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Really if Ebola is to be more deadly in absolute terms it ironically should be far less lethal and disturbing in symptoms. If it was weakened to be say about as
by Nasrudith 7y ago
Really if Ebola is to be more deadly in absolute terms it ironically should be far less lethal and disturbing in symptoms. If it was weakened to be say about as bad as the flu in terms of lethality its kill count would be way higher.
Ebola is so lethal it would practically have to cause the deceased to autocremate and destroy the remains to be any worse at spreading.
Killing your host quickly is a bad for a parasite - parasiteoids are the closest to being viable in that model where their purpose is "use the host to have your offspring instead of yourself".
- chiefalchemist 7y ago> "Killing your host quickly is a bad for a parasite" Exactly. If the virus mutates such that the time before symptoms appear gets longer that's bad for the rest of us. But if it's the opposite (i.e., it kills faster), then that's good news and it will - in theory - eventually burn itself out.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoHumans aren't the primary host so exceptional virulence isn't necessarily contained by evolutionary pressure.
- Fomite 7y agoThis.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoPerhaps. But humans are the species most likely to jump on a plane and take it directly to some other major metropolitan area somewhere else in the world.
- taneq 7y agoFlu is basically the apex predator of viruses. We're having a helluva season in Australia right now. :(
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Fomite 7y agoKeep in mind that, unlike The Hot Zone and modern media depictions of Ebola, we know via the West African outbreak that Ebola most commonly manifests as fever, malaise, and diarrhea. The whole "Ebola victims are bags of blood ready to explode!" thing is...not really true.