UK scientists call for debate on allowing ‘big wave of infection’

[AtW]

My point is that Covid is far deadlier than the flu, and spreads better (even before new variants).

[Paddy]

My point is that Covid is far deadlier than the flu, and spreads better (even before new variants).

Yes, that bit is a mystery. Somewhere along the line, Covid jumped five stages of mutation in the wild before it got to Covid-19. All the WHO has to do is to discover the previous five mutations to find the origin. I wonder where they could be.

[Fraidycat]

My point is that Covid is far deadlier than the flu, and spreads better (even before new variants).

My point was the spanish flu was far deadlier that Covid but mutated within a few years to seasonal flu.

The same thing is likely to happen to Covid, it will mutate to something less deadly that hangs around for a long time..

[AtW]

My point was the spanish flu was far deadlier that Covid but mutated within a few years to seasonal flu.

The same thing is likely to happen to Covid, it will mutate to something less deadly that hangs around for a long time..

We don't have enough data to say that.

A rather very likely reason why flu is not as deadly than it was in 1918 is because it killed off lots of people who were susceptible to it.

[SueEllen]

We don't have enough data to say that.

A rather very likely reason why flu is not as deadly than it was in 1918 is because it killed off lots of people who were susceptible to it.

If a virus kills of all its hosts before they have a chance to infect others the virus doesn't survive. So it is better for the virus to mutate to a form that doesn't kill of its hosts but can infect more people.

[AtW]

If a virus kills of all its hosts before they have a chance to infect others the virus doesn't survive.

But if it's highly infectious AND kills plenty of hosts (just not enough to fizzle out on its own) then it's a BIGLY problem.

Say SARS-2 new variants are so infectious that even if 10% of infected people died it would still spread out massively (without mitigation).

[Fraidycat]

We don't have enough data to say that.

A rather very likely reason why flu is not as deadly than it was in 1918 is because it killed off lots of people who were susceptible to it.

Covid-19, the worst is behind us (now that we have vaccines)

The more worrying thing is that we had 3 coronavirus outbreaks since 2000. And a total of 8 epidemic/pandemics since 2000.
It looks like, based on probability, we might get the deadly ones emerging more often than they happened in the past.

There are 7 known human coronaviruses and 3 of them (MERs, SARS, Covid-19) emerged in the last 20 years.

One interesting thing i just read:
The Russian flu of 1890 was originally thought to Influenza type virus but many experts now think it was a new Coronavirus (one of the 7 known human ones), which jumped from Cows to humans around that time.

That pandemic 1890 and killed 1 million people (5 million in todays population), and infected around half the worlds population.

The symptoms of Russian flu were similar to Covid 19.

Its thought that coronavirus that caused Russian flu (if was indeed a coronavirus) is HCoV-OC4, and is still around today and is one of the many viruses that causes the common cold.

[AtW]

Covid-19, the worst is behind us (now that we have vaccines)

Yeah, in just 100 years it will be just another common cold.

[Fraidycat]

Yeah, in just 100 years it will be just another common cold.

I suspect it will be more like within 5 years.

And dont underesimtate common colds:

"a cold can also have more severe symptoms in the very young and the very old. Older people are more likely to develop a more serious infection compared with adults or older children.

Another group of people who are more severely affected by infection with cold-causing viruses are people with an existing lung condition. They can include people with asthma, cystic fibrosis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Infection with a virus that causes inflammation of the airways can make breathing much harder"

[AtW]

I suspect it will be more like within 5 years.

Are you prepared to bet your life on it?

Boris sure is.