Italian doctors saying Covid is getting less potent!?

[Chosennone]

Hopeful link works 🤞
I read this and there is very little detail. I was surprised that it said that the virus is virtually eradicated in Italy.

mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2370OQ?__twitter_impression=true

Please look up the difference between the infective dose (the amount of virus you're initially infected with) and viral load - most people on this thread seem to have confused the two.

All viruses weaken over time.

If only this could be true.

It would be easy enough to figure out if its seasonal, I would have thought. Just look at how other countries with different climates are faring.
Though there are questions there too - is it the populations response to the different seasons the factor- for example vit d levels as has been well discussed, or behavioral, such as less time in shared indoor spaces, is it the virus's own response to changing temp.

Every question spawns a hundred more.

Nature is cruel, and it really is survival of the fittest.

Unless it’s Spanish flu which picked off the young and fit

I've read that autopsies in Italy have suggested that it's actually not a virus but a bacterium! Italian doctors have apparently been treating it accordingly and it's been working. Can anyone back this up?

@LordBuckley - yes, his views do see, a bit’eccentric’

It might be temporarily 'petering out' due to the hot weather / strong UV, but thats not to say it won't gain force again in autumn - medics that too earlier.

Could it be that like homeopathic medicine, if you get a small dose your body recognises it & deals with it but a big dose & your body doesn't recognize it & it is actually your body going in to meltdown that kills you?

Yes it was predicted in the 90s.

@sandandsea sadly i think that isnt true

apnews.com/afs:Content:8971390832

Is this really true. Which Doctor said this? Have they now been criticised by all other Doctors?

A high up London based doctor I know working in London says the virus virtually disappeared overnight a week or so ago.

That’s interesting because it was also reported in our media it was basically eradicated in London too.

All the peaks that were predicted, ve day, the bank holidays, nothing has materialised.

People are back at work, lock down is being broken by many. The cases are still there, like italy, but the hospital admissions dropping. I suspect much of that is to do with shielded and vulnerable taking precautions though. However possibly not all. Particularly not in London where folks are still cramming onto public transport.

Other countries have eased lock down. Many of them globally, and so far no second peak.

I think the governments lock down easing is somewhat tentative steps to see what happens.

Good article from New scientist explaining viral load and infectious dose.
www.newscientist.com/article/2238819-does-a-high-viral-load-or-infectious-dose-make-covid-19-worse/

Unless it’s Spanish flu which picked off the young and fit

Only in it’s second wave. The first one mostly killed the elderly, then it ‘disappeared’ for a bit, mutated and came back more deadly, picking off the young and fit.

It could be a different strain of the virus that’s circulating there.

I think there’s a massive difference in the virus between the virus becoming less potent due to

a) the biology of the virus changing, and it mutating into a less dangerous form, and

b) human behaviour having squeezed the virus’s ability to transmit, especially in large infectious doses.

The article doesn’t make it clear which of the two is believed to be the reason (though it could be a bit of both), but until a lab shows the virus has mutated, I think the working assumption should be b).

Of course, even if a less virulent strain has evolved in Italy, it doesn’t mean that the more deadly strain isn’t spreading elsewhere in the world that could be reintroduced given a chance. It’s not like the virus in Italy says to its cousins in Brazil “hey guys, we’ve mutated into something else, you need to make the change too!”

As long as no one is thinking “phew, Covid’s gone away” as a result of this kind of article, that’s fine.

it doesn’t mean that the more deadly strain isn’t spreading elsewhere in the world that could be reintroduced given a chance

Now there’s pessimistic and then there’s this,,,

And if a more deadly strain is circulating don’t you think we’d have seem well, more. People start to die again?

I keep thinking what do the govt know that we don't. At first I suspected a second wave was being engineered before Autumn/Winter. The Econony has to get moving too. Now I'm wondering (and hoping) whether there is evidence it is petering out.

Perhaps they're just sticking to the plan they've had all along? We were never going to be locked down until it was "safe"

It was only ever to protect the NHS. It did that.

Some people are literally determined to think we are all doomed, aren't they.

And if a more deadly strain is circulating don’t you think we’d have seem well, more. People start to die again?

They are - in vast numbers in Latin America.

Latin America were behind us though. They're seeing their peak now like we had our peak in April.