Probability that covid will become endemic

[Cigarbutt]

There is no evolutionary advantage in a virus becoming more deadly.

Small additional comment. Assuming a virus evolution over a few months is a long enough window for adaptation and evolution to play out, efficiently killing your host is clearly not an 'advantage'. With the Spanish Flu episode, what killed the host was typically a secondary bacterial pneumonia, as a side effect of the initial virus invasion and before antibiotics were widely available. The particular matter with Covid-19 is that, like other 'successful' viruses, it is efficient at alluding the human immune system but it is also able to inhibit and delay the immune response in a way as to cause an unfortunate side effect related to this delay, in certain people, resulting in an exaggerated and delayed immune response that is out of proportion to the invader and that kills the host through some kind of self-inflicted immune storm. Of course, the virus does not really care about this unfortunate side effect in some people.

I am unfortunately not an evolutionary biologist but that makes sense to me.

This sentence is heavy with 'meaning'. Our investing styles are different. i tend to go for focused and rare bets, for opportunistic and easy killings in a way. This requires to reach a level of confidence equivalent to being able to challenge the CEO or Board. Despite this, there's always an impostor's syndrome involved which, i guess, must be felt by all who try to define their evolutionary circle of competence.

[LearningMachine]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-africa-covid-strain-resistance-antibodies-coronavirus-vaccine-latest-research/

 

Researcher at a biohazards lab in Johannesburg seems to be claiming that new strain is 10x more resistant to the vaccine and possibly "knockout" the immunity from vaccine totally.

[Cigarbutt]

Epilogue

Covid has become less virulent with a developing seasonal pattern and it has become endemic.

Many data points available to support the above mentioned conclusions; excess mortality shown below.

Covid has followed its most likely evolutionary path, influenced by functional hybrid/herd immunity, especially since the Omicron variants have taken over (less virulent and more contagious path):

Covid has become just one of the other respiratory viruses and is behaving very similarly the old 4 coronavirus variants that have been around for a long long time. On an individual risk assessment basis, virulence has come down and personal risk factors still count although the higher risk category is now narrower:

Interestingly, even if often compared to the 1918 "Spanish flu" episode, the most relevant historical example for Covid may be the 1889 Russian viral episode.

The enigma of the 1889 Russian flu pandemic: A coronavirus? - ScienceDirect

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Any relevance to investing?

Cycles are cycles, secular trends are pervasive (despite 'transitory' noise) and even if history never repeats, it often rhymes.

[Sweet]

On 11/28/2023 at 12:53 AM, Cigarbutt said:

Epilogue

Covid has become less virulent with a developing seasonal pattern and it has become endemic.

Many data points available to support the above mentioned conclusions; excess mortality shown below.

Covid has followed its most likely evolutionary path, influenced by functional hybrid/herd immunity, especially since the Omicron variants have taken over (less virulent and more contagious path):

Covid has become just one of the other respiratory viruses and is behaving very similarly the old 4 coronavirus variants that have been around for a long long time. On an individual risk assessment basis, virulence has come down and personal risk factors still count although the higher risk category is now narrower:

Interestingly, even if often compared to the 1918 "Spanish flu" episode, the most relevant historical example for Covid may be the 1889 Russian viral episode.

The enigma of the 1889 Russian flu pandemic: A coronavirus? - ScienceDirect

-----

Any relevance to investing?

Cycles are cycles, secular trends are pervasive (despite 'transitory' noise) and even if history never repeats, it often rhymes.

I remember that for a time it was heresy to say that covid would likely become less virulent over time.  How dare we downplay covid was the line.  Horrible people and a horrible time.

[cubsfan]

9 hours ago, Sweet said:

I remember that for a time it was heresy to say that covid would likely become less virulent over time.  How dare we downplay covid was the line.  Horrible people and a horrible time.

+ 1 , We ended up being a bunch of suckers while we destroyed economies & livelihoods, and handed dishonest politicians unlimited power to overreach.

 

Never again 

[Spekulatius]

Every epidemic becomes endemic or the host dies out, so that was never in question. What was questionable is what happens until the epidemic becomes endemic.

[Gregmal]

28 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

+ 1 , We ended up being a bunch of suckers while we destroyed economies & livelihoods, and handed dishonest politicians unlimited power to overreach.

 

Never again 

I love Kuppys summary of that period of time…”Our disparate account statements stand witness to the decisions we each made.”

[Sweet]

6 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Every epidemic becomes endemic or the host dies out, so that was never in question. What was questionable is what happens until the epidemic becomes endemic.

Maybe not for you Spec, but many online who had no training in Biology, or limited understanding of infectious diseases, were aggressively pushing all sorts of ridiculousness.