Are lockdowns justified?

[FlatAssembler]

Two viruses enter a cell? Why two?

Well, there can be more. But at least two are needed for conjugation.

Viruses replicate without interacting with other viruses. What did you think?

I thought, as I still do, that they can, like bacteria or turkeys or bees, replicate without interacting with other viruses, but that they also can, and is beneficial to the offspring if they do that, replicate while interacting with other viruses.

That is one of the most fucked up displays of ignorance I have seen in some time.

Those strawmans make you sound even more stupid. Nothing I said could be remotely reasonably interpreted as saying there are male and female viruses and that at least two viruses need to be present for a virus to replicate. I explicitly said viruses were like turkeys or bees or bacteria in that they can mate, but do not have to mate to have children.

Oh, and bacteria do not "conjugate to breed" wherever that idiocy came from.

What is conjugation then? I remember we defined it in school as sexual reproduction of bacteria.

It is the single most successful reproduction strategy that we know of.

If that were true, there would be no sexual reproduction at all.

Given suitable conditions, a single virus can create billions of copies astonishingly quickly.

Correct, but those copies will not be perfect copies.

Ever heard of mitochondrial eve?

Well, I have heard of it. I am not sure what it means. I know that some creationists claim it means all humans share a common ancestor of a few thousand years ago, whereas scientists say it does not mean that.

Fact is, we humans have a severe lack of genetic diversity.

Yes, but it is by orders of magnitude more than a single virus that jumped into a different specie and started self-replicating.

Oh good grief.

What does that mean?

[Angrboda]

Two viruses enter a cell? Why two?

Well, there can be more. But at least two are needed for conjugation.

Viruses replicate without interacting with other viruses. What did you think?

I thought, as I still do, that they can, like bacteria or turkeys or bees, replicate without interacting with other viruses, but that they also can, and is beneficial to the offspring if they do that, replicate while interacting with other viruses.

What exactly are you referring to as conjugation here? Conjugation normally applies to prokaryotes, not viruses, so it's not at all clear what you mean. References would help.

[FlatAssembler]

@FlatAssembler

Last I heard, Sweden wasn’t doing so hot.

Sweden has, as far as I know, done better that the USA in every measure. Deaths with COVID per capita in USA are 1,737.24, while for Sweden they are 1,353.66. That is not a lot of difference, but that is still Sweden doing better than the USA. However, I think a much more reasonable measurement for how well a country dealt with COVID-19 (deaths with COVID-19 are not necessarily from COVID-19) is the increase in mortality from 2019 to 2020. And Sweden there is far better than the USA. The USA had around 13% higher deaths in 2020, whereas Sweden had around 1.5%.
And other Nordic countries had less than 1%. The fact is that Nordic countries all had significantly less COVID-related restrictions (lockdowns, school closures, mandated mask wearing...) than the USA, and all had far less excess mortality in 2020 than the USA. The non-pharmaceutical interventions did not save countless people in the USA, and more strict measures would not have saved hundreds of thousands of people either. Something other than those non-pharmaceutical interventions is causing cross-country variance in the increase in mortality in 2020.

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Well, there can be more. But at least two are needed for conjugation.
I thought, as I still do, that they can, like bacteria or turkeys or bees, replicate without interacting with other viruses, but that they also can, and is beneficial to the offspring if they do that, replicate while interacting with other viruses.

What exactly are you referring to as conjugation here?  Conjugation normally applies to prokaryotes, not viruses, so it's not at all clear what you mean.  References would help.

Conjugation of viruses is when two or more viruses of the same or closely related specie infect the same cell and exchange genes, as I believe is clear from the context.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@FlatAssembler

Last I heard, Sweden wasn’t doing so hot.

Sweden has, as far as I know, done better that the USA in every measure. Deaths with COVID per capita in USA are 1,737.24, while for Sweden they are 1,353.66. That is not a lot of difference, but that is still Sweden doing better than the USA. However, I think a much more reasonable measurement for how well a country dealt with COVID-19 (deaths with COVID-19 are not necessarily from COVID-19) is the increase in mortality from 2019 to 2020. And Sweden there is far better than the USA. The USA had around 13% higher deaths in 2020, whereas Sweden had around 1.5%.
And other Nordic countries had less than 1%. The fact is that Nordic countries all had significantly less COVID-related restrictions (lockdowns, school closures, mandated mask wearing...) than the USA, and all had far less excess mortality in 2020 than the USA. The non-pharmaceutical interventions did not save countless people in the USA, and more strict measures would not have saved hundreds of thousands of people either. Something other than those non-pharmaceutical interventions is causing cross-country variance in the increase in mortality in 2020.

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What exactly are you referring to as conjugation here?  Conjugation normally applies to prokaryotes, not viruses, so it's not at all clear what you mean.  References would help.

Conjugation of viruses is when two or more viruses of the same or closely related specie infect the same cell and exchange genes, as I believe is clear from the context.

Angr’s right - that’s not conjugation.

But you keep digging, there’s a good lad.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

Sweden has, as far as I know, done better that the USA in every measure. Deaths with COVID per capita in USA are 1,737.24, while for Sweden they are 1,353.66. That is not a lot of difference, but that is still Sweden doing better than the USA. However, I think a much more reasonable measurement for how well a country dealt with COVID-19 (deaths with COVID-19 are not necessarily from COVID-19) is the increase in mortality from 2019 to 2020. And Sweden there is far better than the USA. The USA had around 13% higher deaths in 2020, whereas Sweden had around 1.5%.
And other Nordic countries had less than 1%. The fact is that Nordic countries all had significantly less COVID-related restrictions (lockdowns, school closures, mandated mask wearing...) than the USA, and all had far less excess mortality in 2020 than the USA. The non-pharmaceutical interventions did not save countless people in the USA, and more strict measures would not have saved hundreds of thousands of people either. Something other than those non-pharmaceutical interventions is causing cross-country variance in the increase in mortality in 2020.

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Conjugation of viruses is when two or more viruses of the same or closely related specie infect the same cell and exchange genes, as I believe is clear from the context.

Angr’s right - that’s not conjugation.

But you keep digging, there’s a good lad.

Boru

Well, fuck me, I thought conjugation had to do with verbs.

Guess I should add this to what I know today that I didn't know yesterday.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Lol, the Swedish model has been an utter failure.Which is why they have been tightening restrictions and seriously considering a hard lockdown. Hardly something they would do if it was working.

[FlatAssembler]

Lol, the Swedish model has been an utter failure.Which is why they have been tightening restrictions and seriously considering a hard lockdown. Hardly something they would do if it was working.

I do not know if it was an utter failure, but just eyeballing the data makes it obvious the USA has had a far bigger failure.

[The Architect Of Fate]

I do not know if it was an utter failure, but just eyeballing the data makes it obvious the USA has had a far bigger failure.

It was a total failure and comparing the two countries doesn't work.

[Anomalocaris]

Viruses reproduce, but they don’t ‘breed’ in the conventional sense.

If two viruses infect the same cell, they do breed, in the same sense as bacteria conjugating is breeding, right?

They are self-replicators, so inbreeding isn’t an issue.

But... self-replication is even worse than inbreeding. Self-replication means all harmful mutations that existed in the parent will exist in offspring, whereas inbreeding means at least some of them probably won't.

Even if it were, I don’t see what moving from one species to another would have to do with it.

Moving from one specie to another means entering an eco-system where nobody of your specie, or probably even a closely-related specie, exist.

HGT tends to increase genetic diversity, not stifle it.

I do not understand what you mean.

Viruses don’t mate with each other in a way that would result in inbreeding.

This makes about as much sense as saying that, since female turkeys (or bees...) do not need males to procreate, turkey as a specie could survive even if all males were killed. No, self-replication leads to harmful mutation building up even more so than inbreeding does.

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Virus reproduce in a manner of speaking, but they don’t breed.

They breed when they infect the same cell. At least in the sense that bacteria breed when they conjugate.

Hence they don’t in-breed.

Of course they do. Or do you think in-breeding cannot happen in bacteria when they conjugate? If so, why?

They are not like you or Donald trump.

Right, they are like turkeys or bees or bacteria. Some reproduction can be done without breeding. But a specie cannot be sustaned that way due to the build-up of harmful mutations.

Also, inbreeding would potentially be a problem amongst breeders only if the genome is larger than a certain size

Why?

carry different versions of genes for many different proteins

Correct me if I am wrong, but bacteria also do not.

and potential for certain genes to be expressed or repressed

Why?

Organisms with very simple genomes wouldn’t have the room to suffer harmful effects from inbreeding.

Why? If anything, they should be even more vulnerable to it.

So I doubt inbreeding can do yours or The Donald ‘s line much harm.

I am not sure what you mean.

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If Trump asked, Why are cats called felines when lions go roar?, you can guarantee an automobile assembler is going to make an ass out of himself.

What do you mean? Do you mean that I unconditionally accept anything Donald Trump says? Not at all.

1.   Bacteria do not breed.  The difference between conjugation and breeding is breeding unites genetic material from two parent organism during the production of a new organism.   Conjugation causes genetic material of one existing organism to be introduced into another existing organism.  No new organism is produced.    Hence conjugation is not breeding, just like masturbation is not breeding either.

2. When bacteria conjugate, the core genome of the bacterial, embodied in chromosome DNA, are not involved.   Only plastmids, small free floating strands of DNA in the cell dealing with only certain functions, are involved.  So the exchange of genes is by no means comparable in scope to that in breeding.   Bacteria also have mechanisms to ensure recipient bacteria in conjugation reject plastmids that are similar to the ones it already possess.    So in no way is bacterial conjugation similar to In- anything, much less In-breeding.

3. Harmful mutation are, what do you call it?  Oh, yes,  harmful!   Which means they cause their own bearer to,  oh, how do you say?  Die.   Tada!  Harmful mutation gone from gene pool.   Have you thought about that?   How could harmful mutation build up?🤔.    The way is through genetic regulation in complex organisms.      Ultimately it is the meifested trait, not the gene that encodes them, that is harmful.   In complex eukaryotic organisms the genetic mechanism doesn’t just stupidly execute everything that the genes encode.  Instead there are mechanism to suppress the expression of some genes, and selective manifestation of other genes.   So harmful mutations can build up in complex organisms because complex organisms have mechanisms to render harmful mutations non-menifesting.   Does virus have such mechanism?   I don’t think so.   So no “build up of harmful mutations” in virus.

4. And why would inbreeding be a bad thing in sexually reproducing organism?   If a gene worked in papa, and a similar gene worked in mama, why would introducing both cause something not to work in baby?   Ever thought of that?    I guess not.    One way genetic regulation mentioned in 3 works by requiring the two parents in a breeding pair to contribute two near identical copy of the same gene for certain traits to menifest.     If the same gene from the two parent are sufficiently different, the trait does not manifest.      Inbreeding is a problem because by definition, partners involved in inbreeding are likely to have very similar genes.   This greatly increases the chance the offspring will inherit two nearly identical copies of the gene encoding the same harmful mutation.  This causes the harmful trait encoded by the mutation to menifest.  This is what causes the harm.      Since virus does not have mechanism to suppress expressions of harmful gene, and also have no means of causing harmful gene to menifest through expression of recessive trait, inbreeding would have meant jack shit to a virus even if virus could breed.

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[The Architect Of Fate]

This makes about as much sense as saying that, since female turkeys (or bees...) do not need males to procreate, turkey as a species could survive even if all males were killed. No, self-replication leads to harmful mutation building up even more so than inbreeding does.

Parthenogenesis and conjugation are not the same as recombination and there is no equivalent to inbreeding in such a process.