COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)

Goatman Saint said
First article talks about the S and L strains. It says the more deadly strain has been replaced by the more communicable, yet less deadly strain in complete contradiction to people saying it’s gotten worse. However it is sprinkled heavily with may, possibly and appears as qualifiers in a non peer reviewed article. The second one talks about mutations, but then proceeds to state this. p = 4.8e-06,median 25, IR 21-28, versus median 19, IR 21-25) (Fig. S5) (Liu et al., 2020). There was, however, no significant correlation found between D614G status and hospitalization status; although the G614 mutation was slightly enriched among the ICU subjects, this was not statistically significant. So, once again, everyone knows it mutates, but nothing has been said it makes it any more infectious or deadly. This is also liberally sprinkled with mays, possibly, seems and mights.

The third article Now has this on top of it. https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/06/2007295117 Which is essentially saying the methods used in the collection and the analysis of the data is unreliable. So pretty much undercuts the article off the bat.

So your 3 articles that you used to prove your point are flawed, not peer reviewed, in publicly published journals requiring no proof (think less than Wikipedia), and so loaded with mays, possiblies, mights, seems and appears to lose all credibility as proof.

So, if you’re going to make the statement that it is mutating and becoming more dangerous, these did not do it.

I'm going to paste my original comment here. I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

"PurpleBlack&Gold said:
This is false and actual research has shown there are several strains circulating. Some with possibly different properties in terms if infectiousness and possibly severity."

Again, I don't think its disputed there are different strains at this point.

Where did I say that these strains are making it worse? I said possibly different properties in terms of infectiousness and possibly severity. I never claimed mutations have made it worse. The first paper, as you pointed out, suggests the newer strain is less severe. You are the one claiming its more deadly. You prove it. But you already cited your sources are "people." So they must be correct I suppose.

I'm also pretty certain nearly all scientific writing uses the words and phrases such as may, possibly, appears to be, suggests and similar lingo to get a point across instead of making declarative statements. Nearly every paper I have read with new findings also ends with a request for more research to confirm or refute the findings. Its why lay people have a hard time reading scientific writing as I'm sure you know. Because scientists never ever write that their research "proves" anything. At best it merely provides good evidence one way or another.

So I'm not sure why you are getting after me for something I never said. Altered function does not mean more deadly. It just means altered function.