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Isn't there often a trade-off between virulence and infectiousness in viral transmission? See "A transmission-virulence evolutionary trade-off explains attenua

Isn't there often a trade-off between virulence and infectiousness in viral transmission? See "A transmission-virulence evolutionary trade-off explains attenuation of HIV-1 in Uganda" https://elifesciences.org/articles/20492 https://elifesciences.org/articles/20492

sudosysgen 6y ago
That trade off is made by evolution. I don't see why scientists in a lab would make that trade off in a gain of function analysis - you can just make it more infectious and keep (likely increase) the level of virulence. Since evolution isn't involved in the proposed mechanism, I see no reason why such a trade-off would occur.
- makeramen 6y ago
  Perhaps depends on your goals. Virulent enough to cause global panic and show how a totalitarian state can respond better to a pandemic than democratic stated. But not virulent enough to actually kill everyone. Similarly SARS and MERS were perhaps too virulent and could thus easily be controlled by screening for symptoms, while the new coronavirus can spread without symptoms, which could possibly be attributed to the lower virulence.
  - SZJX 6y ago
    Now this sounds exactly like something Donald Trump has been saying all this time, and such conspiracy theories don't contribute much to the discussion. If thousands of deaths in China, a complete lockdown that hit the economy incredibly hard and perhaps more crucially, the total breakdown and potential reshaping of the global supply chain, which China has been benefitting from massively, is something that the Chinese gov wants to to achieve, then such conspiracy theories might hold water. I think it's plain to see how nonsensical they are. Also, nobody made the US look bad but themselves. This is obvious if you compare COVID responses in countries like Germany with those in the US.
    - jakeogh 6y ago
      Which professional published best case death estimate did the US not beat? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23407130 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23407130 Excess deaths are the only accurate measure.
      - skj 6y ago
        Then it was truly unavoidable for the us to keep getting worse and worse, for some reason more in states full of people who think masks are mind control (a total mystery that we will never understand), while other countries are seeing things get better.
        Bjartr 6y ago
        It's not that mysterious how tribalism, fear, and the discomfort of admitting being wrong, just to name a few contributing factors, can result in people holding irrational beliefs. They're not a different species, they're people. If you give into the urge to treat them as "other", as inferior, or as a different "tribe" to be defeated you're not as different from them with their ridiculous beliefs as you might like to think.
        jakeogh 6y ago
        We? No. You don't understand. That's fine. You can learn. https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infants-Withholding-Affection/13213 https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infan... You ignored the Q you responded to. "Which professional published best case death estimate did the US not beat?"
        skj 6y ago
        The "a total mystery that we will never understand" was intended to be fairly obvious sarcasm. My mistake.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  I think you presume a level of mastery over artificially engineered viruses that just doesn't exist. Is it obvious before a modification is made to a virus strand whether it will be more or less virulent? Besides, engineering for virulence can easily get yourself killed. Furthermore it didn't necessarily have to be engineered for nefarious purposes. It could have been an experimental virus that accidentally escaped and that's all.
- bananaface 6y ago
  That's not completely true. Some of those pressures still apply to artificial viruses once they're released. Highly dangerous viruses get quarantined, and viruses that produce symptoms quickly (and don't transmit asymptomatically, or have a shorter window) are more obvious. Both of those properties reduce real-world transmissability, which is all that actually matters.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    I'd argue that SARS-CoV-2 is very far from the Pareto optimal trade-off in infectivity and virulence. There are viruses that are both more virulent and more infectious.
    - bananaface 6y ago
      Maybe, but I can't imagine it's easy to reach it, or really establish it. Too many variables to predict. Like to be clear I don't think it was deliberately engineered to be optimal. If it's engineered at all I'd imagine it's an experiment that escaped.

sudosysgen 6y ago

That trade off is made by evolution. I don't see why scientists in a lab would make that trade off in a gain of function analysis - you can just make it more infectious and keep (likely increase) the level of virulence. Since evolution isn't involved in the proposed mechanism, I see no reason why such a trade-off would occur.

makeramen 6y ago
Perhaps depends on your goals. Virulent enough to cause global panic and show how a totalitarian state can respond better to a pandemic than democratic stated. But not virulent enough to actually kill everyone. Similarly SARS and MERS were perhaps too virulent and could thus easily be controlled by screening for symptoms, while the new coronavirus can spread without symptoms, which could possibly be attributed to the lower virulence.
- SZJX 6y ago
  Now this sounds exactly like something Donald Trump has been saying all this time, and such conspiracy theories don't contribute much to the discussion. If thousands of deaths in China, a complete lockdown that hit the economy incredibly hard and perhaps more crucially, the total breakdown and potential reshaping of the global supply chain, which China has been benefitting from massively, is something that the Chinese gov wants to to achieve, then such conspiracy theories might hold water. I think it's plain to see how nonsensical they are. Also, nobody made the US look bad but themselves. This is obvious if you compare COVID responses in countries like Germany with those in the US.
  - jakeogh 6y ago
    Which professional published best case death estimate did the US not beat? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23407130 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23407130 Excess deaths are the only accurate measure.
    - skj 6y ago
      Then it was truly unavoidable for the us to keep getting worse and worse, for some reason more in states full of people who think masks are mind control (a total mystery that we will never understand), while other countries are seeing things get better.
      - Bjartr 6y ago
        It's not that mysterious how tribalism, fear, and the discomfort of admitting being wrong, just to name a few contributing factors, can result in people holding irrational beliefs. They're not a different species, they're people. If you give into the urge to treat them as "other", as inferior, or as a different "tribe" to be defeated you're not as different from them with their ridiculous beliefs as you might like to think.
      - jakeogh 6y ago
        We? No. You don't understand. That's fine. You can learn. https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infants-Withholding-Affection/13213 https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infan... You ignored the Q you responded to. "Which professional published best case death estimate did the US not beat?"
        skj 6y ago
        The "a total mystery that we will never understand" was intended to be fairly obvious sarcasm. My mistake.
chrisco255 6y ago
I think you presume a level of mastery over artificially engineered viruses that just doesn't exist. Is it obvious before a modification is made to a virus strand whether it will be more or less virulent? Besides, engineering for virulence can easily get yourself killed. Furthermore it didn't necessarily have to be engineered for nefarious purposes. It could have been an experimental virus that accidentally escaped and that's all.
bananaface 6y ago
That's not completely true. Some of those pressures still apply to artificial viruses once they're released. Highly dangerous viruses get quarantined, and viruses that produce symptoms quickly (and don't transmit asymptomatically, or have a shorter window) are more obvious. Both of those properties reduce real-world transmissability, which is all that actually matters.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  I'd argue that SARS-CoV-2 is very far from the Pareto optimal trade-off in infectivity and virulence. There are viruses that are both more virulent and more infectious.
  - bananaface 6y ago
    Maybe, but I can't imagine it's easy to reach it, or really establish it. Too many variables to predict. Like to be clear I don't think it was deliberately engineered to be optimal. If it's engineered at all I'd imagine it's an experiment that escaped.