Don’t buy the media hype over the new China virus

[Ban Hammer 12,835]

On 2/3/2020 at 12:14 PM, Bill & Katya said:

I am not a viralogist (if that is a word), but don’t most viruses mutate to become less dangerous as it would be counter productive to kill their host?

not on purpose - i believe the mutations are so they can continue to infect due to survivors gaining some immunity against that strain. 

[TBoneTX 43,048]

14 hours ago, Steeleballz said:

Sometimes it's because more virulent strains end up killing the host, in which case the viral organisms in the host will also die. As time goes on, this would favor attenuated strains surviving. The process of antigenic mutation is predominantly random. It's mostly a matter of errors in the replication process combined with the high rate of replication. Then it's just Darwinian evolution. It favors the evolution of the virus if the host recovers.

English-only outside the regional forums!!!!!

[yuna628 9,528]

Newborns test positive for the virus. That's something interesting to consider if it can be spread via womb.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51395655

 

Statistically so far, the virus doesn't seem to attack children, in favor of those middle-aged and older. Only a few reported cases so far, such as in Germany.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

On 2/6/2020 at 8:55 AM, yuna628 said:

Newborns test positive for the virus. That's something interesting to consider if it can be spread via womb.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51395655

 

Statistically so far, the virus doesn't seem to attack children, in favor of those middle-aged and older. Only a few reported cases so far, such as in Germany.

 

  It's more likely that it does infect children, but that they just don't get symptomatic to the extent that middle aged and elderly adults do. For that matter, we don't really have a good idea of how many adults may get infected and just get milder symptoms. It's probably safe to say that the earliest cases were mostly people with more severe symptoms who ended up seeking treatment.  Something we see with flu every year, is that people who get mild symptoms are often be the ones who contribute to spreading it around more. They don't feel sick, they don't need to stay home. They never know they have the flu and they are out and about with their normal routine. It's one of the main reasons that more states are making it mandatory for all healthcare workers to get vaccinated. 

 

  Now that we are seeing quarantine measures and blood tests for suspected cases of illness, they will likely start to get a better idea of the epidemiology and hopefully who is at most risk, who gets more severe symptoms, and what treatments work best. A lot of the initial approach was extrapolating what was already known about the corona virus family and also what they learned from the SARS and MERS outbreaks.