Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

That's interesting.
It sounds like it would be a breakthrough development in understanding this outbreak if its true.

 

I am less impressed by Friston than by most of his independent colleagues. I would compare his effort with that of the guy from Ceredigion (which I take to be what I used to call Cardigan, including Aberystwyth). The Ceredigion man applied common sense without a computer and it looks as if he got right. Friston is dancing with angels on the head of a pin. Interestingly he even mentions the odd fact that the virus has not seemed to affect people in Aberystwyth!

At every point Friston allows for the 'non-susceptibility' to be a matter of behaviour - wearing a mask or being careful not to get too close or whatever it might be. The chance of it being genetic or vitamin D seem to me to be pretty much zero.

Friston has a big reputation in the field of cognitive function in neuroscience. It is an area that I publish in and to be honest I am doubtful that his high tech modelling gets us anywhere. He knows all about the maths but, as he admits, rather little about the practical hands dirty aspects of medical problems.

Nobody needs a computer for this. As the man in Aberystwyth seems to have demonstrated.

 

(In a Welsh accent) Who said anything about privacy. In Woodbridge by the time Lindsay has walked her mutt down Broomheath we know what everyone has been up to. Whether it be the Crachach up at Pytches Road or the new housing estate nobody gets to hide anything here and why should they? Who needs the privacy pregethal when people are dy-ing, look you.

 

Do you think there could be a meaningful subset of the population who are naturally not susceptible?

 

There are several different questions in here. One is whether there is a substantial subset who on average have few or no symptoms and shrug it off. That we know to be so. Young people, thin people, women ... But there are about the same proportion of those in Germany. The more relevant question is whether there is an as yet unknown subset that cannot acquire and transmit the infection. That would alter spread dynamics - which is what Friston was analysing. There could be but I see no evidence so far.

One possible reason for a subset being unable to transmit (because of being unable to 'breed' virus) is immunity due to previous exposure to germs. But that should show upon older people - exactly the people who seem to suffer most. There is a strange phenomenon with Dengue fever that makes people more susceptible to severe disease if they have already become immune to a related but nonidentical strain. Something like that is conceivable but as far as I know not known for this type of virus.

 

I hope Nigel Speight will be okay. He has done so much for children with ME.

 

@mango Thank you for your excellent reporting and summaries of the situation and development in Sweden.

I agree completely with your view of things and am utterly appalled at how the government and officials in charge are handling this.

Yes, I really hope so as well.

Exactly! And this is so contradictory, because he has just admitted there were things they should have done different, yet he's still adament that we can't draw any conclusions yet and uses that as an argument that we shouldn't change course. A very strange logic!

It sure does!

A personal anecdote that reflects the Swedish situation:
I live in Stockholm and have been self-isolating together with my 76 year old mum since March. A couple of weeks ago she fell while going for a walk and had to be taken to hospital to stitch up a deep cut in the forehead. A week later she went to have the stitches removed. Nowhere did the healthcare personnel wear protective gear, not in the ambulance, not the hospital, not at the GP's.
And she got infected, which means I got infected, and we are now both on our 4th or 5th week of having covid symptoms.

However, we won't show up in the statistics, because our symptoms are "mild" considering, and the only ones being tested are people who go to the hospital.
And how many more aren't there who haven't been tested?
Denmark tests about seven times as many people as Sweden and yet have reported far fewer infected, Norway as well.

The official statistics of newly/current infected are grossly misleading, more so than in countries with more extended testing.

I feel that Sweden has failed in every aspect when it comes to handling this pandemic. I want to emigrate.

 

@Anna H, sorry to hear you and your mother are ill. Thought you and the other Swedes here might enjoy this Danish opinion piece.

Google translate struggled with the last bit, should be something like 'before the Swedes change direction and rejoin Europe'.
https://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/sverige-foelger-sin-helt-egen-corona-strategi-men-hvor-laenge

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=sv&tl=en&u=https://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/sverige-foelger-sin-helt-egen-corona-strategi-men-hvor-laenge

Edited: typo

 

I believe you are referring to the "original antigenic sin" hypothesis?

https://www.jimmunol.org/content/202/2/335

 

Weren't behaviours explicitly modelled in terms of 'how likely am I to be infected based on physical distancing/hygiene behaviour'? etc but by adjusting the values of these parameters they still couldn't match the data they were observing. I took it that his leaving the unexplained variation open to behavioural explanations was merely an acknowledgment that all models are an impoverished representation and there may have been some behavioural variable they hadn't identified and modelled.

 

I don't see any way that they would have data on actual behaviour. My understanding is that they assumed that behaviour would change when government instructions changed and things did not fit that - hardly surprisingly to me since my own changes in behaviour have borne no relation to government instructions -I had always already done more than they suggested weeks before. From what Friston says the differences between countries could all be cultural differences in behaviour in the context of a public danger. He indicates that there would be no difference in the predictions for modelling for genetic differences, cultural differences or differences in vitamin D usage.

One thing I have noted is that small countries have tended to have very high infection and death rates -it is perhaps themes striking correlation of all: San Marino, Andorra, Luxembourg, Belgium. That cannot have anything to do with anything other than behaviour/population density etc.

 

No, nothing to do with that idea in particular. Just that if you have seen a type of virus before you are likely to have some immunity to viruses with shared surface proteins. I think the OAS theory was about the flavours the antibody response being skewed in spectrum by the first exposure to a member of a group.

 

I've no knowledge of their modelling approach but I would have expected that they would have expressed variables such as distancing or hygiene in terms of a range from say lousy to almost perfect rather than a checklist of govt policies and behaviours but I agree that individual behaviours may have borne little relationship to official instructions.

My guess would be a combination of air travel; population density and viral load and the interrelationship between them.

 

Sorry if this is stupid or has already been answered, but my head is very fuzzy at the moment.

I thought that older people tended to lose their immunity with age?

 

A proportion of people over 65 develop 'windows' of inability to fight off bacteria or viruses but most people retain good immunity to most viruses throughout life. Probably the commonest problem is for diabetics, who, after 65 may become unable to fight off e.g. staphylococci. The other common issue is weakening of immunity to varicella, which allows the virus to reappear as shingles. That gets a lot commoner over 70. But getting shingles twice is very uncommon, indicating that the immune response can be restored.

As far as I know the evidence for Covid19 is that alleges are susceptible much the same but the elderly are more likely to get an aberrant late reaction with pneumonia followed by vascular damage. I don't think that is easily explained just on the basis of weaker immune response.

 

I contacted two councillors last night (not being sure who else to contact), including one who I was told would probably be more receptive to the idea.. and today I got a message back from that councillor saying Thanks for the email and the idea, such an approach would be a boost for the borough, And that he would highlight the idea to others. So I’ve replied back asking him to keep me updated.

 

I watched the first video re "alternative sage"; meaning to go back for more, but haven't done that yet. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but there were a couple of things which annoyed me slightly. From memory, one was the idea that some people were immune. E.g. there were a few people identified as immune to AIDS but it was pretty remarkable (low%) and only really interesting to understand/potentially treat the disease. So why assume people may be immune to coronavirus? Another comment (again from memory) was that potentially a high percentage had been exposed to coronavirus and were now immune; the impression I'd gained was that, outside London, % infected/recovered was less than 10% of the population.

Generally I'm very grateful to independent experts, some of the input is a little disappointing --- not really fitting with what we think we know. However, the program was made a while ago, subsequent programs may be better.

 

Somebody made the comment that the first alternative SAGE video had rather too much of Friston speculating. I find the others very on target (Costello, Pollock, Desai, et.).

 

Thank you very much for your reply.

Found the link to the videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqwC56XTP8F9zeEUCOttPQ

 

Videos all on here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqwC56XTP8F9zeEUCOttPQ

Their written reports, letters etc are accessible via:
https://www.independentsage.org/