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That's not completely true. Some of those pressures still apply to artificial viruses once they're released. Highly dangerous viruses get quarantined, and virus
by 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 agoI'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 agoMaybe, 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.