COVID19

[Mellsblue]

On the plus side, they’ve found a less virulent strain of the virus in Arizona. It may be punching itself out.

[Donny osmond]

On the plus side, they’ve found a less virulent strain of the virus in Arizona. It may be punching itself out.

Bloody Americans

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

[morepork]

On the plus side, they’ve found a less virulent strain of the virus in Arizona. It may be punching itself out.

Hmmm. Two things. How was virulence quantified, and relative to what? Secondly, virulence will never punch itself out. Only starving the virus of hosts will do that.

[Mellsblue]

On the plus side, they’ve found a less virulent strain of the virus in Arizona. It may be punching itself out.

Hmmm. Two things. How was virulence quantified, and relative to what? Secondly, virulence will never punch itself out. Only starving the virus of hosts will do that.

Don’t come in here with your science and MBA, and piss on my tiniest of bonfires. Didn’t read past the headline (which did underscore the fact it was just one sample) but the geeky stuff is here:

https://jvi.asm.org/content/jvi/early/2 ... 0.full.pdf

[morepork]

Don't eat yellow snow baby.

They imply that individual clusters may be possibly sourced to specific genome variants. No one knows enough about viral function or relationship of genome to virulence to make a call on that yet. They speculate the variant may be linked to some fuckhead that traveled interstate for Spring Break and mingled body parts with other nauseating adolescents before returning home with his/her pathogenic passenger. Party on spring break dude/dudess. U massive cunt.

[Digby]

Outstanding effort this - A top government scientist giving advice during the Coronavirus outbreak has resigned from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Professor Neil Ferguson resigned after reports that he had broken lockdown rules in order to meet his married lover.

Really living up to the name of Neil there

[Mellsblue]

Well there goes my tenner on betting it would be Boris.

[Mellsblue]

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 9.069054v1

I didn’t understand most of what is in the linked paper, and will admit that I got bored and stopped reading before the end. What I did get is that there are mutations within different continents and countries. The mutation in Europe and N America spread more quickly and the one found in Sheffield(!) led to a particularly high viral load. Belgium also seems to have had a particularly nasty one.

This tweet is also interesting:

[morepork]

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 9.069054v1

I didn’t understand most of what is in the linked paper, and will admit that I got bored and stopped reading before the end. What I did get is that there are mutations within different continents and countries. The mutation in Europe and N America spread more quickly and the one found in Sheffield(!) led to a particularly high viral load. Belgium also seems to have had a particularly nasty one.

This tweet is also interesting:

There is no metric for viral load at present because there are not enough tests to even simply diagnose infection. Anyone claiming to be able to quantify viral load and correlate that to specific genome variation at this stage of the game is talking through their arse. When some study quantifies the replication of the virus in a host per unit time, we can talk about the probability of mutation as a function of how many daughter virions are produced by a single founder virus, but this paper is speculative at best. There are not distinct populations of the virus defined by relative pathology. The virus is a single species with the laws of probability dictating genetic drift purely as a function of how many daughter genomes are produced per unit time. Areas that have higher rates of infection are so defined because more hosts are supporting a greater volume of life cycles per unit time. Fewer hosts = less genetic variation. Trying to identify a subspecies defined by relative pathology is a complete and utter waste of time and resources.

[Banquo]

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 9.069054v1

I didn’t understand most of what is in the linked paper, and will admit that I got bored and stopped reading before the end. What I did get is that there are mutations within different continents and countries. The mutation in Europe and N America spread more quickly and the one found in Sheffield(!) led to a particularly high viral load. Belgium also seems to have had a particularly nasty one.

This tweet is also interesting:

There is no metric for viral load at present because there are not enough tests to even simply diagnose infection. Anyone claiming to be able to quantify viral load and correlate that to specific genome variation at this stage of the game is talking through their arse. When some study quantifies the replication of the virus in a host per unit time, we can talk about the probability of mutation as a function of how many daughter virions are produced by a single founder virus, but this paper is speculative at best. There are not distinct populations of the virus defined by relative pathology. The virus is a single species with the laws of probability dictating genetic drift purely as a function of how many daughter genomes are produced per unit time. Areas that have higher rates of infection are so defined because more hosts are supporting a greater volume of life cycles per unit time. Fewer hosts = less genetic variation. Trying to identify a subspecies defined by relative pathology is a complete and utter waste of time and resources.

So Balloux is talking bollocks?

[Son of Mathonwy]

So Balloux is talking bollocks?

Someone had to say it.

[Banquo]

So Balloux is talking bollocks?

Someone had to say it.

well yes, but its also a question.

[Mikey Brown]

Outstanding effort this - A top government scientist giving advice during the Coronavirus outbreak has resigned from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Professor Neil Ferguson resigned after reports that he had broken lockdown rules in order to meet his married lover.

Really living up to the name of Neil there

I can’t imagine anything encapsulating the spirit of Boris’s tenure better than this.

[Son of Mathonwy]

So Balloux is talking bollocks?

Someone had to say it.

well yes, but its also a question.

Yes, but that's not so funny.

True or not, the precautionary principle suggests we should have border checks to limit the amount of genetic variation in the virus in this country (that's if it isn't obvious enough that we shouldn't let extra infected people straight into our population). We have an advantage over France, Germany, Spain et al in that we are an island. We should have used it.

[Banquo]

Someone had to say it.

well yes, but its also a question.

Yes, but that's not so funny.

True or not, the precautionary principle suggests we should have border checks to limit the amount of genetic variation in the virus in this country (that's if it isn't obvious enough that we shouldn't let extra infected people straight into our population). We have an advantage over France, Germany, Spain et al in that we are an island. We should have used it.

also funny is that her surname is Sta(a)ts

[canta_brian]

An interesting question that was asked of the government by (of all people) the bbc stats program:

What processes do you have in place to ensure that the 40,000 tests posted out at the end of April will not be counted again when they are returned and analysed in a lab?

So far the government has not given a response.

[Banquo]

What is happening in Belgium though- they surely must be reporting in a different way? Very high testing rate- when did they start?

[Digby]

Outstanding effort this - A top government scientist giving advice during the Coronavirus outbreak has resigned from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Professor Neil Ferguson resigned after reports that he had broken lockdown rules in order to meet his married lover.

Really living up to the name of Neil there

I can’t imagine anything encapsulating the spirit of Boris’s tenure better than this.

Getting pranged by a lefty?

[Mellsblue]

A paper from the ASI about a possible way out of lockdown:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/ ... +FINAL.pdf

[Banquo]

Outstanding effort this - A top government scientist giving advice during the Coronavirus outbreak has resigned from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Professor Neil Ferguson resigned after reports that he had broken lockdown rules in order to meet his married lover.

Really living up to the name of Neil there

I can’t imagine anything encapsulating the spirit of Boris’s tenure better than this.

Getting pranged by a lefty?

Its a weird story.

[Banquo]

Neil Ferguson could become a potential fall guy, now he has fallen...
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blo ... mic-model/

[Sandydragon]

I can’t imagine anything encapsulating the spirit of Boris’s tenure better than this.

Getting pranged by a lefty?

Its a weird story.

Today seems to be the day for it. This one isn’t as weird as an alleged mercenary coup in Venezuela by an American private security contractor but it’s still bizarre enough for the times.

Certainly doesn’t help government credibility at this time.

[Digby]

Getting pranged by a lefty?

Its a weird story.

Today seems to be the day for it. This one isn’t as weird as an alleged mercenary coup in Venezuela by an American private security contractor but it’s still bizarre enough for the times.

Certainly doesn’t help government credibility at this time.

Like the Scottish CMO he's a prat and he had to resign from SAGE. I'm not entirely sure releasing the name of his partner via the media was warranted, but I suppose you could argue anyone breaking the rules around isolation is fair game. That said this is seemingly a month old as a story, so why he couldn't step back on the quiet and why the story was given to the media I don't know, is this the new strategy to deflect blame for other failings in government? Will Boris offer up his own infidelities for gossip?

[Sandydragon]

Its a weird story.

Today seems to be the day for it. This one isn’t as weird as an alleged mercenary coup in Venezuela by an American private security contractor but it’s still bizarre enough for the times.

Certainly doesn’t help government credibility at this time.

Like the Scottish CMO he's a prat and he had to resign from SAGE. I'm not entirely sure releasing the name of his partner via the media was warranted, but I suppose you could argue anyone breaking the rules around isolation is fair game. That said this is seemingly a month old as a story, so why he couldn't step back on the quiet and why the story was given to the media I don't know, is this the new strategy to deflect blame for other failings in government? Will Boris offer up his own infidelities for gossip?

It would be interesting to know how this got into the media. Sounds like his mistress wasn't exactly discrete about all this, or equally No 10 could have leaked it to start the scapegoating process.

[morepork]

So Balloux is talking bollocks?

Someone had to say it.

well yes, but its also a question.

It's not ballix, but it is quite overstated. It's not particularly comprehensive from a population standpoint and is really data mining a very finite number of samples. You'd get clearer virulance indicators starting with animal studies and cross referencing antigenic drift in large clusters around the world.