Corona: I see about the same curve everywhere as with a normal flu. There has been no predicted flare-up at all in the summer. Virologists seem to portray to me that 1 infected person would infect almost everyone in his environment. As if it’s just a mathematical thing. While nature has its own laws. There is no ‘third wave’ with a normal flu, is there? And 2 weeks after the autumn break, no noticeable difference has come, only a decrease. Couldn’t that be the ‘natural’ course of any virus infection?
Answer
The point is that every virus, and even every variant, has a different natural history. The seasonal flu, for example, normally has one outbreak in the colder period. Virologists and epidemiologists try to predict what the natural course is for a particular virus (variant) based on what is known about previous respiratory virus outbreaks. Of the nine outbreaks of respiratory viruses in the last 130 years, five were found to have a second phase (some within one year, others spread over two years, some with two equally bad phases and others with a worse second phase). Based on this, it was predicted in April this year that there would probably be a second ‘wave’, more specifically in the autumn (autumn or winter). And this has indeed come true.
Mathematical models can therefore be drawn up on the basis of those past experiences with, for example, flu or coronaviruses. Nature indeed has its own laws, as you say, and the virologists/epidemiologists try to find out those natural laws and convert them into mathematical models. The natural course of SARS-Cov2 outbreaks will only really be known after years. But I think it would be much better to stop this trend by using vaccines on a massive scale. In this way we have previously been able to disable dangerous viruses, e.g. polio (infantile paralysis).
Answered by
Prof. dr. dr. Luc Bouwens
Biomedical Sciences
Avenue de la Plein 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/
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