Summary
Despite new variants like XEC, Covid-19 appears milder, with fewer hospitalizations and severe cases, even though infections remain widespread.
Experts attribute this to improved population immunity from repeated infections and vaccinations, which blunt the virus’s effects.
XEC’s immune evasion has not caused a significant surge, and symptoms now resemble mild colds for most.
However, risks like long Covid and potential severe variants persist, emphasizing the need for continued vaccinations and research on better treatments and vaccines, including mucosal and universal options, to manage the virus’s unpredictable evolution.
this isn’t a mystery. it was talked about when it was out but there was always the caution that they really don’t know if it will go down the path. There is an evolutionary advantage to diseases being milder because they spread more which is what they want. Become a passenger virus and you guaranteed your existence goes on.
Cuz those of us most vulnerable were disabled into reclusion or died.
Thanks shitty DNA.
My layman understanding is this is how it works. The deadlier strains can’t spread when the host is dead.
That understanding is common but false.
Rabies has been around for thousands of years, and is always deadly. HIV/AIDS always kills (modern drugs effectively treat it, but all strains are still deadly if you don’t get treatment). They both are able to survive despite killing the host because they spread before the host dies. Rabies kills fairly quick and but it makes the hosts violent in ways that make them likely to spread it. You won’t even know you have HIV for several years (if you don’t test) and thus have plenty of opportunity to spread it by chance. There are many other diseases that are deadly but not until after they spread (most are treatable though) and thus survive. (or are going extinct but only because of modern medicine)
It’s like none of yall played Plague, Inc.
When I was digging into this stuff a few years ago, what appeared to matter most was transmission and immune evasion. Whether or not the host died was irrelevant if the virus was spreading before the host showed any symptoms. Which is what we saw in 2020 and 2021. High transmission rates and high mortality rates.
However, viruses evolve over time and our immune systems can adapt to new threats over time. With COVID, there’s an inverse relationship with transmission and immune evasion. As people’s immune systems were able to recognize the virus, the variants that evolved to avoided (or delay) an immune response were the successful ones. Because of that inverse relationship those variants were also less successful at transmission.
Other factors like the ability to damage the lungs, damage to the sense of smell, etc. are essentially irrelevant if they don’t improve a virus’s ability to replicate and transmit. If they aren’t being used then they will disappear over time.
Which appears to be what we are seeing now. A virus that has evolved to survive long enough in humans to replicate and transmit while evolution has culled the features that don’t improve survival.
That’s the understanding scientists have been talking about ever since we started seeing different variants. I fail to see any mystery in this.
Most people have already had Covid and or vaccine shot at least once, so they should have at least some immunity against it.
More to the point, less deadly strains are more likely to spread more widely. Not only are their hosts not dying, but people will take fewer precautions against the possibility of catching a less deadly infection.
There’s no mystery. It’s the natural evolution of a pathogen. Shit headline
I mean, random mutation in viruses doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Random is of course random.
We’ve all played pandemic
