[coldtea]

>This doesn't has to imply a changed property, like infectivity or mortality

What about the reports of different strains that focus on having found them having different properties (such as "much more infective")? Are they bogus?

[koheripbal]

That report was from a Chinese hospital (then repeated millions of times by the media) - they were never confirmed with any sequencing, and the paper was never published due to lack of evidence.

[credit_guy]

This recent preprint certainly did not come from a Chinese hospital. The authors are listed as being affiliated with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Duke Human Vaccine Institute, and a few Sheffield institutions.

[1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1....

[zwily]

GP was referring to the “L” and “S” strain theory I believe, which was debunked. The paper you linked is new, and the “more transmissible” property they discuss may just be the “founder effect” at work. It needs more research.

[credit_guy]

It's difficult to know what user coldtea had in mind. He could have meant the L/S (debunked) theory, or the theory that some strains in Iceland are ineffective [1].

In any case, there are multiple credible sources that some of the mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 have a meaningful effect. In which case the claim of this article that "there's only one strain" may be technically correct (based on some obscure scientific definition), but completely misguiding as far as the general public is concerned.

[1] https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/03/25/Coronav...

[acqq]

> the theory that some strains in Iceland are ineffective

I don't see any support at all for that theory though. It is also known that "X show no symptoms" could mean many things, depending who says it and when, and certainly doesn't prove anything alone, only in context, compared to something else, and only when comparison is fair.

For example, from many old news, those "with no symptoms" eventually had the symptoms, it was just that the tests were positive before they developed the symptoms. Second, it is now known that the probability of "having" symptoms is very dependent on the age of the person.

[coldtea]

>It's difficult to know what user coldtea had in mind

I didn't have a particular paper in mind that I remembered.

Just remember reading several articles in the past month about new strains. Some examples are easy to find:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-06/new-coronavirus-covid...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/05/the-coronavirus-mutated-and-...

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-05-06/...

[igravious]

nitpick! conspiratorial theories are debunked; scientific theories are refuted, no? :)

[coldtea]

Well, a scientific theory could be bunk as well.

E.g. somebody claiming they invented a perpetual motion machine.

Their claims might not include any conspiracy involved, just a bogus idea of what they accomplished...

[numpad0]

Probably bogus but hyper convenient and comforting so people keeps spreading it