Thread by @petervanham

My dad, who retired last year as Head of Virology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, shared an interesting note with me and my siblings, to explain to us the situation and future outlook of the coronavirus in Europe, China and around the world. Here’s what he said:

Europe (and the US) are right now in the rising part of the curve of detected cases of #covid19. “And they’ll remain there in the next two weeks, because the containment measures that were announced in recent days take a while to have an effect, because of the incubation period”

There’s no doubting the seriousness of the situation in countries like Italy, but also Switzerland and Belgium (where me and my siblings live): China had only 22 new cases today, whereas Belgium had 160 (!), Switzerland 269 (!!), and Italy 2,546 (!!!) See worldometers.info/coronavirus/

But not just the new cases are interesting, also cumulative ones. In Chin, only 56 people per million got officially infected, which is approximately the same number as in Belgium (and in Belgium, the outbreak is ongoing). Comparable number for Switzerland is 131, Italy ~300.

Of course all these numbers are an underestimation, as only severy ill people are tested nowadays in Europe and the US.

We don’t know for sure which role children and younger and healthy adults play in the spread of the virus yet but ...

... an “annoying” characteristic of viruses is that people who have no symptoms, or are just about to develop symptoms, indeed play a major role in spreading them. The speed at which this #coronavirus is spreading is a proof of that general characteristic.

We of course have to be careful in interpreting the death rate of this virus. It is indeed very low and higher mostly for older people - but particularly for sick people. As a matter of fact, age is a much less important independent factor than illnesses (heart, diabetes, cancer)

In the end, the mortality rate will prove to be much lower than the current death rate (see more about that e.g here: reuters.com/article/us-hea…). But it will still be “MANY” times higher than the flu

But we can’t predict yet if the #coronavirus COVID-19 will ever become “like the flu” in mortality rates and immunity: it may indeed become weaker over time, as we develop immunity against it. And we may well develop a vaccine against it within a year’s time, solving the problem

But equally, the virus may mutate and become more virulent, and it may develop “resistance” against human anti-bodies, or it may even use anti-bodies to enter our blood cells (as Dengue does, for example). In that case we’re back to square one.

And, since we’ve all already had coronaviruses (I didn’t know this), which made us get the flu, the fact that we didn’t develop “cross-immunity” to this novel one, is not a good sign. It may make it harder to develop a safe and effective vaccine. We’ll now more in a few months.

We may also develop an effective medicine for treatment of course. But even that is not necessarily a solution, because #COVID19 is a very accute infection, and so you should take the medicine the moment that you’re infected, but haven’t developed symptoms ...

... otherwise you’re too late. On the other hand, we did develop a good anti flu vaccine, so that’s positive.

In conclusion, he ends with a quip. “It looks like my successors as virologists won’t be out of a job anytime soon”

Many greetings,

Dad.

If you liked this thread, you like to be informed on the #coronavirus. I recommend to follow official sources, such as @WHO & @DrTedros, who gives a really good press conference every other day from Geneva. You can follow it via live-stream (also via my employer @wef). Stay safe!

Oh, and in case you were wondering. This is my dad, Guido Vanham, MD, PhD, graduate from the amazing @KU_Leuven and lifelong researcher at the equally amazing @ITMantwerp: pure.itg.be/en/persons/gui…

En voor Nederlandstaligen, hier is zijn e-mail:

IMPORTANT UPDATE: after I wrote back to my dad, telling him my wife and I were fine in Switzerland, and that extra measures were taken as well (but as strictly as in Italy or Belgium), he felt compelled to clarify a point he made earlier:

“Younger generations, who don’t have any underlying diseases, shouldn’t be afraid to die from this virus (unless there are some exceptions for hereditary/DNA configurations we don’t yet know about).
BUT: you can get quite ill. So don’t take unnecessary risks!” ...

“I especially advise to stay away from situations where you are with other people in a confined space. But you probably already knew this” (I think we all know what those spaces are, like bars and restaurants, and probably our work space) ...

... “The sun shines, there are clear skies (for now), and our magnolia in the garden is blossoming. It is time to go for a bike ride outside.”

Greetings to you and Valeria
(And shall I add all who read this?)

Dad.

And one more thing, that I forgot to translate:

“China shows that you can bend the curve of infections”.

That’s why the number of cases there today is so low, whereas it’s still high in other countries, such as Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, USA etc. We can shape this.

+ my dad’s corrections of my translation. That’s the difference between a writer and a scientist! Please always make sure to inform yourself well. Stay safe!