About 35 years ago Richard Dawkins published his book "The Selfish Gene", elaborating a thesis that evolution is driven by competition of different alleles of genes for survival using more complex organisms as vehicles for their propagation.
It has occured to me that the COVID-19 may the ultimate validation of this perspective. Never before, in the post-industrial world, had an event so disrupted the routine of life as has this pathogen - and the final chapter is yet to be written.
What are your perspectives ?
One can only say ultimate when they have seen it all. This is just a start, there are many more to come in future.
Why would you think Coronavirus is any more a "selfish" gene than any other virus? There are lots of viruses that have a global spread as well, but some might not be human viruses. Think of all the various plant and crop viruses, etc.
Yes you have a point, but this one has shown a disruptive power not readily apparent from other pathogens. While some of them have an equal or perhaps greater potential, this has not been manifested in recent history - meaning the last 100-200 years.
Benjamin. S. Szwergold but that is not due to the biological efficiency of the virus, it is primarily due to the sociological effects because of the host it infects. If this virus were the most amazingly efficient virus that wiped out the entire cockroach population of the world, would we even be having this discussion?
Being human virus,
being easily transmitted,
lacking vaccine and symptomatic treatment,
being fatal,
so many reasons, but more because it is new than it is a super virus,
We don't know its weak point YET, that is it.