Stephanie Rost
"The new coronavirus may be mutating to a 'less' deadly form?" A title from a news article. It sounds more reasonable and makes more sense to me...from its argument below. What do you think?
" The virus may also be mutating to cause fewer symptoms. In the movies, viruses become more deadly. In reality, they usually become less so, because mutated (with less deadly) strains reach more hosts (because less hosts die). Even the 1918 Spanish flu virus eventually faded into the seasonal H1N1 flu." (McNeil Report)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/health/coronavirus-america-future.html
Viruses aren’t technically alive: While they contain genetic instructions to make more of themselves, they lack the molecular tools to execute the steps, and must hijack living cells to complete the replication process for them.
After these pathogens infect cells, their genomes often duplicate sloppily, leading to frequent mutations that persist in the new copies. Most of these changes are inconsequential, or evolutionary dead ends. Occasionally, however, mutations will alter a viral strain so substantially that the immune system can no longer recognize it, sparking an outbreak—even in populations that have seen a previous version of the virus before. Viruses in the influenza family are the poster children for these drastic transformations, which is part of why scientists create a new flu vaccine every year.
Researchers don’t yet know how quickly similar changes could occur in CoVid 19. Unlike flu viruses, coronaviruses can proofread their genomes as they copy them, correcting mistakes along the way. That feature reduces their mutation rate, and might make them “less of a moving target” for the immune system, says Scott Kenney, an animal coronavirus expert at Ohio State University. But coronaviruses still frequently trade segments of their genetic code with each other, leaving the potential for immune evasion wide open. Even fast-mutating influenza strains can take years to reenter populations. And if or when that day comes, future COVID-19 outbreaks could be milder. Sometimes viral success means treading gently with the host, says Catherine Freije, a virologist at Harvard University.
Please take a look at this useful link.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1040841X.2020.1739001?needAccess=true
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/07/health/coronavirus-mutations-analysis/index.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ccn.com/coronavirus-is-mutating-but-theres-no-risk-of-3rd-deadly-peak-for-now/
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