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A comment on The first human trial in Europe of a coronavirus vaccine has begun in Oxford. Parent comment

Re:The first human trial in Europe of a coronavirus vaccine ... by bibabaloo on Friday April 24, 2020 @03:56AM (#22965677)
I'm not any epidemiologist, so if someone knows more please correct me, but I read that viruses with a high mortality rate are much easier to contain. Mainly because the virus more naturally dies out as it kills its hosts. That was one of the reasons that SARS didn't reach pandemic scale with its 10% mortality rate.

I have to wonder if Covid-19 is in the 'sweet spot' of dangerousness, as it has a mortality rate that doesn't hamper its ability to spread but still kills a lot of people.

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Re:The first human trial in Europe of a coronavirus vaccine ... by amelius on Friday April 24, 2020 @04:13AM (#22965729)
I suppose that if the incubation period is long enough the virus can have an arbitrary mortality rate and still spread.
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Re:The first human trial in Europe of a coronavirus vaccine ... by gridlockd on Friday April 24, 2020 @04:56AM (#22966004)
Incubation period and lethality are usually correlated, afaict.
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Re:The first human trial in Europe of a coronavirus vaccine ... by ignoramous on Sunday May 03, 2020 @02:49PM (#23061009)
Or, imagine a HIV-esque virus. Super long incubation period, lethal in that it attacks your immune system, and super different than anything we've seen before to effectively find a cure or a vaccine faster than usual.

Now imagine if such a virus was airborne and was already spreading... Who'd know?

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Re:The first human trial in Europe of a coronavirus vaccine ... by usrusr on Friday April 24, 2020 @05:40AM (#22966248)
> but I read that viruses with a high mortality rate are much easier to contain

Only if all other parameters remain the same. There could be much worse viruses than SARS-Cov-2 (e.g. that are similar in eventual mortality but have symptoms lag behind start of shedding even more). A virus could be just as species-ending as a large rock hitting the earth, they are just both very unlikely or else we wouldn't be here.

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