Kristian G. AndersenGeverifieerd account

Regarding the New Yorker Ebola evolution article. We do have one data point to look at. The best candidate for host adaptation in the West African outbreak was GP A82V (https://nextstrain.org/ebola?c=gt-GP_82 …). We haven't yet seen this mutation in the DRC outbreak (https://nextstrain.org/community/inrb-drc/ebola-nord-kivu?c=gt-GP_82 …).

If only the article was about host adaptation and understood what that means... Host adaptation almost certainly always occurs, but the article is about "mutating to become more deadly". Very different things.

I’m definitely not defending their choice of words. However, the mention in the article of GP 82 made me want to check if it was showing up in DRC.

Ah, okay. Yeah, no sign of GP-A82V, although, of course, that doesn't mean that other adaptive substitutions aren't present in the population (but if they are, as we both agree on, has nothing to do with "becoming more deadly").

Yep. Agreed. The normal expectation here would be a trade-off between within-host selection for better cell-to-cell replication against between-host selection for increased transmission (which could be achieved through attenuation).