Chat message
Slack / Private Message Drop, pp.143-144 [SLACK_000357] · slack_pm:msg:01474
Page text: p.143, p.144 · original PDF
- Date
- 2020-08-24 04:10
- Type
- chat message · slack
- recipient
- Kristian G. Andersen, Robert F. Garry, Edward C. Holmes
- speaker
- Andrew Rambaut
Recipients on this medium are inferred from channel membership, not per-message addressing.
Koonin doing mad stuff again...
```Prediction of the incubation period for COVID-19 and future virus disease outbreaks
Ayal B Gussow; Noam Auslander; Yuri I Wolf; Eugene Koonin
Research article
Abstract: Background: A crucial factor in mitigating respiratory viral outbreaks is early determination of the durationof the incubation period and, accordingly, the required quarantine time for potentially exposed individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, optimization of quarantine regimes becomes paramount for public health, societal well-being and the global economy. However, the biological factors that determine the duration of the virus incubation period remain poorly understood.Results: We demonstrate a strong positive correlation between the length of the incubation period and diseaseseverity for a wide range of human pathogenic viruses. Using a machine learning approach, we develop a predictivemodel that accurately estimates, solely from several virus genome features such as the number of protein-codinggenes and the GC-content, the incubation time ranges for diverse human pathogenic RNA viruses including SARS-CoV-2. The predictive approach described here can directly help in establishing the appropriate quarantinedurations and thus facilitate controlling future outbreaks. Conclusions: Perhaps, surprisingly, incubation times of pathogenic RNA viruses can be accurately predicted solelyfrom generic features of virus genomes. Elucidation of the biological underpinnings of the connection between these features and disease progression can be expected to reveal key aspects of virus pathogenesis```Let me guess - the best predictor of what an incubation time is what was the incubation time of related viruses. But this will be an immensely complicated paper that will do my head in.