Ask HN: Is it possible 2019-nCoV is already endemic?
2 comments
This article gives more info on the most probable source of the virus. In 2004, Chinese researchers discovered a bat cave with a virus 96% genetically similar to the coronavirus spreading today.
> “We found viruses in bats that could infect human cells in a lab,” he said.
> The team drew samples from people who lived near the bat caves and found that three per cent of them had developed antibodies to the viruses — proving that the strains can and have infected humans in the past.
Responding to your question, it's very possible the virus is endemic to the region & a particularly virulent strain is spreading.
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/cave-full-of-bats-in-chi...
> “We found viruses in bats that could infect human cells in a lab,” he said.
> The team drew samples from people who lived near the bat caves and found that three per cent of them had developed antibodies to the viruses — proving that the strains can and have infected humans in the past.
Responding to your question, it's very possible the virus is endemic to the region & a particularly virulent strain is spreading.
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/cave-full-of-bats-in-chi...
Australia has in some states added nCov-19 to the standard testing panel for all respiratory illnesses, and we haven't seen a spike in detection so far. I'd expect to see an increased detection rate if it was in-fact endemic.
Is it possible that 2019-nCoV is already endemic and the outbreak in Wuhan just represents a particularly virulent strain?
The “ease of transmission” — asymptomatic, across 12 floors of a building, etc — Occam’s razor might suggest it’s simply a previously unidentified mild pathogen and a recent mutation is wreaking more havoc in Wuhan than the typical presentation — which, under this hypothesis, would be very mild.
The facts as I understand them are that sick people we test for 2019-nCoV sometimes have it. But we only test people (right now) with connections to Wuhan.
Assuming we keep finding asymptomatic transmission cases pop up, we’re faced with two possibilities; this is the fastest-transmitting and most robust coronavirus we’ve ever seen OR people keep turning up infected because it’s already endemic in the global population.
If my assumptions are correct about how we’re testing for the virus right now there’s huge sampling bias, both hypotheses will produce identical results unless we start testing control groups in completely unrelated areas.
Is there something I’m missing? Can any real epidemiologists weigh in? I would think folks at the WHO / CDC must already be thinking about this?