Surely Not?! (Covid)

[eve1974]

“ New coronavirus mutation could be evolving to get around mask-wearing and hand-washing

Wearing masks, washing our hands, all those things are barriers to transmissibility, or contagion, but as the virus becomes more contagious it statistically is better at getting around those barriers,” said Mr Morens, senior adviser to Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of NIAID.

[jno]

mutations aren't deliberate.

[eve1974]

Yeah I get that but what I mean is ... how can a virus mutates so that hand washing etc is no longer effective.

[Mamyalynne]

The mutations that have been observed may mean a strain has become more contagious.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/24/new-coronavirus-mutation-could-evolving-get-around-mask-wearing/

[Mamyalynne]

It's yet another sloppy headline.

[eleanor2]

Yes I heard this todsy, it's worrying.

[Prudie]

Half the world is worried enough without yet another expert wanting to make a name for himself by doom-mongering. Viruses do mutate but this is worded as though they have a thinking brain ie those suckers are wearing masks, lets sneak in underneath them, or maybe go in the ears? What do you think fellow viruses?

[Peter Pedant]

well it cd be - it all depends on whether it does
So Far
1. if you dont accept what has happened in the past is any guide to the future - you go into NJ mode. Anything can happen. Like the stock market. [Humes refutation of induction 1792]
2. if you do accept that the past may guide the future
then you can look to see what has happened so far

the virus has mutated but slowly ( SNPs are just about the slowest) and none has caused a major shift - and my god the scientists have been looking

also classically - the second wave is more lethal than the first ( passage froo man intensifies virulence)

and basically we have to wait and see ....

sorry - very technical response to what is possibly a
" oh mi god the bugga-boo virus will affect us all and we will all DDDDIIIIIEEEE!!!" dubbl-sozza

[eve1974]

Yup and headlines are written to grab attebtion

[Peter Pedant]

// how can a virus mutates so that hand washing etc is no longer effective.//

oh

aah - this is a buggaboo killer virus post

OK 100 viruses all looking for a host
mutations - usually around 1 in 10 000
OK choose 10 000
and one has mutated

a. handwashing - they all die, or else they all die in proportion
b. OK do it again but this time, the mutation gives a little advantage instead to the ONE
handwashing - the mutated one wil survive preferentially
c. it goes on and the proportion grow
d.mutated virus comes out on top

straightforward Darwin 1859

better fitted to survive in that environment
is how the old man wd have put it

[ubasses]

Yet in todays Telegraph there is an article heading Fall in viral load raises hopes next wave may be less deadly.
Sorry cannot find a link, I have the paper in front of me.

[woofgang]

Here's the link. the fall in viral load is said in the article to be because social distancing and face covering wearing is working.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/24/coronavirus-viral-load-decreasing-meaning-second-wave-could/

[ubasses]

Thanks Woofgang.

[zebo]

Would I be right in thinking that if one has a theory then one can find statistics to 'prove' that theory?
The real truth is probably that no-one in the world has any idea of what's going to happen.

[woofgang]

pretty much zebo.

[Atheist]

I don't think that Mr Morens suggested that viruses have thinking brains. A lot of evolution talk slips into a simplified version that implies it's all done on purpose. If hand washing kills most of the the virus, then the few that aren't killed will survive and prosper, and the 'weaklings' will not. Fast running carnivores will catch their prey and will thus thrive; but fast running prey will escape and therefore thrive. Neither of them is clever.

[Atheist]

Zebo, you can't 'prove' a theory by finding statistics. 'Proving' a theory is actually finding that it 'works' over a long period of time with many other parties testing it out and trying to find fault with it.

[Atheist]

PP, sorry, I missed your earlier post about natural selection of mutated viruses.

[woofgang]

yeah...the thing about disease "winning" and those who die "losing the fight" really frosts my underwear....as though the people who die have failed in some way and if they had been stronger, fought harder thought more positively (oh that one really rises up my nose) they they wouldn't have "lost"

[woofgang]

atheist, that is why zebo put "prove" in inverted commas. You know what they say about lies and damn lies.

[Old_Geezer]

I don't have a great issue with the headline. Any belief regarding intent is the reader's inference not the writer implying anything. "evolving to get around" is simply less cumbersome (necessary for headlines) than, say, "randomly evolving which means that it may eventually get around". The meaning is clear enough.