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> And notably, the virus that causes COVID-19 is most transmissible before symptoms set in, so its harmfulness to its host may not be as strong an influence on

> And notably, the virus that causes COVID-19 is most transmissible before symptoms set in, so its harmfulness to its host may not be as strong an influence on how it evolves as the trade-off model suggests. > "The virus, speaking anthropomorphically, just wants to spread and have its genes replicated," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, in an interview. "If the best way for it is to spread by causing severe symptoms, it will continue to do that." https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/08/facebook-posts/viruses-and-other-pathogens-can-evolve-become-more/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/08/facebook-p...

Barrin92 5y ago
not sure I understand the reasoning here because the behavioral response to covid at a collective level will always depend on the harmfulness of the disease regardless of when symptoms set in. We are going to take stronger measures against harmful diseases, and that reduces their fitness inevitably. The claim that a disease always evolves towards being more harmless is obviously not true due to mere chance, but in the long run there is a clear advantage to it. Rather than cherry-picking examples to prove the point I think it's more accurate to say the article cherry-picks counterexamples like multiple Malaria strands competing against each other in the same host or a rabbit disease that became more deadly to overcome an immune response. None of which is long-term adaptive.
- firethief 5y ago
  We are talking about the relative evolutionary fitness of different variants, so until we have the ability to decide whether to avoid someone based on what variant they have (and may not be showing symptoms of), I don't see how behavioral response enters the picture.
ImpressiveWebs 5y ago
Do you think Politifact is a good source for that information? I'm sure there are other less-biased alternatives that discuss that subject.

Barrin92 5y ago

not sure I understand the reasoning here because the behavioral response to covid at a collective level will always depend on the harmfulness of the disease regardless of when symptoms set in. We are going to take stronger measures against harmful diseases, and that reduces their fitness inevitably. The claim that a disease always evolves towards being more harmless is obviously not true due to mere chance, but in the long run there is a clear advantage to it. Rather than cherry-picking examples to prove the point I think it's more accurate to say the article cherry-picks counterexamples like multiple Malaria strands competing against each other in the same host or a rabbit disease that became more deadly to overcome an immune response. None of which is long-term adaptive.

firethief 5y ago
We are talking about the relative evolutionary fitness of different variants, so until we have the ability to decide whether to avoid someone based on what variant they have (and may not be showing symptoms of), I don't see how behavioral response enters the picture.

ImpressiveWebs 5y ago

Do you think Politifact is a good source for that information? I'm sure there are other less-biased alternatives that discuss that subject.