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Natural selection. Deadlier strains reduce life span of hosts that transmit the disease.
by eternalban 6y ago
Natural selection. Deadlier strains reduce life span of hosts that transmit the disease.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y agoYou mean the natural selection of hosts, not viruses. Why should one kind of organism "care" about the natural selection of another?
- yibg 6y agoIt’s not about caring but what survives. Viruses variants that regularly kills hosts are less likely to spread than ones that don’t.
- eternalban 6y agoI'm in agreement wtih @yibg. > "You mean the natural selection of hosts, not viruses", No, just simply 'natural selection', as the overall process that determines which entities get to reproduce. Natural selection for the hosts is about their chances for reproducing (before dying from the disease). And in this case, we don't care about that since its a fair assumption that the patient is not having sex in ICU. :) Natural selection for viruses is about having the opportunity to jump hosts and replicate more viruses. The longer the host lives the higher the chances for the virus to propagate.
- bserge 6y agoIs that the case when the hosts are all in good shape (compared to even 200 years ago) and use "artificial" means to stay alive longer?
- morlockabove 6y agoIn good shape? When half the population of the western world is obese, and 10% are diabetic? How many people, on average, were on the brink of starvation 200 years ago? We're still better off, I'd guess, but it's not that amazing
- bserge 6y agoHmm, you've got a point, but what kind of "obese" are we talking? Usually people conflate obese with overweight. Being (slightly) overweight is generally good for health, especially when combating a virus. 200+ years ago the vast majority of people were definitely starved for nutrients, living off whatever they could get locally, with very little meat compared to today.