3 ms·
There is really no selection pressure on the current dangerous strain right now. If it was killing 50-60% of people infected then yes the selection pressure wou
by danieltillett 7y ago
There is really no selection pressure on the current dangerous strain right now. If it was killing 50-60% of people infected then yes the selection pressure would be there, but at a death rate of 1.5%-2% there basically is very little selection pressure on the timescales we are interested in.
It doesn’t really matter to us today if this virus eventually becomes less dangerous in the next 500 years. We need to speed things up a little.
- buboard 7y ago> If it was killing 50-60% of people infected then yes the selection pressure would be there it isnt killing, but it's isolating them, preventing its spread
- notahacker 7y agoThat's already baked in to human responses to suspected COVID-19 though, and a chance mutation to a less lethal strain would be unlikely to change human responses to an outbreak in a way which benefited the virus' ability to spread.
- buboard 7y agoi assume we re looking for asymptomatic people, they won't have quarantined themselves
- postingawayonhn 7y agoIs there a significant difference between being dead and being isolated?
- danieltillett 7y agoFrom the short term perspective of the virus no, but long term...
- buboard 7y agodoes that mean that cured people will start re-infecting people?