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The opposite. From the evolutionary point of view, a virus has no interest in being deadly: if it kills its host, it can't reproduce itself. When social dista
by Fragoel2 6y ago
The opposite.
From the evolutionary point of view, a virus has no interest in being deadly: if it kills its host, it can't reproduce itself.
When social distancing (quarantine and lockdown) is enacted, it is harder for a deadly strain of the virus to reproduce and hence survive, as we react to it by putting into place stricter countermeasures. Which strains will thrive? The ones that able to "sneak around" unnoticed, by causing only mild symtomps.
- admiral33 6y agoI hear this a lot, but isn't evolution trial/error? Just because we can say it's not in an organism's evolutionary interest to evolve a certain way, doesn't mean it won't "try" it - at any stage in it's evolution. Also I don't think an organism has any active role in deciding what mutations occur, regardless of it's interest.