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A desire implies a conscious and at least semi-reasonable actor.

People with desires behave rationally (mostly). If person X doesn't want to be homeless, they probably won't burn their house down. We can depend on that.

COVID is not a rational actor. It might burn its own house down and do a tapdance on the ashes.

Even though being less lethal is evolutionarily advantageous, COVID could absolutely become more lethal in the short term.

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Although I agree with your point. And even I personally perceive virus as something more like machine. But your analogy opened another interpretation for me.

Person probably won't burn their house down. But some may argue that people in fact do not have problem to burn whole planet down. Like virus with the whole organism. It may be just matter of focus.

I don't think of people like I do with virus. Just that analogy opened this train of thought for me. Several different interpretations is natural feature of analogies.

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