I wonder if, as a side effect of near-universal social-distancing, we will end up eliminating any other contagious viruses, such as flu strains. Or instead, will the new selective pressure cause more widespread mutations of these viruses?
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Relatively speaking, COVID-19 isn't as bad as it *could* be, which is, I believe, your point. SARS-1 apparently wasn't enough to get people to devote resources to this problem going forward. Maybe SARS-2 will be.
The thing is, COVID-19 is such a huge problem for its combination of three reasons: it's highly contagious, whilst not being debilitating, except when it is extremely debilitating.
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If a disease is *too* debilitating, it loses it's ability to spread because its hosts can't carry on their day-to-day routine. That's what makes the common cold so "successful". But it's the high-variability in symptoms that makes COVID-19 so dangerous.
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Well, that's not quite everything though. Even in fatal cases, the individual was contagious and asymptomatic for quite a long period. That's arguably even worse than the variability.
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Right, the split between asymptomatic and SEVERELY SYMPTOMATIC cases is probably pretty close to "optimal" in terms of ensuring a rapid spread. Also the period of contagion prior to symptoms (which seems to be around 10-14 *times* longer than influenza's).
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