4 ms·
Ebola can mutate and this would no longer be true
by EGreg 5mo ago
Ebola can mutate and this would no longer be true
- lucb1e 5mo agoPigs can grow wings too. Is there a particular small set of mutations that you're referring to that we're actually worried about, or just wildly speculating of what could happen in a one-in-a-quadrillion event?
- idle_zealot 5mo agoIf pigs reproduced and mutated as rapidly as viruses then yeah, we would probably need to plan around the eventuality that they would develop wings and escape their pens.
- lucb1e 5mo agoNot answering the question. Is there some small gene change that we're specifically worried about here or was GP wildly speculating? > reproduced and mutated as rapidly as viruses HIV spreads in similar ways afaik (some fluids, I don't know the details of Ebola but it's not respiratory), yet that hasn't gone airborne in decades. I'm well aware that pigs don't get a million offspring each, but it doesn't seem like a common event for viruses to completely change their mechanism overnight either. Hence the quadrillion odds I mentioned, I was indeed referencing that they mutate so much, and yet...
- jjk166 5mo ago> Is there some small gene change that we're specifically worried about here Yes. A single gene change allows for airborne Ebola transmission. This gene change has occurred in the Reston strain, which luckily does not cause symptoms in humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_virus
- leereeves 5mo agoWhere does that article say Reston (or a mutant strain of Reston) is airborne?
- cm2187 5mo agoThere are a million viruses that can mutate. That's not really an argument for anything.
- dgellow 5mo agoThere aren't million of viruses that are as deadly as ebola
- s1artibartfast 5mo agoBut they can mutate to be as deadly as Ebola.