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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday October 29 2020, @06:12AM   Printer-friendly

Coronaviruses are masters of mimicry, new study finds:

Coronaviruses are adept at imitating human immune proteins that have been implicated in severe COVID-19 disease, a study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons has found.

The study was published online ahead of print in Cell Systems.

[...] "Viruses use mimicry for the same reason as plants and animals—deception," says Sagi Shapira, Ph.D., assistant professor of systems biology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. "We hypothesized that identifying viral-protein look-alikes would give us clues to the way viruses—including SARS-CoV-2—cause disease."

In the study, Shapira used supercomputers to search for viral mimics with a program similar to 3-D facial recognition software. They scanned more than 7,000 viruses and over 4,000 hosts across Earth's ecosystems and uncovered 6 million instances of viral mimicry.

"Mimicry is a more pervasive strategy among viruses than we ever imagined," Shapira says. "It's used by all kinds of viruses, regardless of the size of the viral genome, how the virus replicates, or whether the virus infects bacteria, plants, insects or people."

[...] In a separate paper published in Nature Medicine, the Columbia researchers found evidence that functional and genetic dysregulation in immune complement and coagulation proteins are associated with severe COVID-19 disease. They found that people with macular degeneration (which is associated with enhanced complement activation) were more likely to die from COVID-19, that complement and coagulation genes are more active in COVID-19 patients, and that people with certain mutations in complement and coagulation genes are more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19.

Journal Reference:
Gorka Lasso, Barry Honig, Sagi D. Shapira. A Sweep of Earth's Virome Reveals Host-Guided Viral Protein Structural Mimicry and Points to Determinants of Human Disease, Cell Systems (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2020.09.006


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  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @06:37AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @06:37AM (#1070269)

    Runaway, submitting under one of he nefarioius aliases? Infiltrating like a viral right wing meme? Do we not yet have a vaccine?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:28AM (3 children)

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:28AM (#1070290) Journal

      I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Usernames on IRC do not have to be the same as names on this site.

      This is a story about scientific research, backed up by a scientific paper. Whether you think the report is worth discussing you can debate here. But the story isn't judged on on the person submitting it. Are you suggesting that people having specific political leanings are somehow not permitted to make submissions on this site? Will you be insisting that some of our community wear a yellow star to indicate their religion, or perhaps we should all declare the colour of our skin?

      Take your own personal biases somewhere else - they are misplaced on this site.

      Submissions that are on-topic and of general interest are welcome on this site.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @05:31AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @05:31AM (#1070742)

        My dear janrinok, can you possibly be so naive? The Runaway is poisoning the site, with his IRC subs, from questionable sources, blowing whistles that you as a ex-pat Brit living in Frogland, do not even hear? And you go Yellow Star. Some of the worst Nazis were not Germans, but their collaborators, in the Petain government in France, that sent may French Jews to death camps. Even worse, the collaborators in Slovenia, where they did not even try to "Be Best"! And so for the rest of the Balkans, the Yugo Slavs. Of course, after the war, these people were tried and executed. Or, at least, executed, since everyone knew who they were.

        America is in a similar situation now. Everyone now knows who the Trump supporters are, and after the Allied Victory, you can take off your MAGA cap, but we will remember. We will shun you, we will poison your dog, we will TP your house, and report to your employer that you are a Nazi collaborator!! This is what is coming up. The Runaway has hard times a coming! We should shield him, by not posting his submissions here. They will come back to haunt him.

        • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday October 30 2020, @10:31AM

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 30 2020, @10:31AM (#1070784) Journal

          The Runaway is poisoning the site, with his IRC subs, from questionable sources,

          Rather like somebody else I know who does exactly this with numerous off-topic submissions about the extreme right wing. I do not care about the politics, religion or the ethnicity of the submitter or anyone else in our community - but don't try pushing your political views, religious beliefs or any racial claims on this site.

          It is not the politics of the submitter that we consider a story for publication, but the content of the submission. Even you have had a submission published in the last day or so. Now if you would care to point out the political bias in the TFS or the linked sources then please go ahead and do so - but take your own personal politics away from this site.

          Everyone now knows who the Trump supporters are, and after the Allied Victory, you can take off your MAGA cap, but we will remember. We will shun you, we will poison your dog, we will TP your house, and report to your employer that you are a Nazi collaborator!! This is what is coming up.

          Don't you dare threaten me Ari, I do not fear you. But you have given me all the evidence that I need that you are unstable and an extremist. I don't have a MAGA cap - I think US politics is actually in the worst possible state at the moment and I most certainly do not support either of the US (right wing) candidates.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @11:28AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @11:28AM (#1070788)

          You have been poisoning this site for years lololol.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fakefuck39 on Thursday October 29 2020, @07:09AM (20 children)

    by fakefuck39 (6620) on Thursday October 29 2020, @07:09AM (#1070274)

    What I don't get is how this claims to have discovered this very basic trait of covids, when we've been studying them for ages. You know, since the common cold is a coronavirus. Oh look, here's a retrovirus that we've known for ages does the same thing - it's called HIV.

    So what's annoying is this really was discovered just now for coronaviruses, because of covid. How long have people wanted something that helps fight the common cold - like a drug or a generic vaccine that works against all cold viruses. People would pay good money to get the flu-shot equavalent for a cold so they don't run sneezy doopy all winter, but this is just now being done because of covid, and heck, we may get a good treatment for colds as a bonus. Isn't capitalism supposed to fix this shit - like there's demand for an anti-cold shot/pill, but the pharma-monkeys haven't given us one?

    Conspiracy theory: people spend enough on cheap cold meds, and colds don't kill anyone, so big pharma doesn't want to make a cold cure so they can sell a bunch of tylenol.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:19AM (#1070295)

      Conspiracy theory: people spend enough on cheap cold meds, and colds don't kill anyone, so big pharma doesn't want to make a cold cure so they can sell a bunch of tylenol.

      Give that man a kewpie doll...especially regarding Tylenol/Paracetemol.

      Just like any product endorsed by dentists should be regarded with the similar suspicions, nothing like cutting your own throat, eh?, and, thinking about that, as dentists are so down on sugar, that must mean it's really, really good for our teeth...shit, sorry, turned the conspiracy dial up to 11 there for a moment....

    • (Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:36AM (1 child)

      by Taibhsear (1464) on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:36AM (#1070301)

      I have a feeling it's a cost/benefit ratio issue. Studies cost money and if its hard to do it'll cost more money with no guarantee for a positive/useful/profitable outcome. So those that would be funding the research don't want to take the risk for a non-lethal disease. Now that there's a lethal disease with similar structure it's more advantageous to fund the research.

      Yay, capitalism. /s

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 29 2020, @01:52PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 29 2020, @01:52PM (#1070357) Journal

        Well, that's part of it. Another part is that many common colds are caused by something other than a corona virus. Another part is we've only had the tools they are using to analyze it for a few years. I'm fairly sure there are other parts.

        Additionally, knowing that camouflage is being used isn't that helpful unless you know how to penetrate it. And that's what all the computer modeling of virus action is about. Which is still pretty difficult to do, and requires time on one form or another of supercomputer. So even when the tools exist, they can be difficult to access.

        P.S.: That brings up an idea I haven't seen mentioned...possibly it's stupid. There' lots of used cell phones, and they ought to be pretty cheap. What about a beowulf cluster of them? You might not even need to root them.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @01:53PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @01:53PM (#1070359)

      The reason we don't have a vaccine for corona viruses is that we knew it mutates too fast, OTC medicines make it bearable, and there is negligible risk.

      The same conclusion we will come to about covid 19 once the politics are out.

      • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:39PM (4 children)

        by fakefuck39 (6620) on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:39PM (#1070535)

        Umm, no. You made that up. There are about 30 different ones we know of, and about 5 of them cause a cold in humans. They don't mutate any faster than the flu, and we absolutely can have a vaccine for them every year. In fact, there is a large number of mutations needed to make a treatment ineffective. There are also treatment avenues that make mutations fairly irrelevant as long as it's the same type of virus. If you look at anti-retrovirals for the flu, they work for years/decades, and we have plenty of them for treatment when you get the flu. we can have the same for covids.

        the scientists doing the research in a lab don't give a crap about politics, and their published papers and conclusions aren't held back or affected by politics. let me guess, you get your covid updates from politicians instead of doctors?

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:52PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:52PM (#1070580)

          They don't mutate any faster than the flu, and we absolutely can have a vaccine for them every year.

          You absolutely can NOT. Cats do not have a vaccine for the 100% deadly feline infectious peritonitis to this very day, not for the lack of trying in some 40+ years.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_coronavirus [wikipedia.org]
          https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2829570/ [nih.gov]
          Because, see, coronaviruses have this:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement [wikipedia.org]
          https://rybicki.blog/2020/04/11/antibody-dependent-enhancement-in-coronaviruses/ [rybicki.blog]
          Any smallish mutation in the spike domain, and some number of variants of antibodies that were previously protective, become instruments of suicide-by-virus instead. Like demonstrated here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.08.20209114v1 [medrxiv.org]

          They do not NEED to mutate any faster than flu. They make far better USE of their mutations.

          • (Score: 1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Friday October 30 2020, @06:52AM (2 children)

            by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday October 30 2020, @06:52AM (#1070762)

            lol, you point to one treatment vector that doesn't work because of light mutation and say because of that no yearly shot is possible for any other type of treatment. that's cute.

            hey sherlock, we don't have a good treatment for feline aids either. strangely the human treatments work very well. btw ADE applies to HIV too. hmm, maybe a complete lack of trying is not necessary to not have a treatment. maybe just not trying very hard is enough to not have a treatment. maybe treating shit in cats doesn't get as many resources as treating humans. kinda how an annoying but dangerous common cold doesn't get many resources. a possibility you think?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @02:54PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @02:54PM (#1070859)

              hey sherlock, we don't have a good treatment for feline aids either. strangely the human treatments work very well.

              Hey blowhard, no cat needs "treatment for feline aids" because, surprise, cats only rarely live long enough to develop immunodeficiency from FIV infection. And no one was asking you about treatments anyway, when shooting down your yapping about a vaccine. Go find a vaccine for HIV. None in near 40 years? So sad.

              In the interest of fairness, it seems we already have a working antiviral for COVID, Remdesvir: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191 [nejm.org] Regretfully, we have no drug and no vaccine for political infighting around the virus.

              • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday October 30 2020, @10:44PM

                by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday October 30 2020, @10:44PM (#1071084)

                Ah, a trump voter I see doing mental gymnastics despite plain info proving him wrong.

                me: like a drug or a generic vaccine
                you: you said vaccine, not a drug for treatment

                it's mind-boggling how you idiots change reality for yourself.

                reality: cats develop aids from fiv all the time
                you: cats don't develop aids

                so, here in reality, we have developed great treatments for hiv because it's important, and we haven't developed treatments for cats because they're just cats. in your reality, despite the text of what I wrote blaring you in the face, cats don't get aids, and "drug" means vaccine. You have a brain disease. You should have that treated by a drug. We don't have one for your disease yet, because we prefer you die instead of spending money to find a treatment for stupid.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @03:35PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @03:35PM (#1070388)

      Conspiracy theory: people spend enough on cheap cold meds, and colds don't kill anyone, so big pharma doesn't want to make a cold cure so they can sell a bunch of tylenol.

      To be clear, this could be true. There have been conspiracies in the past to do nefarious things, especially to kill fledgling technologies. However, what is more likely:

      1) A conspiracy among all the millions in universities, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors to keep a secret the potential cures of colds.

      2) This is really hard, and/or not "cost effective" to do. (Be it literal cost-benefit to humanity, or IP laws wouldn't make it worth it.)

      Keep in mind the group in #1 includes a substantial people who literally went into industry to help others and/or to make a difference, and whoever finds a cure would literally go down in history like Louis Pasteur... or at least Alexander Fleming.

      I'm more inclined to think it is #2, but yes, it could be #1.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @05:56PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @05:56PM (#1070467)

        I think part of the issue could also be that you need FDA approval to do clinical trails and it's possible the FDA is influenced by industry in ways that discourage clinical trials on simple solutions that don't make industry money.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @05:59PM (5 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @05:59PM (#1070470)

          BTW, trump passed a law that allows clinical trails to be done on terminal patients without FDA approval. I'm sure the FDA and industry hate that.

          • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:42PM (3 children)

            by fakefuck39 (6620) on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:42PM (#1070536)

            no, he did not. trials on terminal patients were always possible, and have been done since trials existed. this claim by him is similar to his claim this week that he ended the covid pandemic. just a clown yelling he's a clown.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @12:59AM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @12:59AM (#1070626)

              Did you even read what I typed? I said without FDA approval.

              Trump signs Right to Try Act for terminally ill patients

              "President Donald Trump has signed a bill giving terminally ill patients the right to try experimental treatments not approved by the government."

              https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44305998 [bbc.com]

              Learn to read.

              • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday October 30 2020, @06:42AM (1 child)

                by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday October 30 2020, @06:42AM (#1070760)

                Yes, yes, it looks like you googled it and probably read the short summary from one of the first links.

                So let me repeat myself, since you have not learned to read. What you said is false. The statement you made is not true. Trump did not sign a law that allows FDA unapproved clinical trials for terminally ill patients. Do you understand?

                Now go read the actual text of what was passed. The act allows physicians to test a drug, that already has phase1 approval by the FDA, on a patient, without asking permission from the FDA for that specific case. This has nothing to do with approval of clinical trials. Approval for clinical trials, including ones on terminally ill patients, is still needed from the FDA.

                Prior to this, trying a new drug by the physician required filing a permission form with the FDA, stating you have exhausted all approved options, and all clinical trials. It did not require getting a clinical trial approved with the FDA, since those cases are not clinical trials.

                Yes, you still need FDA approval to run a clinical trial, even on terminally ill patients. You don't need a case registration form for each patient something already phase1 approved by the FDA.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @01:00PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @01:00PM (#1070812)

                  I read the article already.

                  "stating you have exhausted all approved options, and all clinical trials."

                  You still have to exhaust all approved options and clinical trials. That hasn't changed. If there was an approved option chances are the patient wouldn't be terminal because the approved option would save their life, no (this part can be tricky but I'm not a huge fan of allowing the FDA to block clinical trials. That's basically the crux of what prevents clinical trials on things from happening then everyone here can claim that we need clinical trials to prove that something helps but no clinical trails can be done because the FDA isn't allowing them to be done).

                  "that already has phase1 approval by the FDA"

                  That's not in the article or in any of the other articles I've read on this. So I think you are making this up like you make a lot of things up unless you can provide a citation. As usual, I seriously doubt it and I get tired of debating you on every little thing you get wrong over and over and over.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @01:25AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @01:25AM (#1070640)

            (Same poster)

            Though I suppose one could argue that industry doesn't really hate it because now they don't have to go through the FDA approval process to test their products. So I guess it can also be considered a win for industry depending on how you look at it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @04:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @04:51PM (#1070425)

      What I don't get is how this claims to have discovered this very basic trait of covids, when we've been studying them for ages. You know, since the common cold is a coronavirus.

      We actually haven't been studying coronaviruses much. As near as I can tell, the Common Cold Unit [wikipedia.org] discovered coronaviruses, failed to make much progress on the common cold past that and was eventually disbanded. And pretty much all other research on coronaviruses postdates SARS. For example, there's four coronaviruses [wikipedia.org] that cause the common cold (and hundreds of rhinoviruses); 3 of them were identified after SARS.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @05:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @05:27PM (#1070448)

      1) A conspiracy among all the millions in universities, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors to keep a secret the potential cures of colds.

      Who needs such complexity? These days you just hire some thousand cheap trolls and order them to drown any detected instance of information you dislike in a bullshit flood. Helpful search engines, and dedicated trolls camped even on such smallish sites as Soylent, provide for quick reaction time.
      Any mention of vitamin C, for one example, is invariably modded "Troll" here in a few hours at most, no matter the number and quality of supporting links to various research.
      The universities are handled through grants; researchers there research what they are paid to research, and who will finance a theme with no profit in it? The mavericks who can and will find outside funding to research something they want, are relatively few, and their scientific output is easy to deal with by drowning it in troll noise.
      The doctors are handled through incentives to prescribe certain drugs, and the honest ones reined in by bureaucrats writing treatment protocols.
      The pharmaceutical companies happily make billions selling you repackaged re-patented ancient "treatments" decade after decade, to them any cure reaching you is a loss.

      The world of rainbow-pooping unicorns is not this one. Have you not yet learned the fact?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @02:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @02:29PM (#1070852)

      What I don't get is how this claims to have discovered this very basic trait of covids, when we've been studying them for ages.

      "I don't get how this claim to <something>". How... what?
      You see, I can't even.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @04:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @04:38PM (#1070417)

    A study's gonna conclude that coronaviruses are masters at mimicking whole, entire humans. Huh...huh...huh.

  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:04PM (10 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:04PM (#1070525)

    I'm wondering if it's possible for this virus to mutate so that it's much more deadly than it already is (remember the 1918 Flu which easily killed young, healthy people, frequently even overnight). If that happens, watch the western nations suffer massive losses because of their completely incompetent handling of this pandemic, while eastern nations are largely unscathed because people there can be trusted to actually follow public health advice instead of screaming about "Muh Freedumz!!"

    • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:52PM (8 children)

      by fakefuck39 (6620) on Thursday October 29 2020, @09:52PM (#1070540)

      I guess that's possible, the selective pressure goes the other way. The deadlier the virus is, the less it spreads, because, you know, it can't get you from 6ft underground. If anything, I'd expect it to get less deadly and asymptomatic. Note how the 1918 flu isn't around anymore, but the regular flu and the common cold are still something everyone gets every year.

      FYI, western nations don't suffer "massive losses." This thing mostly killed people who were old and sick a year or two early. That is all. For example, number of deaths go up by about 50k/year in the US - and have always done that. Total deaths this year, the year before, and the years before, all follow the same slope. There literally are not any extra deaths from covid. You seem to be forgetting there are over 3mil deaths per year in the US, every year, and that out of those 200, most would have died from the flu or "stage 3 cancer while being 80yo."

      While it's true that you kill someone if you shoot them mid-air as they're falling off a building, your death toll doesn't change.

      You also seem to believe covid death statistics from places like india and china to make your point. Would you care to buy a bridge from me? I have several for sale around the NYC area. $200 each - how many would you like?

      BTW, my wife is Chinese. Most of her family lives there. She refuses to go to China to visit them because she doesn't want to get sick. Strange, isn't it, since they have no covid anymore.

      • (Score: 2) by pipedwho on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:40PM (7 children)

        by pipedwho (2032) on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:40PM (#1070575)

        For example, number of deaths go up by about 50k/year in the US - and have always done that. Total deaths this year, the year before, and the years before, all follow the same slope. There literally are not any extra deaths from covid. You seem to be forgetting there are over 3mil deaths per year in the US, every year, and that out of those 200, most would have died from the flu or "stage 3 cancer while being 80yo."

        Incorrect. Their is a clear spike in deaths for 2020 according to this: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm [cdc.gov]
        And this: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-death-count?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute®ion=World [ourworldindata.org]

        The above charts show that US death counts don't follow the same slope as previous years. They show two clear peaks that coincide, with expected lag the reported detected cases, and reported COVID19 deaths (which for the first peak can't be attribute to changes in personal economic situation).

        So in previous years, where many die from flu and other causes, the curve comes up as expected during flu season. But, in 2020 it goes much higher, and would go off the charts if we ignored it in the same way colds/flus are 'ignored' in any normal year.

        So no, these deaths aren't ones that would have happened anyway. And "most would have died from the flu or "stage 3 cancer while being 80yo" as you say is definitely not true.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @12:16AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @12:16AM (#1070595)

          Click the "Weekly Number of Deaths by Age" and "Update Dashboard". Look at which age groups demonstrated those experssive peaks and to what extent. Then look at where the red line is going, and try to find an explanation why and how "in the middle of the raging epidemic" it is at present in the process of falling under the previous 5 years' lines.

          • (Score: 2) by pipedwho on Tuesday November 10 2020, @12:40AM

            by pipedwho (2032) on Tuesday November 10 2020, @12:40AM (#1075417)

            Did you even look at the links provided. The change for 2020 is so obvious that you'd need to be actively not looking at it not to see.

            The excess deaths so far are well in excess of just a shift from people that would have died 'in a few months' into the death zone. This is not just data in a vacuum, it is backed up by looking at general mortality and deaths actually tested and attributed to Covid19.

            You can claim all you want that the only people dying are those that were about to die anyway, but the original premise that there have been "no excess deaths in 2020" is invalidated by those links provided - which are based on actual hard data and not just speculative estimates.

        • (Score: 1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Friday October 30 2020, @06:00AM (4 children)

          by fakefuck39 (6620) on Friday October 30 2020, @06:00AM (#1070751)

          Oh look, the excess deaths are about 50k. So how much deaths go up from last year, every year, for the last decade. Thanks for agreeing with me. Now as far as contributing them to covid, they are. They are also contributed to flu, cancer, and other things. You're completely misinterpreting things because you are looking at a very light level of detail, and cannot fathom that someone can die of two things, or 3 things. Like having the flu, and having covid - which is a covid death on the chart. BTW, in over 90% of the cases, people with covid died from multiple causes, such as flu+covid. Or car crash + covid.

          Literally the only way to have an accurate number and comparison to previous years, of how much extra death is because of covid, is to look at a couple of years from covid start, and see if those couple of years have more deaths than expected. And by expected, I don't mean the 2 years before. I mean the 2 years before, +50k, +50k. Since deaths have been increasing by 50k every year before covid.

          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @09:01PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @09:01PM (#1071027)

            Excess deaths means excess, already taking into account those 50k increases from general population increases and age. Your attempt to dismiss every death as "oh well, they were old and were probably going to die anyway" is not only disingenuous, but ignoring the fact that COVID19 transmissions are preventable. Everyone who died of COVID+whatever still died of COVID as a primary or contributing cause.

            If someone pushed a terminally ill cancer patient on their death bed in front a bus we wouldn't say, "they were going to die of cancer soon, so that bus really wasn't a big deal."

            • (Score: 1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Saturday October 31 2020, @12:51AM (2 children)

              by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday October 31 2020, @12:51AM (#1071123)

              no, they are literally not taking into account those 50k. it's funny you don't bother looking at your own links since it doesn't fit your narrative.

              I'm not saying covid is not preventable, and I'm not saying people dying early is not a big deal. you're making shit up that would be bad to say, saying it yourself, then pointing the finger at me. the only one who said those things here was you.

              and along with that lie, you lie about the 50k/year increase being taken into account for excess deaths. it is not.

              if you push a terminally ill cancer patient on their death bed in front of a bus, and he dies a week earlier, that is also not an excess death for 2020. you lie by counting it as such. The fact is, we have 3mil deaths per year. This is pre covid. This is post covid. There are no excess deaths due to covid. There are only slightly early deaths due to covid. That is still bad, but what you are doing is yelling the sky is falling, and being a faggot. Like the people who call a mall shooting terrorism, like women who were lied to by a man to get him in the sack saying they've been raped. You are trivializing real problems. You are lying like a ukrainian mail-order bride. You are not a man. You are a little slimy faggot.

              • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 31 2020, @04:18AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 31 2020, @04:18AM (#1071177)

                The CDC "all deaths" chart gives a leeway of approximately 2k per week(100k per year) before they consider any amount of deaths to be "excess." They're actually giving DOUBLE the buffer you're complaining about them not paying attention to.
                If you read the CDC foreword it actually covers your comorbidity concerns(flu, cancer, heart disease, even old age dementia and Alzheimer's). It also addresses your "car crash + covid" scenario and notes that they specifically exclude those:

                Cause of death counts are based on the underlying cause of death, and presented for Respiratory diseases, Circulatory diseases, Malignant neoplasms, and Alzheimer disease and dementia. Deaths due to external causes (i.e. injuries) or unknown causes are excluded.

                The second chart trends very closely to a 50k year over year increase. Look at the 2015 data and see how the 2020 data prior to March was higher by almost exactly 5k/week. You're right on the nose and the chart shows that. Plus, those aren't estimates, those are hard numbers. The numbers tracked quite well to the usual yearly increase until March. I wonder why there's a huge increase in people dying this year compared to all the other years...

                BTW, you would really come across a bit better if you could actually point out where the charts are wrong instead of name calling. You're not going to convince people you've got a better point unless you try to make one.

                • (Score: 1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Saturday October 31 2020, @10:44AM

                  by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday October 31 2020, @10:44AM (#1071224)

                  yeah no. you're missing the entire point, and should learn to read. per week? heck, even per month? for a virus that takes up to 2 weeks to incubate and up to another 4 to kill you?

                  any excess deaths cannot be measured per week or "per month." an excess death is if you look at the expected 2020 deaths based on the regular annual graph slope, and figure out it's more. no, a death where an 80yo cancer patient on their deathbed dies a month early because of covid is not an excess death for the year. and guess what, 2020 isn't over yet, and total deaths have not surpassed 2019 deaths.

                  hey, here's an idea. since you're trying to spin a narrative here, why go down per week? why not estimate excess deaths for each day?

                  you can't predict deaths for a given week or month based on past data. you can somewhat do it for a year, better 2 years though. and no, 2020 is not looking like it's going to have more deaths than 2019 beyond regular annual increases. there is zero data for that. and going down to the month, week, or day, doesn't show that. guess what, if someone dies of covid today, they can't die of cancer tomorrow.

                  dying early is a bad thing. but it's not an excess death, which is a worse thing. lemme guess, the guy who stole some change from you at the mall - terrorist?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @11:32PM (#1070569)

      remember the 1918 Flu

      We cannot, Mr. Centenarian. We were not there, and neither were our parents, nor grandparents.

      When people misrepresent stuff written a century after the fact as factual evidence, what they should remember is that lying is a sin.

      while eastern nations are largely unscathed because people there can be trusted to actually follow public health advice instead of screaming about "Muh Freedumz!!"

      You can die only once. You WILL die once. Giving yourself and your children, if any, into slavery will NOT save you from death. Are a few extra years of life as a caged and muzzled rat worth it?

      This is the thing you are wishing on us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China [wikipedia.org]
      I say that you and your comrades are a plague worse than any virus.

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