Coronavirus | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
  • IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.

Coronavirus

Seems to be a few people misunderstanding what 'mutating' means, biologically speaking. Mutation gets kind of a bad name in pop culture because it is often associated with significant deformations, or disease, or giant leaps in evolution. Mutation is a constant of biology, in that it is an ever present phenomenon. All biological entities, living or semi living in the case of viruses, mutate as they replicate. Mutation is simply a random change to DNA.

The question, evolutionarily, is what is the impact of that mutation? Most mutations are insignificant when it comes to organisms with large genomes with a lot of redundancy. A lot are detrimental. Very few are advantageous to the organism, and usually only happen to be based on the environment they're in.

This is a little different to viruses which have comparatively smaller and less complex genomes with little redundancy. Some viruses recombine their genomes to essentially induce mutations as one of their mechanisms of reproduction. Influenza does this, resulting in antigenic shift.

Antigens are molecules which induce an immune response, and which can cause the specific generation of antibodies (the things which bind to pathogens and neutralise them). Antigens are the things that our immune system 'remembers' when it develops immunity to a pathogen, and the thing that vaccines attempt to target.

Antigenic shift It is a random process that is one of the reasons influenza strains change so dramatically, so quickly, and why immunisations need to be seasonal. This is a sudden and dramatic change to the virus, and is a little different to how coronaviruses have worked, historically. Coronaviruses can have sudden and dramatic rearrangement of their genomes, but usually only as a result of coinfection in animals. Both coronaviruses and influenza are susceptible to something called antigenic drift, though, which is the ongoing minor changes to those antigens based on small random changes to the genome as a results of a 'proof reading error' during replication. Basically, the genome is replicated, and a small coding error is made, and not corrected. As an RNA virus, coronaviruses are particularly susceptible to these little changes, and usually have some continuous fluctuations in what antigens they express. This is why vaccines are so hard to make against these types of viruses. Covid19 has appeared relatively stable to date, but there's no reason for that to be the case throughout this spread.

These types of mutations are the really critical part here, because being able to reinfect hosts, or avoid an immune response is a massive selective advantage to the virus. That is, the mutation is random (changing RNA which changes antigens), but the outcome is beneficial, so it will be conserved and replicate in high numbers. This is different to random mutations which make viruses more or less lethal.

Mutations can also make a virus more deadly. They can also make it less lethal. Here's the thing though, being more lethal should be a selective disadvantage because being more lethal means the individual is quarantined, isolated, and potentially dies. Being dead is not a great way to pass on disease. Being alive and coughing a lot is much better for the virus. So the virus may mutate, but that doesn't mean, as someone here said, it's 'intelligent'. It's no more intelligent than a filter. The mutations that help it avoid the immune system increase in frequency, the mutations that cause it to be more difficult to pass on decrease in frequency.

This is, of course, a complex system and predictions are borderline impossible. For instance, hospitals may see particularly lethal strains in higher proportions, due to the selective event of the more lethal variants being hospitalised. This, along with viral load, may be one of the reasons so many healthcare workers are dying. And it may be that causing a really severe cough is enough of a reproductive advantage to the virus to outweigh the potential disadvantage of killing a host. Who knows. But it may also be the opposite. It may be that we see a less virulent strain spread across communities that effectively isolate symptomatic individuals.

This, by the way, is another fantastic reason for effective quarantine. If we quarantine and isolate anyone symptomatic, we introduce an artificial pressure (just as powerful) toward variants which are less lethal, whilst still creating some form of community immunity.

I'd like to reiterate that there are heaps of unknowns here. And it does seem that Covid19 is more genetically stable than we might otherwise expect meaning a lot of this is moot. At least in the short term. But I'd just like to clarify that the virus is not intelligently seeking to become more harmful. And that mutations aren't necessarily bad things. Like all things in biology, this is an evolutionary arms race, and like most evolutionary arms races, it will probably end up eventually in some form of balance.

Excellent post, thanks.

2 things:

The virus is not intelligent, mutations are not designed per se. But I reckon people ascribe intelligence as evolution can (doesn't always) act in a way which looks like intelligence. So it looks a bit like an intelligent system when something like a virus mutates and in doing so gains an ability to reinfect and/or avoid immune responses. Of course, being non-lethal is also an advantage. The thing is that it is the strains of the virus which successfully infect animals and successfully spread which survive, this is basic evolution, but it certainly can give off the impression it is an intelligent system even when it isn't.

Secondly, what does "semi-living" mean? It is a strange term I haven't seen before and I have read that a virus is not a living entity, but it sort of lives. Any reference on this which makes sense to someone outside the field?

DS
 
The alleged Chinese figures will be a drop in the ocean in no time.
Appreciate these updates L2R.

The Chinese numbers on infections have barely moved in days, they are starting to look very suss.

Either they have stopped testing or the numbers are not being updated accurately. I just can't see that their infection rate has slowed to such an extent.

DS
 
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The Chinese numbers on infections have barely moved in days, they are starting to look very suss.

Either they have stopped testing or the numbers are not being updated accurately. I just can't see that their infection rate has slowed to such an extent.

DS

Russia - 2777, Vietnam - bordering China, 212? I say *smile*.

 
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Excellent post, thanks.

2 things:

The virus is not intelligent, mutations are not designed per se. But I reckon people ascribe intelligence as evolution can (doesn't always) act in a way which looks like intelligence. So it looks a bit like an intelligent system when something like a virus mutates and in doing so gains an ability to reinfect and/or avoid immune responses. Of course, being non-lethal is also an advantage. The thing is that it is the strains of the virus which successfully infect animals and successfully spread which survive, this is basic evolution, but it certainly can give off the impression it is an intelligent system even when it isn't.

Secondly, what does "semi-living" mean? It is a strange term I haven't seen before and I have read that a virus is not a living entity, but it sort of lives. Any reference on this which makes sense to someone outside the field?

DS

Thanks David!
 
The Chinese numbers on infections have barely moved in days, they are starting to look very suss.

Either they have stopped testing or the numbers are not being updated accurately. I just can't see that their infection rate has slowed to such an extent.

DS

Exactly.
The opposite!
 
Excellent post, thanks.

2 things:

The virus is not intelligent, mutations are not designed per se. But I reckon people ascribe intelligence as evolution can (doesn't always) act in a way which looks like intelligence. So it looks a bit like an intelligent system when something like a virus mutates and in doing so gains an ability to reinfect and/or avoid immune responses. Of course, being non-lethal is also an advantage. The thing is that it is the strains of the virus which successfully infect animals and successfully spread which survive, this is basic evolution, but it certainly can give off the impression it is an intelligent system even when it isn't.

Secondly, what does "semi-living" mean? It is a strange term I haven't seen before and I have read that a virus is not a living entity, but it sort of lives. Any reference on this which makes sense to someone outside the field?

DS

There is long standing debate about whether viruses are considered alive. The general consensus is no, but some scientists will refer to them as living things.

It's not really all that important of a discussion to be honest, it comes down to the fact that life is very hard to define.
Biologists generally agree that all living things are cellular, i.e. the smallest unit of life is a cell. Viruses are acellular, that is, they are not made of cells. There is also the issue of how exactly viruses replicate. Being acellular, they don't have the internal machinery to create proteins (ribosomes) which means they use the cellular machinery of whatever host they infect to create more viral particles.

But it's a little arbitrary, as for all intents and purposes, they function under basic biological principles, they have genetic information which mutates and replicates, and they are subject to the same evolutionary forces as any living thing.

Also, it's not just that 'muations are not designed per se'. They are not designed. Thinking of it that way leads to misconceptions. Mutations are random. This randomness is a fundamental principle of life. It is only selection that is non random, and even then, that selection is not moving toward a purpose. Evolution is more passive than that. There is no future outcome, only what is and isn't.
 
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Thanks Coburgtiger, interesting discussion on what is life, not a simple thing to define.

I get that mutations are not designed, just sometimes give the impression they are, clearly could have been clearer on that point! Indeed, it is selection which makes evolution such an amazing process.

DS
 
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Russia - 2777, Vietnam - bordering China, 212? I say *smile*.

A mate is in Vietnam, his wife is from there and they go there a lot to visit her family with their kids He is amazed by how well its being handled there, says he feels much safer than here, initially he was going to come back, had some problems getting flights, decided to stay and is now glad how it panned out. FWIW.
 
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Russia - 2777, Vietnam - bordering China, 212? I say *smile*.


Vietnam in very early with a hit on their hands:

 
A mate is in Vietnam, his wife is from there and they go there a lot to visit her family with their kids He is amazed by how well its being handled there, says he feels much safer than here, initially he was going to come back, had some problems getting flights, decided to stay and is now glad how it panned out. FWIW.

The Vietnamese are an extraordinary mob
 
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Thanks Coburgtiger, interesting discussion on what is life, not a simple thing to define.

I get that mutations are not designed, just sometimes give the impression they are, clearly could have been clearer on that point! Indeed, it is selection which makes evolution such an amazing process.

DS

Selection has always been the key of evolution hence survival.
 
correct. I have long debated that governments should never, ever cut health funding under any circumstances. i don't think you need to guess which side of politics is more likely to do this.

then you have the hypocrisy of a government who banged on for 13 years that Rudd should never have released a stimulus package, only for the same people to provide what must be the biggest stimulus package this country has ever seen. but of course, they don't call it a stimulus package. :rolleyes:

They don't call it a stimulus package because right now there isn't an economy to stimulate. Right now it is to stem the bleeding so there will be something to stimulate when a vaccine is here and administered to everyone
 
Botswana on Tuesday confirmed its first death from the new coronavirus.

The person came to the country from South Africa on March 15, died due to the virus, Vice President Slumber Tsogwane said in a statement.

Four people in the country have been diagnosed with COVID-19 so far.

Meanwhile, President Mokgweetsi Masisi declared a state of emergency for three weeks to avert the spread of the virus

Nothing open now , no travel to other towns cities from tomorrow .
 
Botswana on Tuesday confirmed its first death from the new coronavirus.

The person came to the country from South Africa on March 15, died due to the virus, Vice President Slumber Tsogwane said in a statement.

Four people in the country have been diagnosed with COVID-19 so far.

Meanwhile, President Mokgweetsi Masisi declared a state of emergency for three weeks to avert the spread of the virus

Nothing open now , no travel to other towns cities from tomorrow .
Stay healthy DjJP.
 
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God bless America.

Gun shops are reopening in the US after the Trump administration ruled they are an essential service.

"After days of lobbying by the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and other gun groups, the Department of Homeland Security this past weekend issued an advisory declaring that firearms dealers should be considered essential services — just like grocery stores, pharmacies and hospitals — and allowed to remain open. The agency said its ruling was not a mandate but merely guidance for cities, towns and states as they weigh how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus."

They say they should be considered to be like grocery stores:rotfl1:bash

 
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Botswana on Tuesday confirmed its first death from the new coronavirus.

The person came to the country from South Africa on March 15, died due to the virus, Vice President Slumber Tsogwane said in a statement.

Four people in the country have been diagnosed with COVID-19 so far.

Meanwhile, President Mokgweetsi Masisi declared a state of emergency for three weeks to avert the spread of the virus

Nothing open now , no travel to other towns cities from tomorrow .

Take care Dj!
Stay safe.
Keep indoors.
 
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God bless America.

Gun shops are reopening in the US after the Trump administration ruled they are an essential service.

"After days of lobbying by the National Rifle Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and other gun groups, the Department of Homeland Security this past weekend issued an advisory declaring that firearms dealers should be considered essential services — just like grocery stores, pharmacies and hospitals — and allowed to remain open. The agency said its ruling was not a mandate but merely guidance for cities, towns and states as they weigh how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus."

They say they should be considered to be like grocery stores:rotfl1:bash


Wow!
 
I have concerns because research has been limited ( this study ) 130 people, which is a small sample size for my liking.

This virus is killing quickly and doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Vaccine I heard today will begin( Geelong ) and results not know for 3 months. What will we know then? It’s effectiveness or lack of and back to the beginning ?

Time will tell I guess.
I have nothing to do for 6 months but read, read and then drive myself & others nuts

Interesting article on your follow up Coburg & others !

 

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So NSW Police commissioner just announced that their lock down laws will be in effect for 90 days minimum from last Monday I think, so by my reckoning earliest possible footy is now July, probably August if players can't start training until it ends.
All these timelines reinforce where the world is at, and as much as I love and miss our game, playing footy just becomes less important as each day passes.
 
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The Chinese numbers on infections have barely moved in days, they are starting to look very suss.

Either they have stopped testing or the numbers are not being updated accurately. I just can't see that their infection rate has slowed to such an extent.

DS

You're not surprised are you? The Chinese Govt. wouldn't tell the truth if their lives depended on it. They are the whole reason we are in this mess in the first place.
 
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