The lethality and virality of the Delta strain

a reply to: chr0naut

If you're basing it off just statistics and modeling yes, the probability is that will happen.

But when it involves our human immune systems, and how the virus acts, it goes against biological evolution. There's so many variables at play you can't base it off stats. And that is one of the reasons why we are in this mess in the first place. Health experts and political figures are throwing information at one another and they meet at a middle ground based on 'stats' to buck shot the virus situation on the entire population.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
a reply to: chr0naut

Prior to the outbreak, there were no known community cases in New Zealand.

The data shows New Zealand has had a couple of cases here and there almost every day since the pandemic began, so I have no idea what you are talking about. The recent wave in New Zealand is clearly getting so large because it's the Delta variant, like most places currently going through a wave. It's pretty funny though that you're still going on about the zero Covid dream in NZ...

New Zealand has had cases nearly every day, but they were cases in quarantine, as they were allowing travel from other places, but with immediate quarantine for travelers.

Between lock-downs, NZ had zero community cases. Here is an old news item.

New Zealand had been successfully following protocols aimed at elimination of COVID-19 in the community. That is still the aim of the current lock-down, and it looks like it will be soon achievable, even with the current outbreak of Delta strain.

a reply to: chr0naut

Where did you come up with 10% less deadly but 50% more contagious?

Assuming those percentages are correct please show the math.
It's late and I'm not in the mood to prove your math.

a reply to: chr0naut

New Zealand has had cases nearly every day, but they were cases in quarantine, as they were allowing travel from other places, but with immediate quarantine for travelers.

I highly doubt all those cases were people coming into NZ.

New Zealand had been successfully following protocols aimed at elimination of COVID-19 in the community. That is still the aim of the current lock-down, and it looks like it will be soon achievable, even with the current outbreak of Delta strain.

The Delta strain obviously has little concern for lockdown rules, Australia is one of the most sparsely populated nations on Earth and we've had extremely strict lockdown rules during the latest wave, yet it has continued to grow exponentially. The wave will end when it naturally burns out, and not because of any restrictions in place. You can believe it was something else, but it wont be. Australia had many months of very low cases and deaths as we can see in the data, yet we had very little restrictions in place, and a handful of community cases each day.

originally posted by: Zitterbewegung
a reply to: chr0naut

Where did you come up with 10% less deadly but 50% more contagious?

I based the 50% figure on this:

www.cdc.gov...

However, the 10% is purely speculative based upon the case-mortality of the recent peak in UK numbers(which is almost entirely Delta strain), which is 90% of the case-mortality of the previous peak (from before the Delta strain had spread to the UK).

Assuming those percentages are correct please show the math.
It's late and I'm not in the mood to prove your math.

If the deadliness is reduced by a tenth, but you double the number of cases, you get more people dead.

Lets say that 10 people out of every 100 die, and it is reduced by 10%. That is the same as 9 people dying.

Now if 50% more get sick, that's twice as many people who could die.

Two times 9 is 18 people.

So in the original case, 10 people died. In the second case, even though it was less deadly in case-mortality, more people died (18).

a reply to: chr0naut

Derivation and algebra please instead of a Phil Spector wall of text. Thank you.

a reply to: chr0naut

"10 percent is purely speculative"

Imagine if you published a scientific paper with that in it.

Drops mic.

originally posted by: Zitterbewegung
a reply to: chr0naut

Derivation and algebra please instead of a Phil Spector wall of text. Thank you.

Would it help if I wrote it in crayon? LOL

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Lockdown only works if supermarkets are shut. As long as supermarkets are packed with people, there is significant transmission. Actually, the most places where transmissions occur is probably schools, homes, supermarkets.

a reply to: chr0naut

Crayon would be fine if you actually wrote equations with variables.

Unless you write the equations too large and you have bad penmanship.

originally posted by: Zitterbewegung
a reply to: TheAMEDDDoc

I believe the right approach is to find something that prevents the spike protein binding with the ACE2 enzyme.

Even if the body is fighting off the spike protein via vaccines, the spike protein still can attack the brain, kidneys, lungs, testes, via the ACE2 enzyme.

Wait! OMG! WTF! look!

"Ivermectin Docks to the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Receptor-binding Domain Attached to ACE2 "

"Conclusion: The ivermectin docking we identified may interfere with the attachment of the spike to the human cell membrane. Clinical trials now underway should determine whether ivermectin is an effective treatment for SARS-Cov2 infection. "

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

I wonder why they suddenly banned the sales of NAC?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

N-Acetylcysteine, a Forgotten Immune-Modulating Agent

N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a precursor of the antioxidant glutathione, has been used to loosen thick mucus in the lungs and treat acetaminophen overdose for decades. However, NAC can also boost the immune system, suppress viral replication, and reduce inflammation. Despite these valuable features, NAC has been mostly overlooked throughout SARS-Cov and MERS-Cov epidemics, as well as the current COVID-19 pandemic.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Binding of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to ACE2 is disabled by thiol-based drugs; evidence from in vitro SARS-CoV-2 infection studies.

Thiol-based drugs and thiol content determination
N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and MESNA were the pharmaceutical formulations, with NAC manufactured by American Reagent INC at 200mg/ml and MESNA by Baxter at 100mg/ml USP. Cysteamine (MilliporeSigma), amifostine (MilliporeSigma), WR-1065 (MilliporeSigma) and penicillamine (MP Biomedicals) were lyophilized powders that were solubilized as 500mM concentrated stocks in water. Cysteamine and WR-2065 were at pH 5. Amifostine was at pH 7 which was adjusted to pH 5. To ensure that amifostine does not auto-dephosphorylate to WR-1065, it was made fresh before the experiment each time. Bucillamine (MilliporeSigma) and tiopronin (Spectrum Chemicals) were lyophilized powders that were solubilized as 500mM concentrated stocks in equimolar NaOH to increase the solubility, and the pH was adjusted to pH 5. Carbocysteine (MilliporeSigma) and succimer (MilliporeSigma) were solubilized as 250mM concentrated stocks in 500mM NaOH to increase solubility with pH adjusted to pH 5. Free thiol content, and thus concentration of an active drug, was measured before every experiment using Ellman’s Reagent, 5,5’-dithio-bis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid) (DTNB) (Abcam), with the molar extinction coefficient of 14,150M−1cm−1 at 412nm24. Active drug concentration measured by DTNB was within 85 to 99% of nominal drug concentration. The stocks were stored at −20°C and discarded if the thiol content went below 85%. Drug concentrations reported in plate-binding and viral entry assays are based on active drug concentration in stock.

This looks interesting also:

Dalbavancin binds ACE2 to block its interaction with SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and is effective in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in animal models

www.nature.com...

This the thing we are all exposed, we are all already infected and we are mostly still alive and well, time to move on and keep on living.

a reply to: marg6043

Exactly. The pandemic is over.

Something else that just occurred to me... despite the fact we've never managed to create an effective vaccine for any coronavirus, they managed to create multiple vaccines in record time for Covid-19, and claimed up to 95% vaccine efficacy.

It's now very obvious to me that the only reason they were able to achieve such a high efficacy was because they created a vaccine for an engineered virus, meaning it hadn't yet had the chance to evolve in the real world. Therefore it was easy to target to the weaknesses of the early man-made variants.

Going forward I think it's going to be a very different story for newer strains like the Delta strain. I'll be very interested to see if they can still achieve such high efficacy percentages with vaccines which target the more evolved variants. I suspect those same weaknesses wont exist anymore.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

ALMOST Everyone who has contracted Covid-19 can be removed from the pool of people who can contract "the next wave". That makes each wave smaller and smaller. Simple science and math.

a reply to: carewemust

That logic doesn't really work because many places are seeing more cases than ever before. What's getting lower is the death counts, which probably is partly due to what you said, but it's also due to the lower lethality of new strains.

Milestone today:

666 thousand Covid deaths in the U.S.

www.worldometers.info...

a reply to: strongfp

Yep.

And this thing wasn't ever as bad as Spanish Flu, but the world freaked out over it harder.

And despite it behaving as expected, the world freaks out more every time a strain comes around.

And just like flu (we're still dealing with variant strains of what was Spanish Flu today), we will have COVID around forever. It will become just another seasonal illness.

So the question becomes how long do we, the people, put up with the idiocy surrounding it as it does appear to be doing exactly what viruses do - becoming just another minor seasonal illness except for people already suffering illness or otherwise health compromised in some other way?

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
a reply to: carewemust

That logic doesn't really work because many places are seeing more cases than ever before. What's getting lower is the death counts, which probably is partly due to what you said, but it's also due to the lower lethality of new strains.

Yes, deaths are dropping which is why, despite the shrieking hysteria in the press, you see a lack of death count stories.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Zitterbewegung

In general mutated strains are more infectious but less deadly.

Could it be that the media is attributing the fact delta is less deadly to the vaccines and not reality?

A strain that is 10% less deadly for a set population, but 50% more contagious, will kill more people than a deadlier strain.

The Delta variant is killing a lot less people as the data shows, and seems to be almost 20-40% more contagious. So it must be a lot more than 10% less deadly.

Possibly, but is still all about numbers. Its infection is an arithmetic progression, and will kill far more the more people have it.