scientific growth we could come up with a defense that would cover all variations of lethality in viruses for humans and animals, that day has not arrived and probably never will so we have to be on the lookout for the NEXT pandemic level virus.

My guess is that scientific pursuit will result in a rapid response team capable of finding a vaccine within weeks say, instead of years as it is now but the need will ALWAYS be there for such medical discovery since virus loads seemingly comes from some source pecking away at our vulnerabilities.

Almost like some actor trying to control human population any way it can.

The bottom line is there are WAY too many people on the planet, not too long from now to be TEN billion or more.

We are already pushing the envelope on how to even FEED such huge numbers of humans much less control the diseases inherent in there being so many people for viruses to experiment on.

The more people the more likelyhood of there being new viruses that can kill us.
That is just the way life operates.

@sonhouse

Nice post. I'll just add that (up to) 40% of our human genome is thought to have a viral origin. So we actually have a lot to thank viruses for. Its been a push/pull relationship throughout human (and pre-human) history. Due to the extreme success of vaccines as a disease-prevention tool, we've been lulled into a false sense of security regarding this relationship, forgetting about the horrors of polio and smallpox. You can read studies going back decades predicting the inevitability of the exact scenario we are living through.

@wildgrass
I wonder if anyone has found good genes attributable to viruses? My guess is not, my guess is all the viral DNA we have in our genes are rendered safe and we just (on a molecular level) live with the added junk genes.

I read a sci fi story of a future where they were able to get rid of all what we call junk genes and problems that would ensue but I imagine there are only so many genes you could eliminate assuming the capability to do so, that would not effect some level of our survivability as a race.

Now we are finding what we used to think of as junk genes now show some functionality, maybe a backup gene to minimize susceptibility to some disease or other, like a nasty disease like sickle cell anemia, now is shown it provides some protection against malaria. I think we are just at the beginning of figuring out the role of so-called junk genes.

@wildgrass said
If by 'it' you were referring to the pandemic not the virus, then I apologize. But in the same argument you were talking about viral immunity. You don't get immunity to a pandemic. So you can see how this wording might be confusing.

Yes, sure. With Spanish flu, I think 35-40% of people were infected over 2.5 years. We could definitely do that. Spend 2.5 years getting sic ...[text shortened]... hink this path is justifiable, and it would basically guarantee that the virus would become endemic.

"Yes, sure. With Spanish flu, I think 35-40% of people were infected over 2.5 years. We could definitely do that. Spend 2.5 years getting sick. Infect 1/3 of our population and hope that was enough to slow the spread (although it probably won't be)."

Hold on, one third is not enough to achieve herd immunity. You are not making sense. If only 40% got infected how did the SF pandemic end? You are missing something.

@metal-brain said
"Yes, sure. With Spanish flu, I think 35-40% of people were infected over 2.5 years. We could definitely do that. Spend 2.5 years getting sick. Infect 1/3 of our population and hope that was enough to slow the spread (although it probably won't be)."

Hold on, one third is not enough to achieve herd immunity. You are not making sense. If only 40% got infected how did the SF pandemic end? You are missing something.

We did not achieve herd immunity. The spread of this virus continues today.

@sonhouse said
@wildgrass
I wonder if anyone has found good genes attributable to viruses? My guess is not, my guess is all the viral DNA we have in our genes are rendered safe and we just (on a molecular level) live with the added junk genes.

I read a sci fi story of a future where they were able to get rid of all what we call junk genes and problems that would ensue but I imagine th ...[text shortened]... inst malaria. I think we are just at the beginning of figuring out the role of so-called junk genes.

This is off track for the thread, but a fascinating topic. Yes, genes are attributed to viruses. It's definitely not junk.

I read this paper on the subject a long time ago. I'm sure the field has advanced a lot since then. The short story is that most importantly viral DNA has contributed to changing the regulatory patterns of gene expression over evolutionary history. Endogenous retroviruses often insert themselves into intronic DNA elements and change patterns of expression via altering the structure of DNA organization. Fascinating.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC138943/

@wildgrass said
We did not achieve herd immunity. The spread of this virus continues today.

but it is not killing 5% of the population anymore. Why did this life threatening pandemic go away? If it mutated into a less harmful virus it may be possible that SARS2 could do the same thing in time.

Is it possible that Trump might be right when he said it would go away? Again, not talking about magic.

@metal-brain said
but it is not killing 5% of the population anymore. Why did this life threatening pandemic go away? If it mutated into a less harmful virus it may be possible that SARS2 could do the same thing in time.

Is it possible that Trump might be right when he said it would go away? Again, not talking about magic.

I don't know. You'll have to do some reading. I think Trump said the pandemic would end last April.

If Sars-Cov2 did the same thing as Spanish flu we're in for a long road of hurt. Long-term closures of all locations for public gathering (e.g. St. Louis in 1918). Public mask wearing and banned social gatherings for 1.5 more years. Staggered work schedules. Importantly, treatment options are much better but containment is more difficult today since the Spanish Flu predated commercial air travel and interstate highways.

(one of the reasons for the high death rate was the doctor-recommended treatment options: whiskey, smoking, onions, and yeast cakes)

I would post some links but I know you don't read them. Our current countermeasures are based on learning from the mistakes from that era, not repeating them.

For those other than Metal Brain who might enjoy reading, this is from 2018 (what I like to call the pre-COVID epoch of humanity). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140242/

In summary, from the vantage point of a century, we now recognize that social distancing actions taken by public health authorities in both St. Louis and Kansas City led to demonstrably reduced peak and overall excess influenza mortality rates. However, in both cities, premature easing of school closures and other epidemic control measures resulted in higher mortality in the second autumn/winter waves. History has given high marks to public health and volunteer organizational responses to 1918 influenza for both of Missouri’s major cities, especially St. Louis, which benefitted from stronger leadership and a much less politicized public health approach than its sibling Kansas City.