The Coronavirus Science Thread

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by Ariadne22

LOL....would that dogs were people. Given that history, it's interesting Merck hasn't followed up with a people vaccine. Could it be that it's so elusive?

Found this on Merck - now cautiously jumping into the human COVID-19 vaccine fray:Scott Gottlieb was on C-Span about six weeks ago. I remember him saying because this was a novel virus there was no current platform on which to build a COVID-19 vaccine which is why it couldn't be developed in five-six months. From the above, it sounds like Merck will be experimenting with existing platforms. My next question for Gottlieb is if this is realistic on the part of Merck - or are they just spitballing?

I think the Admin and TPTB want to keep this imminent 'vaccine' dialogue going to calm the masses. Everyone and their uncle is talking about a vaccine as though we'll have an effective product by February 2021. I surely hope that happens or the virus mutates into a less contagious lethal form or, better yet, dies off. For now, I'm planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

Sanofi is working off of the platform it developed for a vaccine for SARS-CoV-1. That vaccine turned out to not be needed because SARS did die off. Of course, we cannot count on that happening again.

Other researchers are using technology for which some of the preliminary work has already been done. In some cases animal studies are proceeding in parallel with human testing.

COVID-19

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

Already dealt with the Scripps paper in this thread https://www.city-data.com/forum/poli...-lab-leak.html and elsewhere.

I wish I could unread that thread; my take away is that you are pushing the idea that it came from the lab but you seem to waver on whether or not it was engineered I can't see that it added anything to this thread.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by JG183

RaTG13 is, in all likelihood, a fictitious construct.

And that unattributed sentence you posted supposedly proves that? Did you even check to see where that came from?

"The new article, titled, “RaTG13 – the undeniable evidence that the Wuhan coronavirus is man-made”, appears on the “Nerd has Power” blog. The blog site doesn’t identify the author, so we’ll call him or her “Nerd”, and assume he’s male, for the purposes of this article. The article is technical in parts but Nerd does his best to make it accessible to the layperson by explaining every step of his logic, at the same time as giving definitions of scientific terms. In our experience, he succeeds, though non-scientists may need to read the technical parts with close attention, possibly more than once!" https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/late...lly-engineered

An article by an unidentified author in a blog named "Nerd has Power"

[wac_432]

Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake

Not just Stockholm, but NYC. 2 weeks ago, 24.7% of the population had been infected (according to antibody studies). It's undoubtedly higher now-and daily deaths are dropping-quickly. Rt for NY state is .79 currently. I haven't read of any new, enhanced efforts by NY that would explain a change. Well, other than no longer forcing nursing homes to take covid-positive patients.




https://rt.live/

In 48 states Rt is under 1, and in some cases significantly so. And has been for some time. The 2 where it's not are just barely over.

I'd really like to understand what Montana is doing that is working so well. Their lockdown was no "harder" than many surrounding states. Yes, they are a rural state, but so are many others. Yet their Rt is at .41. The next lowest state is at .69.

You know, I really like the rt.live site, but the numbers just don't make sense, compared to the death rate. Take CA, for instance. Rt.live shows CA Rt dropping below 0.9 around a month ago. However, the death rate has stayed flat. It doesn't take a month from infection to death, for most cases, so lag can't fully account for the discrepancy.

What I think is going on, is that more widespread testing is picking up fewer positives because the previous testing was reserved for those most likely to have COVID-19. I read through their PYMC3 notebook, and don't see anywhere they tried to account for this change. In fact, there's just not enough fidelity in the data to do so, so any adjustment would be a WAG.

Also, their algorithm (properly) back-dates new cases and then tries to adjust for that back-dating by applying a backward-looking correction. This artificially stabilizes the Rt curve slope at the present rate. It has a "momentum" to it that encourages it to stay at the current change rate, when--in reality--it could be experiencing an undetected abrupt rise or fall.

If the number of people being tested daily were to stabilize (stop increasing or decreasing), the rt.live data would be higher quality.

The end result is that I wouldn't depend on the current rt.live data to signal sudden changes or give a precise Rt number. I also believe it is biased low in an environment of increasing daily tests administered, and biased high in an environment when the number of tests administered daily are shrinking (assuming those limited tests are only being applied to those with severe symptoms or other clear signs of COVID-19).

I'm afraid the only "absolute" measure of Rt that we have is the daily death rate. Unfortunately, that is backward-looking by the number of days it takes between infection and death (nearly 20, I believe). It, however, shows an Rt much closer to 1.0 than rt.live, in most cases. What we really need, to know the actual almost-real-time Rt rate are large random serosurveys applied as often as possible, as broadly as possible.

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

I wish I could unread that thread; my take away is that you are pushing the idea that it came from the lab but you seem to waver on whether or not it was engineered I can't see that it added anything to this thread.

First, I am only saying that, at this point, it is possible given what we know. Second, depending on the word engineered, which no one seems to detail what that means, I can't deny it or affirm it. If it means taking an RBD from pangolin and using a backbone like RaTG13 then yes, that is possible. We don't know what happened and the so-called evidence that it must be natural origin and rules out a lab origin is not there. If you mean build it one AA at a time then no or from more than two CoVs then no. And it added to this thread because you and others keep deferring to the Nature paper yet don't seem to want to discuss the details. You just keep appealing to authority.

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

And that unattributed sentence you posted supposedly proves that? Did you even check to see where that came from?

An article by an unidentified author in a blog named "Nerd has Power"

It would be better to treat the bloggers points than attack his/her/it's user name.

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

It would be better to treat the bloggers points than attack his/her/it's user name.

I read a useful guideline. That info presented in a peer-reviewed article or statement is probably better info than a YouTube video, etc.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

First, I am only saying that, at this point, it is possible given what we know. Second, depending on the word engineered, which no one seems to detail what that means, I can't deny it or affirm it. If it means taking an RBD from pangolin and using a backbone like RaTG13 then yes, that is possible. We don't know what happened and the so-called evidence that it must be natural origin and rules out a lab origin is not there. If you mean build it one AA at a time then no or from more than two CoVs then no. And it added to this thread because you and others keep deferring to the Nature paper yet don't seem to want to discuss the details. You just keep appealing to authority.

No, I'm deferring to real scientists rather than anonymous people on the 'nerd blog'

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

I read a useful guideline. That info presented in a peer-reviewed article or statement is probably better info than a YouTube video, etc.

Most likely true but just dismissing something does not do much to address the issues now does it.

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

No, I'm deferring to real scientists rather than anonymous people on the 'nerd blog'

My comment was not in regard to the blog - I have not even read that thing. What are you blabbing about? And if you want to talk about real scientists data and conclusions let's do that instead of appealing to real scientists. Let's see if you can correctly refer to their studies and not overstate them.