Some evidence is emerging for something that there’s been speculation about. From Reuters:
(Reuters) – A specific mutation in the new coronavirus can significantly increase its ability to infect cells, according to a study by U.S. researchers.
The research may explain why early outbreaks in some parts of the world did not end up overwhelming health systems as much as other outbreaks in New York and Italy, according to experts at Scripps Research.
The mutation, named D614G, increased the number of “spikes†on the coronavirus – which is the part that gives it its distinctive shape. Those spikes are what allow the virus to bind to and infect cells.
At this point that doesn’t say anything about virulence, just contagion. Note that if true it would also throw a bit of cold water on the claims that whether what various countries have done has been effective in reducing the spread of the disease. Not only may they have been dealing with different variants of the disease, they may still have yet to face those variants. We just don’t know.
Am I wrong? Doesn’t viral evolution tend toward the more transmissible and less lethal?
If a virus “wants” anything, that would be more copies of it’s DNA strand.
Why kill the host?
I guess smallpox never followed this pattern, or the 1918 flu virus, but we can always hope.
I think this is why virus’ sometimes “disappear”. They don’t , they mutate to a form we don’t see anymore. And BTW, the 1918 flu probably did just that.