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Well, a virus can be contagious without symptoms. COVID in particular starts spreading before symptoms suggesting you could have respiratory virus without peopl

Well, a virus can be contagious without symptoms. COVID in particular starts spreading before symptoms suggesting you could have respiratory virus without people even being aware they are infected. And we know most people are not even aware they were sick or they had only mild symptoms. The issue with COVID is that some people are hit hard and a lot of people develop hard to detect complications. If you could modify the virus to avoid complications and avoid hitting some people very hard, you could have pretty effective way to innoculate population. The thing you are after is a virus that has same basic spike protein for your immune system to recognize and only enough mechanism to multiply itself.

kuhewa 5y ago
Yes, COVID replicates in the nose quite a bit pre-symptoms but for it to out-compete the actual very fit active strains, which are turning your upper respiratory tract into a virus factor, it would be difficult to ensure no symptoms. Also, of course you are only a few mutations away at any one time from an unpredictably virulent version; there is no guarantee that the trajectory of viral evolution is toward less virulence. > The thing you are after is a virus that has same basic spike protein for your immune system to recognize and only enough mechanism to multiply itself. The version of that that is feasible is a viral vector vaccine e.g., ChAdOx1.
jjeaff 5y ago
But a virus can't replicate itself. It has to hijack (and kill) the hosts cells in order to replicate.