From 'tiger to wildcat': Coronavirus could die out without vaccine

[Leongsam]

nzherald.co.nz

From 'tiger to wildcat': Coronavirus could die out without vaccine
By: Phoebe Southworth

3-4 minutes


Coronavirus has downgraded from a "tiger to a wild cat" and could die out on its own without a vaccine, an infectious diseases specialist has claimed.

Prof Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the Policlinico San Martino hospital in Italy, told The Telegraph that Covid-19 has been losing its virulence in the last month and patients who would have previously died are now recovering.

The expert in critical care said the plummeting number of cases could mean a vaccine is no longer needed as the virus might never return.

His comments come after the Health Secretary announced on Thursday that a deal had been struck between pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University to begin the manufacture of a potential vaccine.

"The clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity," said Prof Bassetti.

"In March and early April the patterns were completely different. People were coming to the emergency department with a very difficult to manage illness and they needed oxygen and ventilation, some developed pneumonia.

"Now, in the past four weeks, the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns. There could be a lower viral load in the respiratory tract, probably due to a genetic mutation in the virus which has not yet been demonstrated scientifically. Also we are now more aware of the disease and able to manage it.

"It was like an aggressive tiger in March and April but now it's like a wild cat. Even elderly patients, aged 80 or 90, are now sitting up in bed and they are breathing without help. The same patients would have died in two or three days before.

"I think the virus has mutated because our immune system reacts to the virus and we have a lower viral load now due to the lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing. We still have to demonstrate why it's different now.

"Yes, probably it could go away completely without a vaccine. We have fewer and fewer people infected and it could end up with the virus dying out."

Prof Karol Sikora, an oncologist and chief medical officer at Rutherford Health, previously said it is likely the British public has more immunity than previously thought and Covid-19 could end up "petering out by itself".

However, Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School and a former Public Health England consultant, said the idea that Covid-19 would die out is "optimistic in the short term".

"I don't expect it to die out that quickly," he told The Telegraph.

"It will if it has no one to infect. If we have a successful vaccine then we'll be able to do what we did with smallpox. But because it's so infectious and widespread, it won't go away for a very long time.

"My estimate is ranging from never to if we are really lucky and it sort of mutates and mutates, it may lose its virulence - we're talking years and years. I disagree with Prof Sikora that nirvana is around the corner."

 

[zhihau]

I mentioned it before and I’ll say it again: a virus that’s too harsh on its host will not be successful in its long term survival.

Those that kills off its host outright will enjoy little reproductive success.

 

[Leongsam]

Covid-19 losing its potency, could burn out




Yen Makabenta

6/10/2020

First word
THE statement yesterday of Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. that the government is looking for data to indicate that relaxing further the restrictions in Metro Manila will not result in a second wave of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) infections was incredibly obtuse. (He suggests that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, or IATF-EID, will simultaneously consider further relaxation of the economic lockdown of the capital and prevent a second wave of viral infections in the metropolis.)

This followed an earlier statement by Roque in which he said the government was seriously considering reverting Metro Manila to the modified enhanced community quarantine, from which it had just been liberated on the first of June.

This does not reflect well on the IATF-EID since Roque attributes both the data search and the threat to the task force.

As he put it in an interview with the ABS-CBN news channel ANC, “We’re still looking for some kind of data that would indicate that Metro Manila, if we give it more liberty, so to speak, under MGCQ (modified general community quarantine), will not spark a second wave.”

He said the Philippines “cannot afford” a second wave of infections. “That’s why Metro Manilans will really have to go out of their way to observe social distancing, wearing of masks and keeping healthy,”

Asymptomatic transmission very rare

Ironically, Roque issued these statements at a time when there are major news developments on the pandemic, particularly in medical scientists’ understanding of the virus and how it works.

While Roque was scaring our people with threats on the pandemic, medical scientists from various countries were announcing to the world that Covid-19 may be losing its potency and could peter out.

First to sound the new tune was the World Health Organization (WHO), which on Monday said the spread of coronavirus from asymptomatic patients was “very rare.”

While the virus can be spread from a person that has the virus and is not exhibiting any
symptoms, WHO officials said that is not the main way the virus is being transmitted, CNBC reported.

The announcement is a deviation from early reports that indicated the virus could be easily spread from person to person, even if the person with Covid-19 has little to no symptoms.

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said during a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s rare.”

She said the focus should be on identifying and isolating people with Covid-19 symptoms and then tracking down anyone who they have been in contact with so they can be quarantined.

Kerkhove added that more research and data were needed to “truly answer” whether the coronavirus can be widely spread through asymptomatic carriers.

She said governments should be paying more attention to symptomatic cases in order to stop the spread of the virus.

Coronavirus hysteria out the door

Reaction to the WHO announcement was electric.

Dr. David Samadi, the director of Men’s Health and Urologic Oncology at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York. told Newsmax that the “panic and hysteria” over the spread of the novel coronavirus “is out the door.”

“We can reopen America. Forty million people have lost their jobs as a result of this scientific data that was wrong. This is very big news for the country,” he said on “Greg Kelly Reports.”

“They are taking a 180-degree turn,” said Samadi. “Because we didn’t know who would be passing this virus or not, we made everybody do something called social distancing.”

“It’s too bad that these researchers, the papers are not making it to Lancet, and mainstream media is not covering to the extent. This is probably one of the biggest news that we’ve had since the coronavirus outbreak,” he continued.

Virus is losing steam

Meanwhile, according to Daniel Payne, writing in the Just the News website on June 6, doctors across the world are offering preliminary but encouraging reports that the coronavirus may be losing steam and becoming less deadly.

Optimism over the coronavirus has been in short supply since January, when public health officials and politicians began publicly and repeatedly speculating that Covid-19 may be a semi-permanent fixture of global life for the foreseeable future, possibly for years.

The phrase “the new normal” has become an omnipresent part of American life, with medical experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci speculating that Americans may never shake each other’s hands again, and some officials imagining that social distancing may persist into 2022, if not beyond.

But many prominent doctors and scientists in the past few weeks and months have begun to question that narrative, pointing to evidence that suggests the coronavirus may, unexpectedly, be dying out on its own.

The virus appears to behave the same regardless of lockdown measures.

Yitzhak Ben Israel, a professor at Tel Aviv University, offered early speculation to that effect when in April he said, based on the observed behavior of the virus across the globe, that the virus appears to function more or less the same no matter what a country does to mitigate it. He said the virus appears to follow a fixed pattern in which there was “a decline in the number of infections even [in countries] without closures” that is “similar to the countries with closures.”

Those observations may indicate that the virus is not an unstoppable juggernaut: if it works more or less the same with or without mitigation efforts, then it is likely less of a danger than was initially imagined, insofar as the disease is less hampered by lockdowns than experts thought, but also less deadly without them than was initially feared.

Yet apart from the epidemiological path the pandemic might or might not take, there are also signs that the virus itself is weakening, growing less potent, more diffuse and less deadly, meaning that even if a region experiences a significant amount of infections, it may amount to fewer hospitalizations and deaths than medical experts have predicted over the past few months.

That’s the contention of two top Italian doctors, who argued this week that the disease appears to be rapidly declining in potency. The coronavirus “clinically no longer exists in Italy,” San Raffaele Hospital Director Alberto Zangrillo told Reuters, claiming that recent swabs of infected patients had shown “a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago.”

Matteo Bassetti, the head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital in Genoa, meanwhile, said “the strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today” and that “it is clear that today the Covid-19 disease is different.”

Those remarks from two high-ranking Italian physicians are notable: Italy was for a time the hardest-hit country in the world, and remains in unadjusted rankings the country with the fourth-most reported coronavirus deaths worldwide. Images of Italy’s brutally crumbling healthcare system — with patients dying on gurneys in hallways, doctors collapsing after working days without sleep, and hospitals having to figure out to whom they should administer care and whom they should allow to die — galvanized much of the rest of the world into shutting down their countries for months.

If the onetime global epicenter of Covid-19 is seeing a virus that’s “declining in potency,” that could very well mean the disease is doomed to weaken and, perhaps, eventually disappear.

Data do appear to indicate that the virus may be losing its edge. The statistics website Worldometers, for instance, shows an unmistakably lopsided trend: Though the number of confirmed global cases has been increasing since the start of the pandemic, the number of global deaths has been trending downward since mid-April.

If that pattern holds, it may point to the conclusion: that the coronavirus, like the ,sevre acute respiratory syndrome before it, will eventually burn out in part due to its own viral mechanisms, without the need for a vaccine or for lockdown measures that have slowed the global economy.

[email protected]

 

[eatshitndie]

I mentioned it before and I’ll say it again: a virus that’s too harsh on its host will not be successful in its long term survival.

Those that kills off its host outright will enjoy little reproductive success.

must be like tantric sex. slow and steady, deep and hard, firm and strong, accommodating and giving, but do not kill.

 

[zhihau]

but do not kill.

only that out-of-this-world orgasm is breath taking.

 

[eatshitndie]

only that out-of-this-world orgasm is breath taking.

out of body and near death sexperience?

 

[zhihau]

out of body and near death sexperience?

out of body maybe but not near death...

 

[Leongsam]

While everyone is counting cases and spreading doomsday scenarios let's take a look at the most telling statistic of all...

Only 1 out of every 100 positives is in serious or critical condition and if you drill down the data you'll find that below the age of 50 the serious cases are negligible.

 

[ginfugly]

out of body maybe but not near death...

like asphyxiation

 

[nirvarq]

must be like tantric sex. slow and steady, deep and hard, firm and strong, accommodating and giving, but do not kill.

only that out-of-this-world orgasm is breath taking.

When we were young the 'experts' Ah Peks said 9 times slow then 1 time hard /rofl.... i don't know how many kampung kids really follows lol..........

 

[nirvarq]

like asphyxiation

It's about the same except without fear, like certain frogs they can go into hibernation like dead for a long time.

 

[Leongsam]

tvnz.co.nz

Top NZ immunologist backs theory Covid-19 is losing potency, could become common cold virus


6-7 minutes


Covid-19 has likely become less potent as it mutates over time, and hopefully one day will become a common cold virus, a New Zealand, London-based professor says.


A file image of actual SARS-CoV-2 - commonly known as the 2019/20 coronavirus - under an electron microscope. Source: Wikimedia Commons/NIAID-RML


Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at Italy's San Raffaele Hospital in Lombardy, says the new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal. He told state television the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists".

But World Health Organisation experts and a range of other scientists said there was no evidence to support his claim.

There is no data to show the new coronavirus is changing significantly, either in its form of transmission or in the severity of the disease it causes, they said.

But New Zealander Gary McLean, a professor in molecular immunology at London Metropolitan University, told Sunday Morning he was inclined to believe Zangrillo, whose claim was backed up by a second doctor from northern Italy who said he was also seeing the coronavirus weaken.

"They've experienced the full gamut of this virus and the effects and I think we have to believe what they're saying, the clinical picture that is. If they're seeing reduced severity there must be something to it.

NZ ready for Level 1 move after 'amazing' effort fighting Covid-19 - Dr Siouxsie Wiles

"It's really difficult to know why exactly at this point, because there's a lot of reasons why it could be and there's no scientific literature, peer-reviewed papers that really document this, but if the clinicians are saying that I have to think it's probably real."

The virus may well have changed or attenuated causing a change in the clinical picture, McLean said.

"I would probably favour that in some way the virus is attenuating itself, just by accumulating mutations over time…and these little mutations accumulate and eventually the virus has had long enough in that host, in humans, it will drift and change slightly," McLean said.

Global Covid-19 death toll passes 400,000

Zangrillo, well known in Italy as the personal doctor of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said his comments were backed up by a study conducted by a fellow scientist, Massimo Clementi, which Zangrillo said would be published soon.

Zangrillo said: "We have never said that the virus has changed, we said that the interaction between the virus and the host has definitely changed."

Meet the Kiwi scientists hunting for a Covid-19 vaccine

He said this could be due either to different characteristics of the virus, which he said they had not yet identified, or different characteristics in those infected.

The study by Clementi, who is director of the microbiology and virology laboratory of San Raffaele, compared virus samples from Covid-19 patients at the Milan-based hospital in March with samples from patients with the disease in May.

"The result was unambiguous: an extremely significant difference between the viral load of patients admitted in March compared to" those admitted last month, Zangrillo said.

Oscar MacLean of the University of Glasgow's Centre for Virus Research said suggestions that the virus was weakening were "not supported by anything in the scientific literature and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds."

Experts and representatives of Johns Hopkins University, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, George Washington University and Northwell Health also said they were not aware of evidence suggesting that the virus had changed.

Could Covid-19 become a common cold?

Gary McLean said there were 40 known coronaviruses, including seven which have infected humans, including four which are endemic cold viruses which cause relatively mild symptoms.

"One could argue originally those four might have been similar to SARS1, MERS and SARS2, and they attenuated themselves and became just a mild common cold."

One of the endemic strains, OC43, has been mapped back in time and the common ancestor is a cow coronavirus thought to have jumped into humans in 1890, McLean said.

"And coincidentally in 1890 there was a world-wide pandemic of a respiratory disease that killed one million people. And you can put one and one together and assume OC43 may have come from a pandemic and over the next 130 years it's evolved into a very mild, common cold virus," McLean said.

"And I'm hoping it doesn't take 130 years for this one to get that mild, but let's say it might take a year or so and we're going to have another common cold coronavirus.

"So I'd like to predict that but I don't know for sure if that will happen."

 

[syed putra]

I mentioned it before and I’ll say it again: a virus that’s too harsh on its host will not be successful in its long term survival.

Those that kills off its host outright will enjoy little reproductive success.

You should get a award for this. But according to data, its not as deadly as say SARS or Nipah virus. Nipah outbreak occurs at random occasionally from port dickson where its was discovered to philippines and Bangladesh. Fatality rate above 50%.

 

[cocobobo]

I really hope so

 

[syed putra]

So this covid virus is just testing its viability on humans. I am sure it has recorded and passed down results to a certain " queen virus" before the next assault begins.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

That is a nightmare for the powers that be. They destroyed the economy n people's livelihoods by playing up the virus n the pharmaceutical industry has invested billions in a vaccine n mask makers, hand sanitizer makers etc have reaped huge profits. If the virus gets down graded they will lobby the govts to compensate for their losses n the ppl pay. Also the govt gets egg on their faces so for now while things are still bad these powers tat be will continue with their false narrative

 

[tanwahtiu]

Since u bring it up as a mild virus, it is to humilate China to warn the world that this Confederate Slave owners BE US will do anything to hurt u if you are in his way...

Good try mf Trump.... Chinese are the best CLDK... Chinese Lagi DuaKee..

nzherald.co.nz

From 'tiger to wildcat': Coronavirus could die out without vaccine
By: Phoebe Southworth

3-4 minutes


Coronavirus has downgraded from a "tiger to a wild cat" and could die out on its own without a vaccine, an infectious diseases specialist has claimed.

Prof Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the Policlinico San Martino hospital in Italy, told The Telegraph that Covid-19 has been losing its virulence in the last month and patients who would have previously died are now recovering.

The expert in critical care said the plummeting number of cases could mean a vaccine is no longer needed as the virus might never return.

His comments come after the Health Secretary announced on Thursday that a deal had been struck between pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University to begin the manufacture of a potential vaccine.

"The clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity," said Prof Bassetti.

"In March and early April the patterns were completely different. People were coming to the emergency department with a very difficult to manage illness and they needed oxygen and ventilation, some developed pneumonia.

"Now, in the past four weeks, the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns. There could be a lower viral load in the respiratory tract, probably due to a genetic mutation in the virus which has not yet been demonstrated scientifically. Also we are now more aware of the disease and able to manage it.

"It was like an aggressive tiger in March and April but now it's like a wild cat. Even elderly patients, aged 80 or 90, are now sitting up in bed and they are breathing without help. The same patients would have died in two or three days before.

"I think the virus has mutated because our immune system reacts to the virus and we have a lower viral load now due to the lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing. We still have to demonstrate why it's different now.

"Yes, probably it could go away completely without a vaccine. We have fewer and fewer people infected and it could end up with the virus dying out."

Prof Karol Sikora, an oncologist and chief medical officer at Rutherford Health, previously said it is likely the British public has more immunity than previously thought and Covid-19 could end up "petering out by itself".

However, Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School and a former Public Health England consultant, said the idea that Covid-19 would die out is "optimistic in the short term".

"I don't expect it to die out that quickly," he told The Telegraph.

"It will if it has no one to infect. If we have a successful vaccine then we'll be able to do what we did with smallpox. But because it's so infectious and widespread, it won't go away for a very long time.

"My estimate is ranging from never to if we are really lucky and it sort of mutates and mutates, it may lose its virulence - we're talking years and years. I disagree with Prof Sikora that nirvana is around the corner."

 

[mojito]

I mentioned it before and I’ll say it again: a virus that’s too harsh on its host will not be successful in its long term survival.

Those that kills off its host outright will enjoy little reproductive success.

So clever oppie must be meek in order to long term survival?

 

[zhihau]

So clever oppie must be meek in order to long term survival?

I do not equate oppositions to virus at all, do you?

 

[zhihau]

Fatality rate above 50%.

the spread of MERS was also rather sporadic, at 30% fatality.