Antibody testing to begin next week

[Drakon]

Dunno why the word ************************** got asterisked out there?

 

[Drakon]

Phonetically the word is SEE-rum

 

[Drakon]

Does that mean the disease is far less contagious than previously thought or are Sweden's control measures effective (or both)?

The control measures in most countries has made it less contagious, possibly?

With 40% of households in Sweden being single-occupancy, it’s hard to assess any data out of that country.

 

[Drakon]

I was abroad in early January and had a bit of a cough and sniffles when I came home for a couple of days. I was blaming it on bad beer.

Was it a dry cough, completely dry?
“Sniffles” suggests it wasn’t C19
Two days for an adult definitely suggests it wasn’t C19.

 

[EmmDee]

Does that mean the disease is far less contagious than previously thought or are Sweden's control measures effective (or both)?

Sweden's death toll is about a third higher than ours (per mm of population) and have been trending back up over the last 10 days. Current 7 day rolling average is about 4 times ours (per mm population)

 

[IsleOfMan]

My wife is being antibody tested. There are three separate tests:

Who is organising the tests for you both?

 

[Drakon]

Who is organising the tests for you both?

Her employer. She’s a nurse working in clinical trials.

 

[Drakon]

4) I will continue to be cautious until there is a vaccine.

Are you confident there will be a vaccine?
It took four years to develop the vaccine for mumps, and that’s the fastest vaccine in terms of development time.
The chicken pox vaccine took 28 years.

The common cold is the most common and most widespread disease in the world. It is a Corona virus. And there is still no vaccine for that. And even if there was one, the colds antibodies are only active in the body for six months or so.

I won’t make any decisions based on a vaccine.

 

[Purple]

The common cold is the most common and most widespread disease in the world. It is a Corona virus.

The common cold is actually about 200 different viruses. Most of them are rhinoviruses but some are coronaviruses.

I agree with your point about vaccines; 17 years later and there's no vaccine for SARS, although it kind of just went away so there's no big push to develop one.

 

[Ceist Beag]

Just out of curiosity, I have heard Covid-19 referred to as SARS 2 by a number of prominent people recently (Prof Sam McConkey being one), is this being done to reinforce the fact that no vaccine may be found? For months now we have been used to having it called Covid-19 so I'm just curious as to why they are now calling it SARS 2 - it is clearly being done intentionally for some reason.

 

[Leo]

I' m just curious as to why they are now calling it SARS 2 - it is clearly being done intentionally for some reason.

It's a clarification in terminology really, The name hasn't changed, COVID-19 is the official title of the disease, SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes it.

 

[Drakon]

SARS was too lethal for its own existence and killed off its hosts too quickly, rendering it not a concern.
I think this is the reason the SARS vaccine still hasn’t been invented.
HIV/AIDS is another high profile viral infection for which there is still no vaccine. 30+ years later.

 

[Purple]

SARS was too lethal for its own existence and killed off its hosts too quickly, rendering it not a concern.
I think this is the reason the SARS vaccine still hasn’t been invented.
HIV/AIDS is another high profile viral infection for which there is still no vaccine. 30+ years later.

SARS was far less contagious and far more fatal. The other major factor in its containment was that the level of trade between South East Asia and the USA and Europe was 1 20th of what it is now.
The vast majority of funding for vaccines is from private for profit sources. HIV/AIDS is a hard disease to develop a vaccine for and those at high risk are poor so the market isn't there relative to the risk/costs. The vast majority of public funding globally comes from the US Government but it still isn't anywhere enough.
Edit: I presume that being an RNA virus Covid19 stays in the cytoplasm of the cell, unlike AIDS which is a DNA virus and so enters the DNA of the host and integrates with their Genome (that's all I remember on the topic from my Leaving Cert Biology).
It still kills about a million people a year but most of them are poor and black so rich Western countries don't care... other than the USA who provide 80% of the public funding for research and fund subsidised treatments in sub-Saharan Africa (thank you George W Bush and Bono).