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> it does seem like this virus is bucking the trend and not necessarily becoming less potent despite increased tranmissability in some variants I would think c
by code_duck 5y ago
> it does seem like this virus is bucking the trend and not necessarily becoming less potent despite increased tranmissability in some variants
I would think causing more severe symptoms is a disadvantage for a Covid strain in terms of selection, because people affected by such an illness are more likely to go into quarantine or a hospital, reducing transmission.
- johnchristopher 5y agoFrom what I understand: Not if symptoms appear many days after the infection. Covid easily transmits when it's still in the upper parts of the body. Once it gets into the chest/pulmonary system and you start manifesting symptoms and it start inflicting long lasting damages it has already contaminated others. What happens then and after that doesn't apply pressure to the virus to be less virulent or lethal.
- code_duck 5y agoTrue. A longer asymptomatic incubation period is also an evolutionary advantage.
- rolph 5y agowhen reproduction[X] occurs before a selective factor[y] is in play, the selective factor has no first order influence on reproductive success. the theory of inverse relationship between severity of symptoms and transmissibility, is based on the idea that sick individuals spend more time laying in convolesence than interacting with other individuals. this mechanism goes out the window when the infection is transmissible before symptoms appear. this is the case with covid, i wish it was other than wishfull hoping but it isnt.
- godmode2019 5y agoIts also based on what is not getting used to increase fitness gets repurposed. Causing illness in the host after it has finished spreading has no evolutionary advantage. So those traits are less likely to make it to the next epoch.
- rolph 5y agocausing illness in the host after transmission allows more contact between infected and putative hosts thus conspecific differential of reproductive success. prospecific differential reproductive success occurs when variations are able to generate progeny that themlelves are capabe of reproducing. i.e. delta variant sars2 evolution occurs when the properties leading to these phenomenon are genetically based and transmitted through populations at varied frequencies subject to differential natural selection i.e. the fittest as in most apt to survive to reproductive modality.
- saalweachter 5y agoAnd if an additional 1% spread can be achieved after the asymptomatic period by the host coughing their lungs out, which way will evolution favor?