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Do you realise that mutation is not something the species can consciously control? How could the virus have mutated to become milder to suit the social respons

Do you realise that mutation is not something the species can consciously control? How could the virus have mutated to become milder to suit the social response if the society, as it stands today, is continuing to do what they previously did..?

RandallBrown 5y ago
There's likely millions of virus variants out there already. Some will evolve to become much more contagious and most won't do much of anything. When a more severe variant starts dominating and everyone goes inside and stops spreading it that makes the more severe variant die out. As it dies out, and people go outside, variants that are milder will thrive because people won't lockdown as easily. This can repeat forever until eventually the virus is completely benign. Of course it's all based on randomness so it's not exactly predictable what will happen.
- nostoc 5y ago
  Except "Everybody goes inside and stops spreading" is not something that is unique to a variant of concern. When everybody goes inside, all the variants stop spreading. The pressure is the same on every variants, so there's no source of evolutionary advantages on any variants.
  - skulk 5y ago
    > no source of evolutionary advantages on any variants. Any variant that is able to co-exist with (rather than kill) its host during a full lockdown has a significant advantage. We co-exist with several coronaviruses already.
    - zamfi 5y ago
      Only true if the virus lasts long enough to outlive a lockdown. So far that hasn’t been the case for the vast majority of single hosts.
  - zamfi 5y ago
    > Except "Everybody goes inside and stops spreading" is not something that is unique to a variant of concern. But it is — this will not be the response to a variant that doesn’t cause an increase in hospitalizations or deaths. A given response exerts pressure on all variants, of course. But a milder variant may be able to spread widely before a more lethal one shows up and ratchets up lockdowns.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > When a more severe variant starts dominating and everyone goes inside and stops spreading it that makes the more severe variant die out Except this doesn't happen, otherwise COVID would have already stopped spreading. Our social response to COVID isn't adequate enough to stop its spread. We can't get people to actually lock down or stop transmission.
random314 5y ago
The lockdown prevents severe mutations from replicating because of lockdowns. Milder mutations don't result in lockdowns hence ...
- HPsquared 5y ago
  It's true on an individual level too: someone who is very sick will stay at home, but someone with a mild head cold will still go out. There's going to be a negative correlation between severity and something like "velocity" of infected persons.
  - SailingSperm 5y ago
    Which begs the question of the long term utility and effect of symptom suppressing vaccines (that don't prevent transmission). If a virus that would make make you very sick is contracted by someone who's vaccinated - They will now be in the 2nd category you describe ~'Sick, but not sick enough to stop them going out' -- They're now giving mobility to that virus that it would have otherwise not had (If they weren't vaccinated and were feeling too sick to go out and about) So by usage of vaccines that only prevent severe symptoms, we pervert that normal negative feedback loop of virus spread and instead set the parameters to be more likely to propagate severe virus' that would usually keep you sick at home.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Vaccines don't suppress symptoms. They prevent symptoms by decreasing the viral load. They prevent transmission in the same way. No, not _all_ transmission. Neither _all_ symptoms.
- lovecg 5y ago
  But has this been true in practice? Was any variant successfully stopped with lockdowns? I suppose hypothetically if there’s a new strain with like a 10% fatality rate there will be new extreme measures where that could be the case, but it hasn’t happened yet. Even the extreme early 2020 measures failed to stop the virus.
HPsquared 5y ago
It's like the "invisible hand" or the "selfish gene" - just an analogy.
zamfi 5y ago
> Do you realise that mutation is not something the species can consciously control? Very much so, and my post was carefully worded to refer to evolutionary selection pressure, and not any kind of agency on behalf of a virus. I assumed the audience here would get it. As an aside, there are much kinder ways to voice this kind of concern that don’t drip with contempt; consider taking a less accusatory tone in the future? That might trigger fewer downvotes the next time the reading comprehension module needs coffee.

RandallBrown 5y ago

There's likely millions of virus variants out there already. Some will evolve to become much more contagious and most won't do much of anything. When a more severe variant starts dominating and everyone goes inside and stops spreading it that makes the more severe variant die out. As it dies out, and people go outside, variants that are milder will thrive because people won't lockdown as easily. This can repeat forever until eventually the virus is completely benign. Of course it's all based on randomness so it's not exactly predictable what will happen.

nostoc 5y ago
Except "Everybody goes inside and stops spreading" is not something that is unique to a variant of concern. When everybody goes inside, all the variants stop spreading. The pressure is the same on every variants, so there's no source of evolutionary advantages on any variants.
- skulk 5y ago
  > no source of evolutionary advantages on any variants. Any variant that is able to co-exist with (rather than kill) its host during a full lockdown has a significant advantage. We co-exist with several coronaviruses already.
  - zamfi 5y ago
    Only true if the virus lasts long enough to outlive a lockdown. So far that hasn’t been the case for the vast majority of single hosts.
- zamfi 5y ago
  > Except "Everybody goes inside and stops spreading" is not something that is unique to a variant of concern. But it is — this will not be the response to a variant that doesn’t cause an increase in hospitalizations or deaths. A given response exerts pressure on all variants, of course. But a milder variant may be able to spread widely before a more lethal one shows up and ratchets up lockdowns.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> When a more severe variant starts dominating and everyone goes inside and stops spreading it that makes the more severe variant die out Except this doesn't happen, otherwise COVID would have already stopped spreading. Our social response to COVID isn't adequate enough to stop its spread. We can't get people to actually lock down or stop transmission.

random314 5y ago

The lockdown prevents severe mutations from replicating because of lockdowns. Milder mutations don't result in lockdowns hence ...

HPsquared 5y ago
It's true on an individual level too: someone who is very sick will stay at home, but someone with a mild head cold will still go out. There's going to be a negative correlation between severity and something like "velocity" of infected persons.
- SailingSperm 5y ago
  Which begs the question of the long term utility and effect of symptom suppressing vaccines (that don't prevent transmission). If a virus that would make make you very sick is contracted by someone who's vaccinated - They will now be in the 2nd category you describe ~'Sick, but not sick enough to stop them going out' -- They're now giving mobility to that virus that it would have otherwise not had (If they weren't vaccinated and were feeling too sick to go out and about) So by usage of vaccines that only prevent severe symptoms, we pervert that normal negative feedback loop of virus spread and instead set the parameters to be more likely to propagate severe virus' that would usually keep you sick at home.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Vaccines don't suppress symptoms. They prevent symptoms by decreasing the viral load. They prevent transmission in the same way. No, not _all_ transmission. Neither _all_ symptoms.
lovecg 5y ago
But has this been true in practice? Was any variant successfully stopped with lockdowns? I suppose hypothetically if there’s a new strain with like a 10% fatality rate there will be new extreme measures where that could be the case, but it hasn’t happened yet. Even the extreme early 2020 measures failed to stop the virus.

HPsquared 5y ago

It's like the "invisible hand" or the "selfish gene" - just an analogy.

zamfi 5y ago

> Do you realise that mutation is not something the species can consciously control? Very much so, and my post was carefully worded to refer to evolutionary selection pressure, and not any kind of agency on behalf of a virus. I assumed the audience here would get it. As an aside, there are much kinder ways to voice this kind of concern that don’t drip with contempt; consider taking a less accusatory tone in the future? That might trigger fewer downvotes the next time the reading comprehension module needs coffee.