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this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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The virus has changed quite a bit over the last 4 years. It's pretty common for a deadly virus to get less deadly over time. Killing your host isn't very conducive to survival.
But, I haven't seen data on how the risk of long covid has changed over time.
With vaccination the risk of PASC (long covid) decreases. It is a commonly held belief that viruses become less deadly over time, but that is not supported by the science. The truth is far more complex. Approx. 2300 people die from covid each week in the US. I can't quote numbers for other countries. I can highly recommend TWIV (This Week in Virology, https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/), and related podcasts (https://www.microbe.tv/science-shows-by-scientists/), if you want to keep up to speed on the current science in infectious disease.
A virus doesn't care if the host lives or dies. Just like evolution doesn't care if YOU live or die, so long as it happens after you have kids.
A virus only has to have a living host long enough to spread to others, and the long asymptomatic infectious period observed with this coronavirus already fits that bill.
Think of Rabies, nearly 100% fatal, still incredibly widespread and infectious.
Exactly this. The whole “viruses evolve to be less deadly/severe” trope is just wishful thinking masquerading as science.
Evolution isn’t some sort of get-of-pandemic-free card, no matter how much we all wish it was.
There’s lots of counter examples of viruses that are still as deadly as ever, but I’d go beyond that; I’ve never seen anyone give a concrete example of a virus that actually did evolve to be less deadly.
The closest anyone has come to that is the 1918 flu pandemic, but there’s no evidence that it’s less deadly now due to evolution. It’s more like that it is simply less deadly because there isn’t as much widespread malnutrition as there was in 1918.
Ebola has entered the chat....
Disclaimer: i'm not a doctor or an epidemiologist....