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A comment on S.Africa says vaccines, prior infection help mildness of Covid cases. Parent comment

Re:S.Africa says vaccines, prior infection help mildness of ... by asimpletune on Monday December 20, 2021 @03:32AM (#29622560)
So I was a little confused about the definition myself, because when I looked it up a while back my iPhone dictionary suggested both as a definition.

Is the key difference that in an infectious disease expert context, virulent means severe and infectious means contagious?

I always thought virulent was ability to spread because that’s what viruses do, but that was way before the pandemic.

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Re:S.Africa says vaccines, prior infection help mildness of ... by sterlind on Monday December 20, 2021 @04:56AM (#29622982)
correct. it's confusing terminology, but virulent means severe. so MERS is very virulent (30% mortality) but not very infectious (R0<1). SARS-COV-2 is the opposite.
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