Again: Viruses do not necessarily evolve to be milder—especially if they transmit early, like this one. Our immune system learning about it—via vaccines or infection—can mean better response next time, so milder experience. Not same as virus becoming intrinsically less virulent.https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1465075561236250631 …
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If these variants were formed in an immunocompromised individual over the course of many months, then these variants literally didn’t transmit early in the disease course when they were being formed.
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And if they were formed in animals through zoonosis and reverse zoonosis, then there were pressures to become more transmissible, but not necessarily more transmissible in humans.
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Another point in the data: viruses also "become less lethal" because we get better at treating them. Dex, Mabs, now these antivirals... presumably we'd expect lethality to go down even in naive people if there are any left.
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Too many people played the flash game plague inc and think the virus needs to downregulate lethality so it can spread to everyone Nature does not have goals, only selection pressures
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“Virulent” is a word with fuzzy meaning for a lot of people. It might help if you took a moment to define it.
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I think Viruses behave as a massive optimization engine. It will seek optimum reproduction.
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Do we know what fraction of transmissions occurred prior to symptom onset?
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