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midtskogen
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

30 Mar 2020 06:36

Why is this being called SARS 2?
The virus SARS-CoV gave the disease SARS in the early 2000's.  Now the virus SARS-CoV-2 gives the disease COVID-19.  I guess it could just as well have been named SARS 2.  SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are related viruses, but I don't know in what exact way.  SARS itself stands for "Severe acute respiratory syndrome", i.e. the symptoms have similarities.
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Cantra
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

30 Mar 2020 22:37

I personally feel this virus was created on purpose to disrupt the world economy. Its just too suspicious to me.
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Watsisname
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 03:43

I personally feel this virus was created on purpose to disrupt the world economy. Its just too suspicious to me.
The question of whether the virus could have been created and released by humans (intentionally or otherwise) was asked, a lot, on the SE Discord server. 

Answer (again with thanks to DoctorOfSpace who knows a lot about this kind of thing): it wasn't, and we can tell by studying its genome. 

This virus, like many others, mutates constantly, and its genome records the history of how it has changed as it went from having hosts in different animals to then transmitting between humans. As it continues to mutate it even records the history of how it has spread throughout the world:

Image

Could a government lab have put these genetic markers into the virus artificially, to make it look like a natural virus? No. Not without leaving clear evidence that other labs throughout the world would have noticed. This virus has all the markings of a natural virus that has been hosted in bats for a long time before making the jump to humans, possibly by also going through pangolins.
 
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Watsisname
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 03:48

From a doctor in New York. This was a very nice video explaining, in clear terms, what we understand about how this virus is transmitted, and how people can protect themselves and their families. Much is what we've already heard, but some is also perhaps not so obvious, and what I especially like is that he uses this info in a positive way -- that by understanding this, one should not feel scared, but rather empowered.

https://vimeo.com/401923670
 
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midtskogen
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 05:21

I personally feel this virus was created on purpose to disrupt the world economy. Its just too suspicious to me.
Yes, it's both technically and politically implausible.

In the longer run, at large scale, the economical outcome may well go into positive territory.  The situation forces corporations to use technology to work in new ways.  Just think about the resources wasted every day by commuters spending hours in traffic to do work they could have done from home.  Now, working from home isn't for everybody, but that's fine.  Even if just those who easily can do it, work a day or two from home every week, it would have a huge impact.  One car staying at home quickly means two fewer cars on the road since those who need to travel will get there faster.  When all this is over, new habits might get established.  At the very least it gets more acceptable to work from home if you have a cold, which makes sense in every way and will keep everybody healthier.

Now, having been in the videoconferencing industry for more than 20 years I'm hugely biased.  It's also a situation we're not prepared for.  It's pretty insane.  It puts a lot of stress on network and cloud infrastructure, and the quality people now are experiencing is not how it's supposed to be, and it can give the wrong impression.

It's worth revisiting what Arthur C Clark said nearly 60 years ago.

[youtube]FxYgdX2PxyQ[/youtube]
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A-L-E-X
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 08:08

I personally feel this virus was created on purpose to disrupt the world economy. Its just too suspicious to me.
The question of whether the virus could have been created and released by humans (intentionally or otherwise) was asked, a lot, on the SE Discord server. 

Answer (again with thanks to DoctorOfSpace who knows a lot about this kind of thing): it wasn't, and we can tell by studying its genome. 

This virus, like many others, mutates constantly, and its genome records the history of how it has changed as it went from having hosts in different animals to then transmitting between humans. As it continues to mutate it even records the history of how it has spread throughout the world:

Image

Could a government lab have put these genetic markers into the virus artificially, to make it look like a natural virus? No. Not without leaving clear evidence that other labs throughout the world would have noticed. This virus has all the markings of a natural virus that has been hosted in bats for a long time before making the jump to humans, possibly by also going through pangolins.
what about the idea being thrown around among the white house press corp that this virus was the result of the Chinese importing poached animals from Africa?


and also- seems like there is some disagreement here- are viruses considered alive or not?  I was under the impression that the views had changed.  If a virus can mutate and evolve then it should be considered to be alive.

We should go into a deep dive discussion about this because I believe it has major implications for what we consider to be living, and will impact our search for life elsewhere in the universe.
 
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 08:12

Why is this being called SARS 2?
The virus SARS-CoV gave the disease SARS in the early 2000's.  Now the virus SARS-CoV-2 gives the disease COVID-19.  I guess it could just as well have been named SARS 2.  SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are related viruses, but I don't know in what exact way.  SARS itself stands for "Severe acute respiratory syndrome", i.e. the symptoms have similarities.
The interesting thing is, we thought we might have a SARS pandemic a few years ago, but it ended when the weather got warm and humid.  This one seems like it might last.  The earlier one also started in China.  Is there some legitimacy to the idea that the Chinese importing poached animals from Africa caused this?  This virus is very similar to one found in some other animals.
 
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midtskogen
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 10:21

 Is there some legitimacy to the idea that the Chinese importing poached animals from Africa caused this?
Many blame the live animal markets in China.  Maybe, but the facts are obscured by much activism to ban such markets for other reasons than diseases.
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midtskogen
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 10:30

 was under the impression that the views had changed.  If a virus can mutate and evolve then it should be considered to be alive.
I lean towards not.  They're more chemical parasites.  Your definition is too wide.  You can write a computer program introducing random mutations to an initial state and have interaction with something, and then you have evolution, but not life.
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kedrednael
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 13:13

Answer (again with thanks to DoctorOfSpace who knows a lot about this kind of thing): it wasn't, and we can tell by studying its genome. 

This virus, like many others, mutates constantly, and its genome records the history of how it has changed as it went from having hosts in different animals to then transmitting between humans. As it continues to mutate it even records the history of how it has spread throughout the world:

Image
Hi, that world map coloring is useless because the coloring is determined by what country measured the genome. So the colors in the pylogenic tree  show when the virus goes to another country. The coloring can be set to the clade of the virus, which has more to do with the genome itself: https://imgur.com/f4iej5Z
https://nextstrain.org/ncov?c=clade_membership&l=radialhttps://nextstrain.org/ncov?c=clade_membership&l=radial
 
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Watsisname
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 19:34

I don't think it is useless. These are different ways of visualizing the same data, and both are valid. You can color by clade, and then see the variations over time and where they occur on the map. Or you can color by region on the map, and then see in the phylogenetic tree how it has diverged as it spread through time and space. 

In both cases you can see for example how the US is dominated by a particular branch which is genetically distinct from what is mostly spreading through Europe, and how they each trace back in different ways to the original outbreak in Wuhan.
 
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Watsisname
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

31 Mar 2020 20:36

[youtube]CWFOKznwNhQ[/youtube]

Presentations by Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci were excellent today (skip to 14:40 for them).
 
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Cantra
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

01 Apr 2020 17:14

I personally feel this virus was created on purpose to disrupt the world economy. Its just too suspicious to me.
The question of whether the virus could have been created and released by humans (intentionally or otherwise) was asked, a lot, on the SE Discord server. 

Answer (again with thanks to DoctorOfSpace who knows a lot about this kind of thing): it wasn't, and we can tell by studying its genome. 

This virus, like many others, mutates constantly, and its genome records the history of how it has changed as it went from having hosts in different animals to then transmitting between humans. As it continues to mutate it even records the history of how it has spread throughout the world:

Image

Could a government lab have put these genetic markers into the virus artificially, to make it look like a natural virus? No. Not without leaving clear evidence that other labs throughout the world would have noticed. This virus has all the markings of a natural virus that has been hosted in bats for a long time before making the jump to humans, possibly by also going through pangolins.
Just a personal thing, I find that very hard to believe. Everything about this and the situation is very suspicious. 
Just a random user on the internet, nothing to see here.
 
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Watsisname
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

01 Apr 2020 20:36

Just a personal thing, I find that very hard to believe. Everything about this and the situation is very suspicious. 
¯\_(ツ)_/¯   It's perhaps a natural thing to be suspicious of, and I will always encourage to keep an open mind, though not so open that your brains fall out. And as long as you understand how the virus transmits and the best ways to protect yourself and those around you, then I don't think it matters too much whether you think this virus was released intentionally or was simply a natural occurrence which has happened before and will surely happen again (though next time the world will be better prepared).

Personally I don't see anything suspicious about either the virus or the world's response to it. It rather seems to have played out in a predictable (if not entirely rational, which itself is predictable) fashion: from how the world watched with mounting concern but lack of adequate preparation as it spread through China, and then an "oh ***" moment when each country discovers it in their borders, realizes how serious it really is, and fighting hard to get a handle on it ever since.
 
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Cantra
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Thread

01 Apr 2020 22:28

Just a personal thing, I find that very hard to believe. Everything about this and the situation is very suspicious. 
¯\_(ツ)_/¯   It's perhaps a natural thing to be suspicious of, and I will always encourage to keep an open mind, though not so open that your brains fall out. And as long as you understand how the virus transmits and the best ways to protect yourself and those around you, then I don't think it matters too much whether you think this virus was released intentionally or was simply a natural occurrence which has happened before and will surely happen again (though next time the world will be better prepared).

Personally I don't see anything suspicious about either the virus or the world's response to it. It rather seems to have played out in a predictable (if not entirely rational, which itself is predictable) fashion: from how the world watched with mounting concern but lack of adequate preparation as it spread through China, and then an "oh ***" moment when each country discovers it in their borders, how serious it really is, and fighting hard to get a handle on it ever since.
Yeah I understand how to protect myself and those around me and how it transmits. I just find it suspicious that a few days after the trade deal with China was signed, this comes to be. Aswell as the fact theirs a bio-warfare plant near to Wuhan. 

My school has been canceled and I just hope everybody stays safe.
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