I keep hearing very clever people with very large audiences repeat this.
There's no guarantee that a pathogen becomes milder if severe illness and/or death aren't impacting its transmissibility. If it transmits early & kills a few of you 4 weeks later, it's doing just fine.
There's no guarantee that a pathogen becomes milder if severe illness and/or death aren't impacting its transmissibility. If it transmits early & kills a few of you 4 weeks later, it's doing just fine.
https://twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1480984797044518922
Of course, a pathogen *may* evolve to be milder, due to a variety of complex selection pressures.
But this isn't the fait accompli that I keep hearing people repeat it as.
But this isn't the fait accompli that I keep hearing people repeat it as.
It's very likely that a lot of the drop in severity we may have observed historically (particularly for things like a new flu strain) is due to rising immunity - not necessarily the virus becoming milder.
Brilliant well-made points in this piece:
“Smallpox was endemic, polio is endemic, Lassa fever is endemic, and malaria is endemic,” said @SGriffin_Lab “Measles and mumps are endemic, but dependent on vaccination. Endemic does not mean that something loses its teeth at all.”
“Smallpox was endemic, polio is endemic, Lassa fever is endemic, and malaria is endemic,” said @SGriffin_Lab “Measles and mumps are endemic, but dependent on vaccination. Endemic does not mean that something loses its teeth at all.”
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